Time: Aug 30, 2013 – Sep 2, 2013
Place: Yellowstone National Park
Company: Wife and daughter
Highlights:
Prologue: Yellowstone National Park was a long sought after destination vacation. But for many years, it was elusive plainly because of lack of easy accessibility. We had sat for hours together planning a trip to this park but always coming short of it due to one reason or the other. Nearest popular airport was almost 6 hrs drive away and flights to airports near to the National Park were either too expensive or had long layovers, and if all was fine, access roads were closed. Hence, we had given this place a slip for many long weekends. But, after much deliberation and thought, finalized on this destination for the Labor Day long weekend of 2013 from our new source location airport SFO - about a month in advance - even though we hadn’t shifted yet from Costa Mesa!
Finding hotel in Yellowstone was one of the toughest tasks. We had searched so many websites and hadn’t found any nearby hotels until we found Pahaska Tepee on the Google Maps when we searched for ‘hotels near Yellowstone’. This is not the typical hotel, it is in the middle of nowhere, in fact in the middle of bear-area! It is in between 2 mountains, almost like a valley. The lodges are wooden and the one in which we stayed just had a bed and a bathroom. No TV, no wifi. Not much lights, and hence when you venture out of the room, you could see a zillion stars on a clear night! A very different experience and worthwhile. Retired for the night.
Day 3: Tontu’s syrup did its job well and Tontu was almost free of cold. We got up late and left at about 11 am. The drive on the East entrance is mesmerizing. It passes through Sylvan Pass and climbs enormously on winding roads with breathtaking views.
More spectacular views came by in the way of Hayden Valley where there were a number of bison. There were some that even crossed us on the road many times during the entire day. It was good to experience a safari-like adventure while being on self-driven car.
Our first stop was on the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone on the South Rim drive for a view of the Falls. With Tontu, it would have been time consuming to take the 300 step steep hike where supposedly the view is amazing, hence enjoyed the view from the viewpoint near the car parking. After a few clicks, we then went on the North Rim drive and enjoyed the views on all the three overlook points. It truly looks like the Grand Canyon (although not so grand)!
MHS smells strongly of sulphur. It has a bunch of viewpoints like the mud cauldron, dragon’s mouth spring, terraces, etc. It is fascinating to see a bubbling mud pond smelling strongly, and a small cavish opening making dragon-like sounds, spitting out hot water, not to mention water falling from naturally made steps.
Place: Yellowstone National Park
Company: Wife and daughter
Highlights:
Prologue: Yellowstone National Park was a long sought after destination vacation. But for many years, it was elusive plainly because of lack of easy accessibility. We had sat for hours together planning a trip to this park but always coming short of it due to one reason or the other. Nearest popular airport was almost 6 hrs drive away and flights to airports near to the National Park were either too expensive or had long layovers, and if all was fine, access roads were closed. Hence, we had given this place a slip for many long weekends. But, after much deliberation and thought, finalized on this destination for the Labor Day long weekend of 2013 from our new source location airport SFO - about a month in advance - even though we hadn’t shifted yet from Costa Mesa!
Day 1: Left our apt in Walnut Creek, CA in car to an off-airport parking lot. Could have taken the BART train but for the fact that our return flight was at a time when BART would not be running. Car drive was almost an hour. Shuttle was quick and short, took us to airport about an hour before the flight departure. Flight was on time and left at 4.37 pm PDT to Salt Lake City airport. After a long wait at the Hertz car rental, finally left SLC at about 8.30 pm MDT. Although had ordered an economy size car, I was given Mazda 5 which could sit 5+1, and hence very vast and comfortable for just the 3 of us.
After a short 15 min drive, we reached Bountiful to have dinner at Taste of India restaurant. We ordered take-out for Tontu to survive on Indian bread for next 3 days. And then, left to Pocatello, Idaho for our night stay inn. Tontu seemed to have caught on a cold and had trouble during the journey sleeping and it took some pacifying. Finally, reached Rodeway Inn University at about midnight and retired.
Day 2: After a typical breakfast in a bed and breakfast inn, we left the inn at 10 am and Pocatello at about 11 am (after some grocery and pharmacy shopping, again, to last for next 3 days). We reached Yellowstone National Park at about 3 pm and were at the first attraction – Lower Geyser Basin at 3.30 pm. It was a spectacular sight, seeing the seething hot water cauldron and the hot water fountain everywhere.
From there, we skipped the midway geyser basin to head to the Old Faithful. There was a wait time of 1 hr until we could witness the next eruption. So we grabbed a good lunch and some dessert at the local café, and then got good seats for the grant natural ‘Old Faithfulness’! It was more of an anti-climax since it did not last too long nor did it erupt to gigantic heights to which it is capable. Nevertheless it was a wonderful sight.
Then, we headed to the hotel on the east entrance. We could have covered the West Thumb geyser basin but since Tontu was too sleepy, we skipped it, leaving it for the last day. The road to east entrance skirts the Yellowstone lake and it is a very nice drive. We reached Pahaska Tepee Lodge at about 8 pm.
Finding hotel in Yellowstone was one of the toughest tasks. We had searched so many websites and hadn’t found any nearby hotels until we found Pahaska Tepee on the Google Maps when we searched for ‘hotels near Yellowstone’. This is not the typical hotel, it is in the middle of nowhere, in fact in the middle of bear-area! It is in between 2 mountains, almost like a valley. The lodges are wooden and the one in which we stayed just had a bed and a bathroom. No TV, no wifi. Not much lights, and hence when you venture out of the room, you could see a zillion stars on a clear night! A very different experience and worthwhile. Retired for the night. 
Day 3: Tontu’s syrup did its job well and Tontu was almost free of cold. We got up late and left at about 11 am. The drive on the East entrance is mesmerizing. It passes through Sylvan Pass and climbs enormously on winding roads with breathtaking views.
More spectacular views came by in the way of Hayden Valley where there were a number of bison. There were some that even crossed us on the road many times during the entire day. It was good to experience a safari-like adventure while being on self-driven car.
Our first stop was on the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone on the South Rim drive for a view of the Falls. With Tontu, it would have been time consuming to take the 300 step steep hike where supposedly the view is amazing, hence enjoyed the view from the viewpoint near the car parking. After a few clicks, we then went on the North Rim drive and enjoyed the views on all the three overlook points. It truly looks like the Grand Canyon (although not so grand)!
Next stop was Tower Junction where we had a short bite. A few steps of hike and we saw the Tower falls. After the view of the falls in the GC of Y, this seemed small and hence not-so-great. Then, we moved on to Mammoth Hot Springs. On the way, we saw a bunch of Elks.
Last stop of the day was Norris Geyser basin. We did a short 0.25 mile trek to see the Steamboat Geyser which had a fairly good minor continuous eruption. Then we just glanced over Porcelain geyser basin from the entrance of the trek, and headed back since it was getting late, and the drive back to Pahaska was about 2 hrs. Realized that we should have planned better to stay nearer to West entrance since we were closer to this side of the gate. Once more we skirted the Yellowstone lake and zoomed over the Sylvan Pass. Reached about the same time as previous day, had dinner at the hotel’s dining room and retired.
Day 4: This was going to be a long day, considering we had to reach home back in Walnut Creek. Got up by 8.30 am, left at 10 am. For the last time, passed through the Sylvan Pass. It was a rainy day, and we were glad that all our major attractions were completed. The only remaining one on our list was West Thumb Geyser Basin. We did a pit stop at Fishing Bridge and got ‘to-go’ breakfast to have it in the car, to save time. It was raining hard when we reached and hence had to run through it in our hoodies. It was a different sight altogether – cold rain meeting the hot geysers. There was definitely more smoke. We wanted to visit the Lower Geyser basin once more before we left the park, but due to rain, we skipped it.
We left the West Entrance at 1.15 pm. We ran into couple of traffic jams due to accidents and hence had to skip the plan of having dinner at Taste of India in Bountiful again. Instead, we did a Subway stop-over at Malad city, and directly headed to SLC airport. By the time we reached SLC, it was 8 pm – a 10 hr drive, out of which Tontu had sat on the child seat for 6 hrs straight! It was about 420 miles of driving. Comparable to my Grand Canyon to Barstow driving stint in 2009.
At SLC, we were asked to let go of our toothpaste during security screening. Surprisingly this did not happen in SFO airport! Once aboard the flight, we were told that they did not have permission to land in SFO and hence they made us wait inside the flight for about 1.5 hrs. Surprisingly, Tontu did not sleep the entire day, although she was sleepy at many times during the day. She only slept when the lights dimmed during take-off at 11.30 pm. We reached SFO at midnight and after a long wait for the shuttle, got back to our car. 1 hr drive back home again, and by the time we slept it was almost 3 am. Thats almost 17 hrs travel time!
Key Notes:
- 995 miles driven in the rental car, 100 miles driven in own car from home to airport parking and back.
- The only time where we have landed in the same airport (SLC) twice for two different vacations (Utah and Yellowstone). In both the instances, we did not see SLC city by itself! During Utah trip, SLC looked very beautiful with snow-white blanket covered everywhere and now in it’s 90s it looked like any other place.
- States seen during this trip: Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming.
Epilogue: Finally, we could visit the elusive Yellowstone. It is the first national park of USA and it was a privilege to view and witness the geological natural wonder of this place. There are lots more to this than what we saw and enjoyed but then again, one can only do within one’s limitations. And within our own limitations, we enjoyed this place as best as we could. What next? ;-)
