Road trip recap, part 1

We started our road trip early last Thursday morning, and we knew it was going to be a long day of driving and not much sight-seeing. The high point was stopping in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, for lunch followed by a short walk through the resort and along the scenic lake.

I haven't spent much time in Idaho, but driving through on I-90 towards Montana was some of the most beautiful scenery we saw on the trip.

We spent our first night in Butte, Montana, and, to be quite honest, the highlight of our time in that town was standing in front of the sign right off the freeway and taking our picture in front of it so that it said, "Butt." Yeah, we're 7th graders at heart, and, really, when the only other thing in town to see is a collection of abandoned mines, taking pictures of a sign that says "Butt" seems pretty entertaining.

Oh, yeah, and they sell bear repellent in Butte. We couldn't figure out if that was something you spray on yourself or at the bear who might be attacking you.

We spent the next two days in Yellowstone and Grand Tetons National Parks. Yellowstone was stunning, but very crowded. We saw a bunch of sights, but had to follow a long line of SUVs and campers to get to each one. Fortunately, the traffic didn't scare off the wildlife.

(It's hard to tell, but that is actually a buffalo causing the traffic jam above.)

We saw a moose (or J did...I was driving), a few elk, and a whole bunch of bison. We also saw Old Faithful, lots of smaller geysers and thermal pools, Yellowstone Falls, Mammoth Hot Springs, and probably some other things that I'm forgetting. We spent the night in a little cabin right on Lake Yellowstone, and had a delicious dinner of grilled bison filets (it sounds a little strange, but it's just like filet mignon, except that it's leaner, and I actually think it even tasted better!) in the Lake Yellowstone Hotel's fancy dining room.

Mammoth Hot Springs

Another buffalo chilling by the side of the road.

Yellowstone Falls into the "Grand Canyon" of Yellowstone. Pretty spectacular... I don't think this picture does it justice!

We were surprised to walk out of our cabin and find this guy munching on dinner right in front of us!

Old Faithful, doing her thing...

Beautiful scenery and such.

Thermal pools, hot springs, and geysers, oh my!

After we wrapped up our day and a half in Yellowstone, we headed south to the Grand Tetons.

J enjoying the open road...

The scenery was spectacular, but unfortunately I was a little cranky and didn't enjoy it much. I knew we had about 7 hours of driving ahead, which I was not looking forward to. We also didn't have a clear cut route to get us down to Utah, so after reviewing our trusty atlas numerous times and spending about 45 very painful minutes on a tiny winding 2-lane Wyoming state highway, we decided our best option was to backtrack southwest into Idaho so we could get back on an interstate freeway. And, let me tell you, that was a good call. The scenic, winding 2-lane highway through the mountains only sounds like a good idea until you get stuck behind a line of 11 RVs driving 10 miles below the speed limit. Thankfully, we made it back to I-15 and we were on our way to Utah. More to come tomorrow!