Road Trip Recap
Hello again! Thank you for your patience while I sifted through all of our vacation photos and we returned to real life after being away for almost two weeks in September.
You may remember that we were going to take a road trip to the PNW. Well, that didn’t happen. A few days before we were supposed to leave for our trip, we started getting alerts from the National Park Service (this was before the government shut down) and weather apps that the area we were going to was on fire. Active fires, dangerous air quality, and potential closures aren’t exactly the best recipe for a great vacation. We debated back and forth about what to do and ended up cancelling all of our plans. Fortunately, pretty much everything was still refundable so we didn’t lose much money on cancelling.
In prepping to leave for our trip, we realized it had been three years since we took a proper vacation - one where we were actually off the grid from work and life for longer than a weekend. Taking a day off for a weekend trip doesn’t count. Visiting home doesn’t count because we work from MD when we go back. Our last big trip was in December of 2022 when we did our big winter road trip all over Colorado. All that to say, we did consider not taking the time off, but that would have been a really, really bad idea for our mental health and sanity.
So, what did we do? I used my planning superpowers to plan an entirely new 10-day vacation over the course of one weekend. It was stressful and challenging but fun. This new itinerary worked out better than we expected, and really only required a few pivots during the actual trip to make changes that worked better for us once we got to where we were going. Please enjoy our recap of our road trip through Wyoming, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming again. We camped for seven nights, stayed in a hotel for three, hiked almost every day, and had an absolute blast!
Day 1: Off to Wyoming
The first day of our road trip, as you might imagine, was mostly a driving day. From our house, the end destination was a campground in Bighorn National Forest in Ten Sleep, WY about eight hours away. The drive itself was largely uneventful and became progressively more picturesque the closer we got to our destination. We drove through the Wind River Scenic Byway and the Cloud Peak Scenic Byway, which were both incredible. Unfortunately, we experienced that in real time only and didn’t take any pictures from the car.
We stopped at a cool little brewery in Ten Sleep at the recommendation of a friend before heading to camp even though it put us a little behind schedule. When we got to camp, we realized that our site was a walk-in only site, which is not conducive to the rooftop tent because it’s only accessible by foot vs. a campsite with a parking spot. With this being the first night of the trip, plus it getting dark and trying to rain, and both Ian and I being generally anxious people, we did go into a bit of mild panic mode here. There was no one else in the tent loop of the campground and no open spots in the RV loop, so we thought we were going to be royally screwed. Because the rest of the tent camping area was empty, we ended up just beaching it in the parking lot. We probably looked a little crazy because when the camp host came by to refill the toilet paper in the vault toilet, we explained our plight to him and he gave us the all-clear to basically just sleep in the parking lot.
One big takeaway from the entire trip was that a lot of campgrounds do not favor those without RVs or trailers.
To our surprise, our solitude was interrupted when another couple in a covered pickup truck came by in a similar pickle to ours. They were older and their setup was sleeping in the back of their truck. We passed along the info the camp host gave us and had neighbors for the night. They were from Wilmington, NC and were super nice. After all the hullabaloo, we survived night one and didn’t even see the moose that frequented the campground.
RIP to all the bugs that died on our windshield and the front of the tent.
That’s Ten Sleep Brewery on the right and our janky camp spot on the two left photos.
Day 2: Bighorn National Forest
We got off to a later start that we wanted this morning, but it ended up not really mattering too much. This hike started out kind of spooky because there were hardly any cars in the parking lot and we were in bear country. Being weekend warrior hikers, we’re not used to having a trail all to ourselves. Fortunately, we didn’t run into any bears, only moose. They were right next to the trail on our way back, so we had to bushwhack to get around them. In total we saw three moose, a huge grouse, and some pronghorn.
After our hike we drove to Custer, SD. Here, we camped at a pretty nice campground that was mostly RVs. The tent loop was tucked away in the corner and nowhere close to the bathroom. You’d think tent campers who don’t have bathrooms built into their camp setups would need a close bathroom the most, but oh well. Once again, tent campers get the short end of the stick.
A HUGE thunderstorm came rolling through this night with crazy lightning and thunder. It started rolling in while we were in the middle of dinner, so we had to pack everything up super quickly, head into the tent, and hope we didn’t get struck by lightning.
Day 3: Custer, SD
It took three days, but we finally had a peaceful morning at camp and evening at camp. Ian was our resident camp chef and quite good at that job. I was much better at doing the dishes. Today we hiked to Black Elk Peak at Custer State Park then visited the Crazy Horse Memorial and Mt. Rushmore. We had lunch at a gorgeous lake in the state park and drove through teeny tiny tunnels on the Needles Highway. We finally had a leisurely night at camp in a light rain versus insane explosive lightning. At this point, we still didn’t feel very relaxed and on vacation mode just yet, but we were getting there.
Day 4: South Dakota Continued
Today we left our campsite in Custer and headed for Wind Cave National Park. The day started off on the right foot because we saw bison on the road heading into the park. We had to wait in a long line for the visitor center to open so we could try to get tickets for the cave tour. Fortunately, we got tickets for the tour time we wanted, then made camp breakfast in the picnic area in the parking lot while we waited for the tour to start. While everyone else was eating granola bars at their cars, we had a feast of eggs with ham, peppers, and onions, plus bagels and yogurt.
The cave tour was pretty cool. We had a fun guide, and it was neat to head underground and learn about all the weird rock formations down there. Poor Ian spent most of the tour ducking and hunched over because he’s so tall. Me, not so much.
After the cave tour we did a short hike through the prairie, where we saw a million prairie dogs and a bunch of bison. We ran into several solo bison too close to the trail and had to bushwhack a ton getting back to the car. Ian stepped in a huge bison patty. By the time we were finished the hike we were tired, hungry, and over all the bison.
We pulled into a scenic pullout area to eat lunch and air out the tent since it had been raining every night of the trip so far. It was so windy, and we must’ve looked insane because pretty much every car slowed down to stare at us even though no one actually stopped to talk to us.
After Wind Cave, we drove to Rapid City, SD and had some of the best beer ever at Lost Cabin Brewing. We also got some surprisingly good sushi from the food truck there. We spoiled ourselves that night with our first shower in four days because we stayed in a hotel. We got ramen and bao buns from a restaurant run by a Food Network chef who we like (Justin Warner). It was AMAZING. The mushroom bao bun was probably the best thing I ate the whole trip. After our brewery snack and dinner, plus the lunch we’ll eat in town tomorrow, we would 100% fly to Rapid City for a weekend just to eat.
Day 5: Rapid City
This morning started off while more amazing Rapid City food at Black Hills Bagels. YUM. We then drove about an hour to Badlands National Park. The Badlands are, visually and geologically, very cool. It’s not really an area with a lot of opportunities for long hikes to certain destinations, so we did several little short hikes through the rock formations instead. It was spritzing rain and chilly, which created a pretty neat vibe with all the rocks. The weather forecast called for significantly more rain, so we were pleasantly surprised with the drizzle. We did have to climb a sketchy ladder that was slippery in the rain, but it was fine.
On our way back to Rapid City, we stopped at Wall Drug, a tourist trap for sure, but worth the stop. It reminded me of a much bigger, more elaborate version of Callahan’s in Calabash, NC that we used to go to as kids to visit Joe’s parents. Wall Drug is apparently a local icon and is heavily advertised along the highway for 5 cent cups of coffee and free water. It was worth the stop for sure.
After a quick stop at Wall Drug, we went back to Rapid City for lunch. I am so glad we did because the place we went was AMAZING. Ian and I both went the brunch route. He got an eggs benedict, and I got a breakfast veggie hash. We shared french toast made out of a cinnamon bun. Like I said, Rapid City has a lot going for it, not the least of which is the food. 10/10 would recommend.
Our original plan was to camp in Badlands National Park, but we ended up heading back to Wyoming to camp near Devils Tower National Monument. Devil’s Tower is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen and definitely has some otherworldly woo-woo magic going on. More on that with tomorrow’s recap, but we’re very glad we pivoted on the camp site.
Day 6: Devils Tower
Devils Tower was definitely one of the coolest places we went during this trip. We cooked breakfast at a picnic area we had all to ourselves in similar fashion to our Wind Cave breakfast. There’s an area called “Prairie dog highway” which has as many prairie dogs as you would expect in such an area. At face value, it’s a giant rock tower in the middle of nowhere. It’s also a sacred place for Native Americans with prayer ribbons tied to trees all around. It’s a popular rock climbing spot - we saw two pairs of climbers. It has this calming, woo-woo energy that you can’t quite explain. You can feel it’s a spiritual place. I lovingly refer to it as the “woo-woo spaghetti” because it looks a bit like a giant bundle of uncooked spaghetti noodles. I’m probably not doing a very good job of explaining it, but I’ll try. Only once on a vortex hike in Sedona have I felt such an overwhelming sense of calm and peace that I felt at Devils Tower. I can’t explain it, but there’s something special about it. You just have to take my word for it.
After Ian dragged me out of there, we drove several hours to Teddy Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. Let me tell you, there’s not a whole lot going on in North Dakota. There are a ton of bison, though. We did a super quick hike and hit the visitor center before it closed and we lost daylight. The weirdest thing was that while, technically, we were still on mountain time, the area we were in was so close to the line between mountain time and central time that the lighting reflected central time and Ian’s watch kept switching between the two time zones. It was fine, but confusing for the brain.
We were also a bit anxious during our brief time in Teddy because our camping plan was a first-come-first-serve campground run by the National Forest Service. In Utah, first-come-first-serve usually means SOL. Not having a definitive place to stay definitely had us both a little on edge, but it ended up being totally fine. The campground was nice and only about half full, if that. The vault toilets didn’t have toilet paper, but we had our own. We were starting to attract flies at this point, but we didn’t care. The weather had also been much warmer and more humid than we had originally anticipated. Regardless of our camp stank, we had a nice camp dinner and shared a bottle of wine, and it was delightful.
Day 7: Montana
Today we drove almost the entire length of Montana. The car was making a weird clicking noise, which we discovered was harmless, just a flap flapping near the wheel that we had to stick back on. The mystery noise did have Ian, understandably, freaking out for most of the drive. We stopped in Billings for lunch, which was not as good as Rapid City. Then we drove to Bozeman and treated ourselves to two nights at the Best Western. Little did we know that we would fall in love with Bozeman over the next 48 hours.
Day 8: Bozeman & Big Sky
Our adventures in Montana continued with a hike in Big Sky near the ski resort. The drive from Bozeman to Big Sky was beautiful but a bit spooky with a lot of morning fog. There didn’t appear to be many people around, which also freaked us out a little bit. There were hardly any cars in the parking lot and we were in bear territory, but we decided not to be scaredy cats and do the hike as planned. The hike was stunning, and we didn’t see any wildlife at all except for a couple of birds and squirrels. The trail also got much busier the later it got it the morning, which was reassuring. We need to rip the band aid off and see a damn bear already so we can stop being such weenies about it. Spoiler alert: we don’t see any bears on this trip at all.
We stopped at a little deli in Big Sky for lunch then headed back to Bozeman to do a short little local hike. We went to a brewery next to a lake and a fancy chocolate shop. We grabbed dinner at Montana Ale Works, which had excellent beer, food, and people watching. Basically, Bozeman is awesome because it’s a smaller, less crowded, less Mormon version of Salt Lake. It’s still expensive with an influx of people moving from mostly California, similar to how it is in Salt lake. We weren’t expecting to like it so much, but we will most definitely be back.
Day 9: Yellowstone
Tragically, we had to leave Bozeman, but not after a stop for amazing coffee at Ghost Town Coffee. We also stopped at a bagel shop, but those bagels were nowhere near as good as the ones from Rapid City. From Bozeman we headed south to the northernmost section of Yellowstone National Park. We hiked up to Bunsen Peak and ate lunch at a picnic area. We were in Mammoth Hot Springs, which is the actual touristy part of the park with hotels, restaurants, the visitor center, and the park rangers’ houses. It was WAY more crowded than our hiking spot and our lunch spot, and full of dumb people trying to get up close and personal with elk.
The park rangers were out telling people to go inside and stay away from the elk, and there were people getting their cameras out actively walking TOWARDS the elk. I know people are dumb sometimes, but come on. We watch from a safe distance only. We did walk around the old army barracks and spotted one lone bull elk bugling by himself. This guy was HUGE. There was a park ranger standing watch to make sure we didn’t pull a stunt like some of the other dumb visitors, but otherwise it was just the ranger, Ian and I, and the elk.
Our campsite for the night was another National Forest Service first-come-first-serve spot. We were a little less nervous this time since we had been okay earlier on in the trip, and this time was no different. There were plenty of people at the campground by the time we got there, but we found a great spot tucked away behind these big rocks. The campground must’ve filled up because we saw several people pull in, drive around for a bit, and then leave. A couple cars even starting backing into our spot only to realize we were there and then leave. I can’t imagine not getting to camp until 9:00 PM, but to each their own I suppose.
By this point, we had really gotten into a groove on vacation mode. It felt like just when we were finally able to relax and find our chill that our vacation was about to end. We just want to buy an RV and hike and camp everyday forever.
Day 10: Grand Tetons
We took the scenic (and much longer than we anticipated) route through Yellowstone to the Tetons. We drove through the Lamar Valley section of Yellowstone and had breakfast near a river. At first we had it all to ourselves, then a bunch of people came to take pictures of a moose that was way on the other side of the river. It’s wild how crazy people get over the wildlife, and how desensitized we are to it after living in Utah for so long. We see moose all the time on our hikes. Plus, it was so far away you could hardly even see it without a zoom lens or binoculars. People were almost literally climbing on our car to catch a glimpse of the moose while we were just trying to eat our bagels.
One scam that you should never fall for is any type of paid wildlife watching tour. We saw so many vans from companies that promise wildlife watching tours that charge people who knows how much to maybe see wildlife that you could’ve just driven your own car to. The Lamar Valley hike we did was overrun with these companies, and they saw the same wildlife that we did, if not less because they don’t actually get out on the trails. It’s not rocket science to know that dawn and dusk are prime time wildlife watching times either. So if you want to come out to Yellowstone or the Tetons or Utah and watch some wildlife, I’ll be your tour guide for free.
In Yellowstone we saw a million bison then drove through the park south towards Jackson. We drove past Yellowstone Lake, which was a completely different environment compared to Lamar Valley and the hot springs sections of the park. We had lunch at a lodge near the lake and made our way to Jackson.
For our final night, we camped at the Gros Ventre campground, which was busy but no rowdy people so it was quiet. We didn’t see the bear that lives around the campground but we did see the moose from across camp. They were right next to this other 4Runner where people were tent camping, which must’ve been quite the surprise for them to have woken up to.
We drove to one of our favorite scenic pullouts to make breakfast and did a quick hike around a lake in the Tetons. We stopped in town at the pizza place we love for lunch and headed home.
The next morning our water softener decided to erupt, completely overflowing and leaking water all over the place and into the walls in the garage and inside on the ground level. In hindsight, having this happen the morning after we got back from vacation was actually a blessing in disguise because if it had exploded while we were gone it would’ve just spilled water into our house and the neighbors’ house for 10 days and ruined everything. Even though we were technically a few days past our one-year warranty from the builder, they came and fixed everything anyway (as they should - I would have had a conniption on them if they didn’t). Turns out, we just got really unlucky. A piece of fiberglass fell off deep inside the water softener and that’s why it erupted. The plumber said he only ever heard of that happening one other time and described it as a freak incident.
Our vacation was definitely the highlight of the past several weeks, but since getting back from our trip we’ve been keeping busy. Hiking and camping with Ian’s BFF and his wife, seeing one of my favorite podcasts live, figuring out why one of our snake plants is growing mystery fungus, and watching people race in port-a-potties during the giant pumpkin regatta in our neighborhood.
In other news, apparently I’m prediabetic and Ian is vitamin D deficient. The government shut down has derailed some of our fall plans, but that’s the least of our worries there. We’re trying to be more chill and less stressed post-vacation and not let little things turn into big stressors for no reason, on a micro level at least. On a macro level, the horrors persist but so do we. I don’t want to end on that note, so here are some things we’re looking forward to (in no particular order):
Ski season
Katie’s wedding
Sweatshirt weather
Reading with a cozy blanket and candle
Potential trip to Southern Utah for red rocks
If you read this entire thing, thank you! You are a trooper. We don’t have much on the calendar in the coming weeks, so I’ll need to gather more content before making another post. We better get to stepping and do something more interesting than our current project of systematically deep cleaning our house. Stay tuned!
