The road trip plan for this summer comes with both exciting and sad news, all rolled into one event: the Adventure Prius is leaving me. After hundreds of thousands of miles, rolls of packing tape, dozens of zip ties, it’s time to say goodbye. She’ll be going to a happy home, where she truly belongs; …
Great Sand Dunes was intended to be the second to last stop, taking a full day, and then I would spend a day at Guadalupe Mountains National Park. When I arrived at Great Sand Dunes however, it was the weekend and I did not have a reservation. There was not an available campsite. Now the …
My true adventure in Grand Teton National Park was what began as a hike to Surprise Lake (and Disappointment Peak, which sounded fun). The hike would be about 11 miles round trip. I got to the trailhead parking lot around 9am and proceeded to loiter until some other groups showed up. This is my method …
The drive from Yellowstone to Grand Teton isn’t really a drive at all, it very much feels like you’re staying in the park. That’s helped by the fact that there’s no fee collection at the entrance to Grand Teton, since you can’t (I believe) enter the park from the north without having first driven through …
Mountain bluebird at Mammoth Springs. Early morning elk. Bison strolling down the road. I actually had to lean back in my seat to fit this much of his head in the picture. There are four grizzly bears in this picture. A male grizzly had chased a female and her two cubs up the tall narrow …
Mammoth Hot Springs Midway Geyser Basin Biscuit Basin Fountain Paint Pots
I wasn’t able to get a campsite when I got to Yellowstone, but I did drive through the entire park looking for one. When I came in the Southeast entrance the sign said that Mammoth was open, but in the 77 miles it took to get there the campground filled. I got a spot in …
The bird life in the Badlands was probably my favorite part of my visit. In part it was because it was so unexpected, and in part it was that it was a piece of the park that I hadn’t been interested in the last time I was there and so it added a new layer …
First Road Trip Stop: The Badlands Technically speaking my first stop was Wilson State Park in Kansas. Although it was pretty it was completely uninteresting and all I did there was eat, sleep and leave. So for all intents and purposes the Badlands was my first stop. I got a campsite in the same campground …
I'm not sure which style of stitching best captures the grandeur of the Grand Canyon. One shows the canyon walls and one better shows the Colorado River, so I've included them both. They were taken from about halfway down the canyon from Plateau Point.
