The Green River Lakes are located in the Wind River Mountain Range in Wyoming. Located not far from the town of Pinedale, this area became our destination for spending a couple days backpacking along the valley of the mountains. This was my first time in the Winds, but my husband had made this trip once before with a group of friends from work. That trip three years ago was life-changing for Matt and he had been itching to get me out to these mountains ever since.

This backpacking trip was different than any other that I had been on. The backpacking we have done in the midwest is never very far from civilization – if something goes wrong, there is never any real danger. This was not the case in these mountains, we were truly in the middle of nowhere and the quiet left us in awe.

Taking the Lakeside Trail we hiked 13.6 miles through the valley passing the Green Lakes on that first evening. Due to a “heavy wind event” about a month earlier, there were a lot of fallen trees on and around the trail. We also guessed that maybe the wind event scared away a lot of wildlife because apart from one mule deer, we did not see any animals at all.

After camping by the river, we woke up to our tent covered in frost. It was so hard to get out of our cozy sleeping bags and into the frigid morning air. Once we did though we pumped water, had an oatmeal breakfast, and then headed back out on the trail. We were doing an out and back trip, but we made it to Three Forks Park before turning around. The view in the Three Forks Park was truly stunning, but after spending some time taking in the views we headed back down the trail the way we had come.

Our plans had to change due to a crowd of people at the campsite area where we had hoped to stay. Instead of camping a second night in the Winds we ended up hiking the whole way back to our car to boon-dock for the night. We clocked a total of 20.6 miles that day. Definitely a one-day hiking record for me and it was very difficult. I think all the hiking we had been doing on this trip had taken a toll on me. It was worth every step though and I would certainly do it again. Being with my husband in the middle of nowhere brings me so much perspective and appreciation for the beauty of creation.

We ended our trip by spending one night in the mile-high city. Denver was such a nice cap on 2 weeks in the West. We Pricelined a bougie hotel, road bikes around the city, and sipped local beer at a brewery. This was truly the trip of a lifetime and I am so happy to have experienced it with my best friend. Now I’m ready for the next one!

Having boon-docked just outside the south entrance to Yellowstone, we woke up early and made the fairly short drive down into Teton National Park. Driving south with Jackson Lake on our right, we got the most beautiful view of the Teton range in the distance. The sun was coming up onto the mountains so we just parked the 4runner in a designated viewing area and pulled out our Coleman stove to make some coffee and oatmeal. It was certainly our most beautiful breakfast view of the trip.

Our plans for the Tetons only included one day in the actual park and let me tell you, it was not enough. Our one day was very hiking-heavy, but we really only stayed in the foothills without making our way very far up any of the mountains – something Matt really would like to have done. Jenny Lake is a very popular area in the park and for good reason. It offers several diverse trails with the Teton range as the backdrop. Matt and I chose to do the entire Jenny Lake Trail that is a 8 mile loop around the lake. There are multiple trails that weave in and out of the Jenny Lake Trail and we decided to venture out on a few of them as well including Hidden Falls Trail and Inspiration Point Trail.

The temperature when we took off in the morning was a cool 40-something degrees, but as we got our heart rates up we had to shed our flannels. Deciding to be out hiking most of the day meant that we both carried day-packs with lunch, snacks, and lots of water. Our first stop was a short one to view Hidden Falls and then we made our way up, up, up to Inspiration Point where we took a break and had some lunch. Being destination spots both Hidden Falls and Inspiration Point were on the busier side, but once we made our way around what I am going to call the back side of the lake, there were significantly less people. One exciting discovery that happened while we were walking along the backside of Jenny Lake were a group of otters swimming alongside us as we hiked. Matt and I had a list of wildlife we had hoped to encounter while on this trip and to be honest otters were not on it. It was definitely a fun surprise and we went on to have two more otter sightings before our trip was over.

A large chunk of the Jenny Lake Trail is in direct sunlight and we definitely wanted to jump into the lake when we were finished hiking for the day, but a much bigger desire for dinner and showers sent us instead to nearby Jackson Hole. Once in town, we replenished some of our groceries and checked into a motel for the night. We had hoped to find a camp sight nearby, but there was absolutely nothing available and our need for showers and laundry was too great to spend another night boon-docking. Had we not been in the middle of a pandemic, I would have liked to explore Jackson Hole more – it looked like a very hip place to be. I did not however enjoy the traffic. Maybe I am spoiled having lived my entire life in towns/cities where the roads were intricately planned out before they were built, but the roads in Jackson Hole were not built to bear the heavy traffic that the town gets.

For our second day in the Teton area, Matt and I hiked Snow King Mountain. This mountain located in Jackson Hole, is home to a ski resort and an adventure park. There are several trails leading up to the top of it and I hear that if you go on a weekend you can pay a small fee to take the ski lift back down the mountain. Unfortunately the lift was not running on the Thursday that we were there so we had to retrace our steps back down the way we came. The mountain was very steep, but view at the top overlooks the Teton Mountain Range and it was beautiful. The trail was not very crowded and the few hikers we did see appeared to be locals. We even got to play with a cute dog named Boo while we ate our lunch at the top – making us miss our own dog that we left back home.

Before leaving the Teton area to head to our next trip destination, we made a quick stop in Teton Village. It was not exactly what we had expected. The village was very touristy and upscale and we felt out of place. We poked our heads in a couple shops, but left not long after we arrived to make our way to Pinedale, WY.

The northeast entrance to Yellowstone is the scenic one. And that’s all we needed to hear. So even though we stayed on some free public land in the town of Cody which is located right next to the eastern entrance of the park, we still chose to get up well before the sun and make the drive into Montana in order to enter the park from the north. To be honest, the entrance itself was not as grand as I expected, but the road to get there with the sun rising up in our rearview mirror was stunning. I would do it again. But it should be noted that this entrance is often closed in the winter due to unmaintained roads.

Booking campsites in Yellowstone is something that needs serious planning for two reasons: the park is HUGE and they book up months in advance. Matt and I chose not to book in advance because we wanted the freedom to make changes to our itinerary whenever and wherever, but that made for a not-so-great first day in Yellowstone for us. There are a handful of campgrounds that operate on a first come first serve basis and we had been banking on finding one of these. Little did we know, they were slowly closing for the season and the one we wanted closed the day before we arrived. So we headed to the next one in the northern part of the park to find it was already full. The only other campground option was a 4 hour drive down to the southern part of the park.

We couldn’t just pass everything and go straight to the campground though. We needed to take a breath after our frustrations and start seeing Yellowstone. We did not want to bypass everything only to make the very long drive back up the next day. We only had two days in the park after all and we wanted to see as much as we could so we decided to make our way to the Mammoth Hot Springs. On our way we spotted a large coyote! We later learned that it had been feeding on a nearby bison carcass. I was driving and it crossed the road about 15 yards in front of our car. It was a rush to see him so close! The Mammoth Hot Springs area is a village within the park. In the village we stopped to grab some lunch and picnicked there. This is also the location where we got to see several elk. It was mating season for the elk and for some strange reason, with the massive secluded space that Yellowstone offers, they decided to set up camp and do their mating in the village. Several areas and roads were closed off to keep people away from the often violent bull elk who like to charge at cars and sometimes people.

After our picnic we walked in and around all of the springs. There is a maze of wooden boardwalks that allows you to get close to the springs and the view is almost other-worldly. While the stench of sulfur is prominent, seeing all the rock formations with bubbling and boiling water was a very fun experience. My favorite were the Canary Falls because of the bright colors and flowing water, but the springs are constantly changing and reforming so what was the most beautiful one day may be something totally different in a short period of time.

Spoiler alert, we arrived at the final campground too late. It was full. So we made our way out of the southern entrance to the park where we boondocked in the parking lot of a lodge. The lot seemed to be made exactly for people like us whose plans for staying in the park were spoiled. The lodge had gas, a small convenience store, and allowed us to use their bathrooms. It was a pretty nice setup though we would have much rather been in the park.

Our second day back in Yellowstone we headed for Old Faithful. They are pretty good at predicting Old Faithful’s eruption time, hence the name, so we got to see it erupt right when it was expected. We spent the morning walking on boardwalks seeing a great number of geysers and springs near Old Faithful. After a quick lunch of hotdogs that we cooked on our Coleman stove literally on the side of the road, we went to see the Grand Prismatic Spring. It was quite a site to see neon colors created by bacteria peeking through all the mist coming off the hot water. Again this area is full of boardwalks in order to keep you off the molten ground, but still allow you to get close to the springs. An interesting fact that we learned while we were there was that the wooden boardwalks throughout Yellowstone are rebuilt each year as the springs move and make changes to the earth below them.

We had seen everything we came to see, but we needed to kill a little bit of time before sunset (more on that in a moment) so we headed to The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. I am so glad we didn’t skip this. I have been to the Grand Canyon and I am honestly in the camp of “it’s just a pretty hole in the ground.” But The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone was an even more pretty hole in the ground. You could stand on one rim and see across to the other. The river below has a couple large and very beautiful waterfalls. I was a fan. We drove both the south rim and north rim drives stopping along the way at various overlooks to get different views. We got our heart rates up doing a short 3/4 mile hike with a drastic elevation change to stand right on top of the lower falls and it was stunning.

One thing we both really hoped to lay eyes on during this trip was a bear. There was talk throughout Yellowstone of a bear that someone had caught on camera the week before we arrived. You can actually find the video on Youtube, but it is a bit disturbing. The bear was chasing a bull elk into a river and on the video he catches the bear and drowns it. He then drags it back to the river bank where we learned that he sat on it for several days eating and napping, eating and napping. What a life! We wanted to stop by this spot at sunset (when bears are most active) to see if we could get a glimpse of the bear ourselves. Our chances were slim with the amount of time that had already passed, but we were up for it anyway. We actually had a better chance of seeing wolves or coyotes on the carcass scavenging anything that may have been left. After waiting well past sunset, we saw only a swan floating down the river. Regardless it was an exciting adventure to stake out a possible bear.

With only two days in Yellowstone we only saw a fraction of the park. I do hope we find ourselves back again someday to see even more.

Everyone and their brother told us that Custer had to be on our itinerary. They weren’t wrong. Located among the black hills of western South Dakota, this state park is known for it’s wildlife and beautiful needle rock formations. Unfortunately for Matt and I, we arrived one day after the park’s yearly buffalo roundup so the normally roaming buffalo were being counted and tagged in stalls. We thought about skipping the Badlands in order to watch the roundup, but knowing that the event brought in large crowds of people, something we wanted to avoid during the pandemic, we decided against it.

After spending the night before at a KOA in Rapid City, we got up early and headed straight for the park to drive the Wildlife Loop Road. We saw a few pronghorns and two small buffalo who had apparently avoided being corralled the day before, but overall there wasn’t a whole lot wildlife to be seen. We decided early in the loop to take our own course on a gravel road through the park where we could pull over and hike to the top of a tall hill. Later we learned that the hill was named Racetrack Butte. We had hoped that we would get up high enough to spot some moose or elk through our binoculars. It was fun and invigorating to hike that steep hill, but we still didn’t spot any cool animals to write home about.

From there we headed to the Iron Mountain Road. Twisting and turning through the black hills, this road has pigtail turns and multiple tunnels that each frame Mt Rushmore in the distance. Late September meant beautiful fall foliage that was truly amazing to see. We chose not to spend time going all the way to Mt Rushmore though, instead we headed to Needles Highway. Our plan was to stop for a hike, but a light rain sent us to the gift shop near Sylvan Lake in hopes that the rain would stop soon. And it did!

We chose a moderate, 3 mile, out and back hike called Cathedral Spires Trail. The trail was nice, not too difficult, and had a sliver of a beautiful view. After all morning in the car, it was nice to be out in the nature that we had been peeking at through our car windows. On our way back we decided to take an unknown detour. There was a trail that split from the one we were on called Little Devil’s Tower and we were up for it. With no idea how difficult or even how long the trail would be, we set off up an immediate steep hill. After getting above the foliage line, we found that this new adventure included actual rock climbing in order to reach the top. This detour ended up being my absolute favorite part of our entire trip. It was so unexpected, unplanned, and it took us up to a beautiful 360 degree view of the black hills. Steadying ourselves with the high winds was a chore, but boy was it beautiful and so enjoyable to be up there with my best friend. We even spotted a family of mountain goats on our way back to our car.

After hiking among the needles, we headed to Sylvan Lake taking the stunning Needles Highway once again. This drive is a fun one with a narrow tunnel and beautiful landscapes. At the lake we walked the paved and level path all the way around the water. It was a refreshing and slow walk to end our time in the park.

That night we stayed at a KOA in the town of Custer where we had pasta and s’mores by the fire for dinner.

The Badlands were a real surprise for me. I think maybe because I have never seen pictures or heard a whole lot about this park I didn’t know what to expect. The large focus on nearby Yellowstone and Tetons leave the Badlands often overlooked, but I would like to shout about how much I loved this park! My husband, on the other hand, would say it was nice but certainly low on his list of favorites for this trip.

We arrived in the Badlands in the evening so our plan was to simply drive through the park from the east entrance to the north entrance headed toward some free public land where we had planned to camp for the night. It was hard to push through the park without stopping at every overlook though. It was BEAUTIFUL and the sun setting lit up the rock structures in the most stunning way.

A quick note: we did stop by the Wall Drugstore on this first night (located in the town of Wall just north of Badlands National Park) to see what the hype was about, but we were very disappointed. I actually wonder if we didn’t actually see the whole place, but I would say it’s definitely not worth the stop.

Just outside the north entrance to the Badlands is some free public land and it is definitely well known. Right off the main road on the east is a dirt path that runs along the edge of a cliff. Anyone can pull off on this road and just set up camp for the night. I would guess there were probably 100+ campers there the night we stayed. There are no bathrooms or amenities of any kind but the view is stunning. A very important thing to know about this spot though is that it is known for being EXTREMELY windy. I am not exaggerating here. The car rocked all night. We actually had originally parked the 4Runner on the edge of the cliff, but in the middle of the night we decided to move to the other side of the road for some peace of mind. Watching the sunrise from our car the next morning though made the trouble worth it.

After watching the sunrise, we headed into the park to make some coffee and breakfast (oh and to find bathrooms of course). Our cooking setup for this trip was a good one. We had a portable Coleman gas stove and we just made simple breakfasts and dinners. For lunch we usually just grabbed a protein bar or a sandwich on the go.

After breakfast we chose a couple of shorter hikes in order to get in and among the rock formations. My husband and I are definitely hikers, but since we needed to make it all the way to Rapid City this night we had to choose short trails. We did about 2 miles out and back of the Castle trail and then a 1 mile round trip Notch trail. This second trail was my favorite of the two. It involved climbing a ladder and it had a gorgeous view. I would definitely recommend it for those that can handle the climb.

We could not have asked for better hiking weather, it was 75 degrees and mostly sunny. I would love to have that now instead of the winter gray that is happening in Indiana at the moment.

Stay tuned for more posts about our 2020 trip to the west!

In the midst of this pandemic my husband and I set out to take a relatively safe vacation cross country. The plan: road trip west visiting outdoor destinations along the way. Before hitting the road though, we (ok I’ll be honest my husband) put in a lot of work transforming our 2011 Toyota 4runner into a temporary home for us.

We were leaving for 2 weeks and apart from a night or two in a hotel, the car was going to be our transportation vessel as well as our bedroom. To make it both comfy and functional for our needs we needed to do more than just get the normal pre-road trip oil change and new brake pads. First we took out the back seats. The second and third row seats do fold nicely, but there just wasn’t enough room without taking the seats completely out. It took some muscle power on the part of my husband, but once they were out we had room to build a platform to sleep on giving us storage room underneath.

The platform was a pretty easy, simple, and cheap build. The frame and legs were just 2x4s and we topped it with a sheet of plywood. For comfort and to make sure the wood didn’t put splinters in our mattress, we stapled some indoor/outdoor carpet onto the plywood. I think materials were less than $130 total. We even grabbed some battery-operated string lights to hang along the sides of the car so that when the sun went down we could at least see to read and do sudoku before going to sleep (the sun sets early in October). And I cannot forget to mention the giant sherpa blanket to keep us warm while the temps dipped below freezing most nights. It was a very cozy set-up. Our splurge though was on the mattress; we got an Exped Megamat sleeping pad that was so completely worth the price tag. It was the perfect size for the two of us and we both raved about the good sleep we were able to get. Finally we cut pieces of cardboard to fit in the windows. We spray painted them black leaving the car looking like it just had dark tented windows. This is a setup that I think we will continue to make use of in the future.

For fun, my husband also chose to paint the tire rims black. Our black 4runner definitely got much cooler rolling on black rims. It was actually more simple than I thought it would turn out to be. He put the car on jacks, took the 4 tires off, cleaned and sanded the metal, taped off the wheels, then put multiple coats of primer and color and finish. We were both very happy with how it turned out.

Stay tuned for more posts about the places we got to visit!