The Adventures of Annie and Mitch: Wyoming, Part 1: The Parks

We left Portland, after our excellent trip to the Nike store, and headed west. Along the old Oregon trail! I know this because they have conveniently posted signs telling you that you are on the old Oregon trail. And then we reminisced about how fun that game was, especially the hunting, and I let Mitch in on the girl secret- we named our characters after our friends, crushes, and disliked people. And then hoped the people we didn't like died. Casey had cholera? Full steam ahead!! Careful nursing, however, was applied to our crushes- if Colin was sick we stopped and got him medicine ASAP. It was a political game.

We made it to our first park, The Grand Tetons, and again whipped out our National Parks Pass and were granted admission. And they were breath taking. As we drove the views got better and better. The Teton Mountains towered over the valley we were in, some snow capped, all amazingly majestic. I could not get enough and probably said “they’re so beautiful” 100 times in the few miles we drove. We got to the Teton Lake Lodge, after I made Mitch swear the views there would be just as breath taking, because I wasn’t ready to let my mountains go yet and the road veered into a wooded area. He assured me they were spectacular, so we carried on. He was right, the mountains towering over the glistening lake were one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.

We sat on the deck, ordered a Teton Lemonade (it’s made with bourbon- score!) and just took in the view. I could have stayed for days just looking at the mountains. Then we walked a short trail to the top of a hill, where the altitude became very noticeable with how hard I was breathing walking uphill. Admired the views some more and heard thunder, so headed back down.

While looking at the map the previous day I noticed that Yellowstone National Park is conveniently located right next to the Tetons. And figured, when in Wyoming… plus, Wyoming is not terribly high on my places to visit again (and it got lower as the night progressed, but more on that later), so I decided we needed to hit Yellowstone too. That meant leaving the Tetons, much to my dismay. I briefly considered skipping Yellowstone so I could have more time for mountain gazing, but then remembered to come back to Yellowstone meant coming back to Wyoming and that seemed highly unlikely to happen anytime soon.

Mitch drug me to the car and we headed north to Yellowstone. Along the way we saw a moose- making getting in the car seem worth it. The moose was a bit away from the road, but we stopped for a minute so I could squeal about it and take a quick picture. Moose sighting was a goal- check! Next on my list: Buffalo.

We reached the Yellowstone entrance, flashed our pass, felt like VIPs again, and drove in. Yellowstone is a HUGE park. We drove for at least a dozen miles through the woods, admiring the hills, but overall being unimpressed with what is supposed to be spectacular. Finally, we got to the sign pointing to Old Faithful- a must stop for me. Then we drove another 15 miles before we finally got there. We parked, walked up, and saw a crowd of people sitting on benches staring at the ground. Clearly we were in the right place!

We sat down and then overheard a couple saying it should go off in about 10 minutes. So we settled in to wait. It ended up being closer to 20 minutes, but was worth the wait. It started small and then got huge- hot water shooting straight into the air and creating huge clouds of steam. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. After it finished, we walked around the boardwalk and saw another geyser go off- the Beehive geyser. Beehive is much less predictable than Old Faithful (the name should have been a giveaway here), and goes off anywhere from 4-5 days apart to 10 hours apart. So seeing it go was a definite win. We saw lots of small geysers, springs, fumaroles, and mud pits along the walk and each was incredible. The water in the springs was incredibly clear, but the ground around all of it was completely desolate and covered in suffer deposits. In some areas the sulfur smell was intense and the ground was yellow, other areas some grass was peaking through and you could see tracks of a large animal- likely a moose or elk. All in all, phenomenal.

After exploring the geysers we hit the road again, traversing the rest of the park before getting to the exit- another 30 miles or so. The drive was lovely and it rained a little- just enough for a beautiful rainbow. And as the sun was setting we saw a ton of cars stopped on the road and pulled over. As we got closer the reason became clear- an entire herd of Buffalo was sitting in the field next to the road. A few had crossed and likely blocked traffic for a bit. We pulled over, got out and watched them. Mitch again had to drag me back to the car because it was cold, and we had a very long drive ahead of us. I agreed because it was getting dark and harder to see them anyway. Buffalo sighting: check, check, check!

Then the drive began…

That's a moose!