Semi-Spontaneous Roadtripping

After our fourth vacation got cancelled this year, I was heartbroken and Brad and I decided that we still needed to find a way to get away. Since work has been crazy during this pandemic, we planned a trip for 2 weeks out! Yes, we can still be rather spontaneous. With all the restrictions and precautions, we figured that the best way to get out of town and enjoy a vacation during this pandemic was a road trip, and we picked Yellowstone National Park.

Brad had been to Yellowstone when he was much younger, but I had never been so was very excited to check it out. There are 5 entrances into Yellowstone Park: West Yellowstone, Gardiner, Silver Gate, Cody, and Jackson Hole. We did some brief research (how much can you really do when you have only 2 weeks and need to book rooms pronto?) and decided that West Yellowstone would be the best entrance and town to stay in for us. It was one of the closer locations (Cody and Jackson are still about 60 miles from the entrance), had a good hotel we could get a great deal at, and had several activities for Kent in town.

Road tripping, and I mean real road tripping (where you have to fill up your gas tank at least once) is not for the faint of heart, especially with an infant, but we wanted to brave it. This type of vacation is much different with an infant than just adults, but we came out the other side alive. There are several ways to make this type of vacation manageable, and even fun, with a seven-month-old. One of the best ways to make this trip easier on everyone is breaking it up. We took our time and planned out multiple stops and hotels along the way so Kent wasn’t cooped up for 12 hours at a time in the car.

Day 1

(This should probably actually say day -1, since we had a moment of spontaneity and chose to leave a day early because we were so excited to get vacation started. Who says you can’t be spontaneous with a baby? 😉) Day 1 we left home and headed towards Coeur D’Alene, Idaho. We switched things up and went via SR14 instead of I84 to give ourselves a more scenic route. As we were driving SR14, I saw a sign for Maryhill Winery and that made the perfect first pitstop for a little wine tasting and delicious lunch of a charcuterie board. I’m a sucker for a good charcuterie board!

Since we were going SR14 and not I84, we were also able to stop at one of my favorite places in Washington and see this beauty and several of its friends. (If you’re interested in stopping by, reach out and I’ll let you know where to find them. Otherwise I like to keep some special places a secret from the rest of the world).

We made it to the Coeur D’Alene area after a 6 hour drive (not including stops) and were excited to spend the entire next day exploring the area for a second time.

Day 2

Because we left a day early, we had an extra day to hang out in the Coeur D’Alene/Spokane area, which is one of our new favorite places. Last time we were in the area we got a random bottle of huckleberry wine that we enjoyed and became one of Brad’s favorites. We learned that the winery is in the area and was having a sale on that wine. Seemed like a sign to me! Surprisingly that wine makes up 50% of Latah Creek Winery’s business. So of course, we had to stop by and grab a few bottles to stock our pantry and future wine rack. The rest of the day was spent shopping in Downtown Coeur D’Alene before taking a cruise around the lake (which of course Kent did not stay asleep for). The cruise was a great way to see more of the lake, learn some history about the town, and view some gorgeous lake-side houses!

Day 3

On our way to Yellowstone! We were about halfway to Yellowstone and drove the rest of the way on day 3, staying in West Yellowstone for 3 nights. The drive is absolutely beautiful! Thankfully Kent slept a good portion of the drive so it made for a smooth and rather quick journey.

We’ve been introducing Kent to Yogi Bear lately, so our first stop of the day was in Missoula at Jellystone RV Park. Don’t get your hopes up like I did.

This is just an RV park with a mini golf course and a gift shop that has Yogi Bear and BooBoo stuffed toys. We took a short break to change Kent’s diaper, get him a Yogi and BooBoo and were on our way again. The route that Google Maps put us on took us down a smaller, less populated road towards the end of our journey, compared to going through Bozeman and Big Sky. It was about a half hour difference in timing, but the longer route through Bozeman would’ve had more options for food when Kent woke up and was ready to get out of the car for lunch. I, however, wanted to make the best time so opted for the quicker route. There is only one town that you go through with food options, Ennis. It’s a small, westerny, touristy type town. Super cute, but you can tell that they’ve done it up for the tourists that drive through. Nonetheless, we stopped for a quick bite and little walk and loved the little town. Highly recommend stopping here for a quick and inexpensive lunch and to stretch your legs. We made it to West Yellowstone, and oh boy, that town is cute as well. Definitely another small town, tourist trap with the same sweatshirts and mugs in each shop, but I ate it up! We were even able to find a cheap rain jacket for Kent in one of the shops! The forecast called for a few days of rain/snow (it was 38 degrees the first day when we arrived, in July!!) and I couldn't find a cute rain jacket before we left town, so we really lucked out. We stayed at the WorldMark West Yellowstone thanks to my Father-in-Law getting us a great deal. We figured this was the best and most cost-effective option since we could have breakfast and dinner in our kitchenette. Tip: If you’re staying in a place with a kitchen, get your food at a grocery store back at home and keep in a cooler or at a real grocery store on the way. There is one grocery store in West Yellowstone and we legit bought: 1 DiGiornos pizza, 1 carton eggs, 1 package cheap bacon, 1 frozen stir fry dinner, Oreos, and a 6 pack of Coors and it came to over $50! Yes, you read that right. YIKES!

Day 4

We were off to visit Yellowstone! Kent decided to give us an early wake-up call so we were headed into the park by 9am. Our hotel was maybe .5 miles to the entrance so it was amazing to not have to drive through town to just get to the gate. One thing we found out is that the tickets to Yellowstone are per vehicle and good for 7 days in a row, such a great deal! Our hotel was close to the entrance, but it was still quite a drive to get into the meat of the park and to several of the locations we were planning on seeing. The loops form a figure 8 (as seen in the map to the left) which make it easy to not get lost along the way. Our first stop was at the Grand Prismic Overlook to get a better view of the geyser.

It was an easy 1-2 mile roundtrip “hike” up to the viewpoint, definitely worth stopping and checking out. I had read ahead of time that the overlook gives a much better view than the regular stopping point because the hike elevates you over the steam and you can actually get a better viewpoint of the colors. On our hike up, we came across the path of a bison that definitely got my excitement and anxiety rising. When I say we came across the path of a bison, I mean that we were walking, saw it in front of it, froze, and then it walked by us maybe 6 feet away!

Not how I was expecting to start our first day, but I could officially mark off "see a bison" from my to-do list. By the time we were back in the car, we were all hungry and ready to find some grub. We drove towards Old Faithful Lodge where you can see the geyser, along with a gift shop and cafeteria. (COVID Restrictions: Unfortunately because of COVID-19, all the lodges were practically shut down at this time. You were able to get some quick food from the cafeteria in each lodge but they were limiting people and all the food was take out. They also were limiting people in each gift shop, and had the rest of the lodge shut down.) Save yourself and DON’T eat at the cafeteria. It’s expensive and was disgusting. We even ordered teriyaki chicken and jasmine rice which we thought was a safe choice. Nope, we were wrong and ended up grabbing snacks at the gift shop for lunch, after our stomachs started aching and Kent threw up the few pieces of rice he ate. We did luck out and got to see Old Faithful erupt before we left to our next destination. Old Faithful erupts on average around every 90 minutes. However it can range from 50 to 120 minutes, so it’s helpful to have the Yellowstone app to see prediction times. We continued on the loop and ended up at Artist Point. But Kent had just fallen asleep and there was NO way we were just going to wake him up, so planned on coming back the next day. One thing that we learned on this trip was that going through Yellowstone with an infant takes longer than normal. There were several times we’d get to a location we wanted to see, but were not willing to risk waking a sleeping baby in hopes that he might go back to sleep when we got back in the car. We brought our nice umbrella stroller for Kent that he loves, but we realized that it might have been helpful to bring the stroller attachment from the carseat travel system. That way we would’ve barely disrupted him moving him into that stroller, and we wouldn’t have had to keep delaying locations. A learning lesson for sure.

We ended the day with dinner at one of the local restaurants in town, and spent way too much on a bison steak that was definitely not worth it. As tempting as it was to try bison, it wasn't worth $60 to be unimpressed. Just stick with cow.

Day 5

Day 5 was our second full day in the park. Again, we got an early jump start on the day and headed to the Lamar Valley where they claim the best wildlife is located. We were told that we could see wildlife such as: black bears, grizzly bears, moose, elk, bison, and deer. We did get to see a few black bears, elk, deer, and hundreds of bison in massive groups! Unfortunately, we didn’t see any moose or grizzly bears, but we tried our best to find them.

On the way back from the Lamar Valley, we stopped at Mammoth Hot springs and got to see some beautifully colored springs. There is a small "town" in Mammoth Springs so it makes an excellent point to take a break and grab some lunch and souvenirs. We also made sure to go back to Artist Point that day to get a picture of one of the most breathtaking views I’ve ever seen. Brad didn’t get to see it in person because once again, Kent had just fallen asleep and we were not about to test his skills in falling back to sleep after being woken up for 20 minutes.

On the way out of Artist Point, we came upon a line of vehicles just stopped on the road. I assumed that there was a bison in the distance that everyone was looking at. Well as we approached, we realized that there in fact was a bison along the side of the road. But instead of just hanging out, he was rolling around, trying to scratch an itch. Once he was done thrashing around, he got up, kicked his heels and started to charge towards the vehicles in front of us. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t slightly hoping to see what would happen if he charged a car, obviously not ours! 😉

Day 6

Yesterday was our last day in the park. We could have easily spent at least another day or two in the park exploring and checking out some more trails and small hikes, but with a long drive back home, we didn’t want this to become a 2 week long trip, especially since it was semi-spontaneous.

One fun place in West Yellowstone is the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center, basically across the street from our hotel. The grizzlies that are there have been moved because they are no longer allowed to be in the park. These bears have become too comfortable with humans. They learned that humans will give them food and have basically become Yogi Bear and try to steal food, which makes them very dangerous. One bear wandered out of Yellowstone and jumped in someone’s car while she was unloading groceries! The wolves there were all born in captivity and couldn’t be taken care of any longer, so the center took them in. Kent seemed to be slightly interested in the bears and wolves but loved the ground squirrels that they had running around. I’m pretty sure he wanted to climb in the glass enclosure and crawl around with them. We left the center and West Yellowstone around 10:15 towards Boise and holy cow, was the line long to get into Yellowstone park. There are a few different streets you can use to get to the West Yellowstone entrance and each road was backed up at least 2 miles from the park entrance. Whenever we went at 9am there was never a line.

Tip: make sure you go early! I can’t imagine waiting for an hour or so to even get into the park and then have to drive behind so many people.

We went a different route home than we came, and went through Twin Falls to Boise. We stopped at Shoshone Falls and took the 30 second walk to the viewpoint. It costs $5 to get into Shoshone Park, and I'd highly recommend it!

Day 7

Our last day was mostly driving home. We stayed the night in Boise and were ready to get a jump on the day and get home to our cats, own bed, and allow Kent to go wild crawling around the house. One hard thing about this roadtrip was that Kent had just started crawling. So he loves to crawl around, chase toys and burn off energy. With driving for 6-8 hours at a time and then getting out in restaurants, it made it very difficult for Kent to stretch his legs and move. We made it a priority to get back to the hotels at a reasonable time each night so that he had plenty of time to play and burn some energy since he spent most of the time in his carseat.

All in all, it was a wonderful trip and Kent has become an absolute pro at traveling, whether by car or plane. Each trip we take we seem to learn a little bit more about how to make traveling with an infant even more successful, and with each stage he goes through. Crazy that he has already marked off 8 states at just 7 months old!

A few helpful tips in general:

· Make sure whoever you are road tripping with is someone that you can spend hours on hours with. Brad makes a perfect roadtrip buddy and we always have a blast together, to the point where I got out at Artist Point to get a picture, and when I got back in the car Brad told me that he had really missed me, even after we’d been together for the past 5 days or so for 24/7.

· Take breaks when you need to. Lunch breaks up the day really well. Stretch your legs when you need to or you can get super sore.

· Try to keep a similar schedule for your kids that they have at home. Kent usually naps around 10 and 2, so we tried to get him to take naps around the same time to not mess him up. Along with that, he is used to sleeping with the pillows from his Dock a Tot around his crib so he can cuddle with them when he sleeps. The first night in Coeur D’Alene was a little rough until we realized that maybe that’s what he was missing. We rolled up a blanket and put it in the pack n play under his sheet and it worked like magic!

· Sometimes you have to get creative with sleeping arrangements too. Several places we stayed at were either a studio or one bedroom hotel. That made it difficult for Brad and me to hang out in the evening and talk or watch tv, when Kent goes to bed around 6/7pm. When we stayed in the one bedroom suite, we would put him to bed in his pack n play in our room, and when we went to bed we would wheel his pack n play out to the living room. In the studios we had to get a little more creative. One of the rooms had an alcove area that we put his pack n play and draped a blanket over to create a cave almost, and another we found a walk-in closet that his pack n play fit nicely into (with the door cracked obviously).

· Download the Yellowstone Park app and make sure to download the offline content. Yellowstone basically has no cell service in the park, which is super nice to disconnect. The app has an offline map that has many different stopping points and pertinent information around each location. You even have a way to tag certain locations and based off your GPS, the app will let you know where you’re nearby. Now if only they could do that for animals too!

· Make sure to get to the park early! By 10:15am there were lines over 2 miles long to just get to the entrance.

· One way to cut down on costs is to bring a lot of your food. We tried to eat all our breakfasts and dinners at each of our hotels because we learned that even lunches out can add up quickly, especially at a touristy location.

· My number one tip for any trip: pay in cash! This way you don’t have a stressful debt cloud looming over your head the entire trip.