National Park Road Trip: California or Bust (Part 10)

August 5, 2019InACents Leave a comment

What do you do when your wife says, maybe we should go to California? You scramble to find cell phone service and rebook the whole back end of your trip in a hurry.

Our family typically visits California for Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm approximately every 2-3 years. Seeing as our last visit was in 2016, we were due to head back. So when my wife mentioned we were only approximately 14 hours drive away from Los Angeles from the Grand Tetons, while it seemed like a monumental task and cost, the incremental cost to do it now versus flying all of out there again in the future began to make sense. The tough part would not really be the 14 hours+ of driving to get there, but the backend where it meant 4 straight days of driving to get back to Ohio and my work obligations for Monday.

In order to make the drive from the Grand Tetons to California in one day, it meant an early start. So we got on the road around 4-4:30 am. While the surface that might sound crazy, considering it was really 7-7:30 am back home in Ohio, it was totally feasible.

Around 3:00 pm we approached Las Vegas, and I knew we had to at least show the kids a quick view of what the city was like. I had not been back to Las Vegas since my bachelor party in 2008. While I have never been much of a gambler, I had no real intense desire to return to the city of lights since having kids and adulting responsibilities.

However, as I found myself approaching Las Vegas, the lights, the glitz, the glamour, the FUN! I found myself caught up in wanting to see and do it all.

Knowing our journey was still hours ahead of us though, we had to make a decision and what to see, and I knew the right choice would be Circus Circus.

Growing up, my grandparents were frequent guests of the Circus Circus casino, and I knew they might be proud to see our kids in front of the marquee. Plus with the circus acts, games and rides, it was the perfect hotel for the boys to see.

Going into an amusement park or anything being surrounded with everyone trying to get into your wallet, I warned the kids ahead of time that we were going to show them something really cool, but only if they promised not to beg to do and see anything, and remind them we were extremely limited on time.

Upon getting into Circus Circus, their eyes were wide with excitement of all the sounds and smells of nightlife in Las Vegas. They walked around and saw the resort without asking any questions, taking it all in. So I did what any good dad would do…I walked over and bought them each a $10 game card to enjoy. They each played a couple games, won some prizes, and we were out of there after a quick walk through the Adventure Dome.

By the time we got into the Knott’s Berry Farm Hotel, it was approximately 8:30 pm, meaning we traveled a little over 16 hours in one day! Surprisingly, it was not too bad, as getting a really early start always helps tremendously with no one on the roads while the family sleeps.

Knott’s Berry Farm Hotel

We have stayed at the Knott’s Berry Farm Hotel on previous visits, so knew what to expect, thought this time would include a surprise for the boys on the last night of our stay as we switch from a standard 2 queen room to a Snoopy suite!

Our 2 queen room was your typical room, and we had a room on the 8th floor overlooking the pool.

Since us adults had not eaten, my wife took the kids to the pool as I dashed into the Mrs. Knott’s Chicken to Go in the Marketplace to grab some buckets of fried chicken and their amazing mashed potatoes and gravy for the win!

After an exhausting long day of driving, we needed to head to bed relatively early for a full day of Disneyland tomorrow!

National Park Road Trip: Grand Teton National Park (Part 9)

August 5, 2019InACents Leave a comment

Before diving into Grand Teton National Park, I wanted to briefly recap some thoughts on the Yellowstone portion of the trip. Planning for the trip, we had no idea what to fully expect when visiting Yellowstone. Having had booked overnight accommodations so far in advance and being locked into them since most places were sold out well in advance, we needed to fit everything in within a limited time frame.

My initial trepidation was we were not going to get to fully experience the full breadth of Yellowstone within two days. Were we going to regret not spending more time in the park?

In the end we spent about a day and a half within Yellowstone. By getting a very early start in the morning and using the Gypsy Yellowstone app, looking back, we felt we really did get to experience everything the park had to offer. Could there have been more time hiking and exploring? Certainly. However, we felt we crammed a lot into our time with Yellowstone, which probably felt the most hustled of all the parks we visited on this trip since there were so many sites to see.

We were very happy doing the upper loop in one day, and then the lower loop on the second day.

Looking onward to Grand Teton National Park, with no really plans on what to do or see, we felt this would be our time to relax and casually experience the park before heading home…or so we thought.

Grand Teton National Park

Using the Gypsy app, we casually were routing to our accommodations at the Colter Bay Village. The app is a fantastic tool for experiencing the parks. During our experience using the app, only one time did the guide recommend we stop for a meal, and that was at Leek’s Marina and Pizzeria just north of Colter Bay.

The cute little marina was home to a great view of the Grand Teton mountain range, Jackson Lake, and a fantastic array of fresh made pizza. We highly, highly recommend the buffalo cheese bread!

When booking accommodations in the Grand Tetons, we booked the tent cabins at the Colter Bay Village resort because they were a reasonable $76 per night. Our initial plan was to try and “rough” it as much as we could on the trip, so getting a minimalist tent cabin with pull-down bunks seemed like a decent option. However, by this portion in the trip, we had gotten pretty fortunate to stay in some really nice cabins, and the idea of sleeping on a thin mattress over a concrete floor did not meet our families needs.

We checked into the resort and while we could have made it work, it was not ideal. The tent cabin was likely ideal for those young campers who were out hiking all day and happy to have a place to crash for the night. It just was not ideal for our family, as all I could think about was one of our kids rolling out of their bed onto the concrete.

So we immediately went to see if we had other options. Shockingly, we were able to get two nights in a cabin down the road at the Jackson Lake Lodge. I figured there would be no way to get another room given things book so far in advance and this was the weekend before the fourth of July. So we quickly switched our reservation to a Classic 2 Queen Cottage, which was perfect!

The only problem we had to contend with was the sticker shock, which at that point was what it was. The room was over $300/night, by far the largest cash outlay we had ever paid for accommodations.

In the end, the accommodations at the Jackson Lake Lodge were probably one of my personal favorites the entire trip. The cottages surround the lodge and are a short walk to the great outdoor pool area, which our family used on both nights of our stay.

The lodge also offered various dining options, which we really enjoyed the Pioneer Grill, which in its diner setting, offered a more casual, and family friendly variety of menu options. We considered trying their Pool BBQ, but it was a tad too pricey to be worth it.

After a good nights rest, we set off the next morning to start exploring the Grand Teton National Park.

Grand Teton National Park

Shortly after getting on the road the next morning, my wife decided to put the bug in my ear of what would change the direction of the entire trip. Her casual dropping of “it is only 14 hours to drive to Los Angeles” and get to see Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm, immediately changed my focus, and I knew if we were even slightly serious, we were going to have to jump on canceling future overnight accommodations and rebooking new ones. Plus, the whole idea of 14+ hours in the vehicle further west when we were supposed to be headed towards home.

Our first stop of the day was on top of Signal Mountain to get some good panoramic views of the Grand Teton valley. So there I was trying desperately to get a cell phone signal (despite standing next to a tower on the mountain) to call our campground for the next night to see what our options were for cancelling. We got very fortunate that they worked with us and allowed us to cancel without a fee despite being last minute. All other accommodations for the remainder of the trip were still outside of the cancellation deadline, so we could easily do those within their apps.

So now, to plan for the next portion of the trip…this was supposed to be a relaxed day in the Grand Tetons, wasn’t it?

Without much of a cell signal, we had to find another location to find our options near Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm. So we ventured further down the road and eventually made our way to Jenny Lake Lodge, which gave me the wifi I needed to make some calls and get everything else booked.

Were we really doing this? Were we really going to push our travels out all the way to the west coast? My wife had already figured out what one day park hopper tickets would cost for Disneyland plus the added cost of MaxPass to help get us on everything we wanted. Ouch!

We will dive more into that portion of the trip in detail in subsequent trip reports, but long story short, when we visit the area we prefer to stay at the Knott’s Berry Farm Hotel. It offers a great location and accommodations adjacent to the park, and an easy drive down the street to Disneyland. So they were able to get us 3 nights in the hotel, including one night in their Snoopy Suite as a surprise for our boys. This was also quite surprising given it was the week of fourth of July, but it worked out in our favor in the end.

So now with the future of our trip traced out, we were on to enjoy our day in the Grand Tetons.

The mountain range was stunning, and we casually drove throughout the region, enjoying various views. The highlight for all of us was we eventually made our way back to Colter Bay to do some laundry and enjoy a day relaxing on the Jackson Lake beach on the west end of the property.

While the beach consisted of stones and not sand, it provided terrific and relaxing views of the mountains and the waters were calm and fantastic for the boys to enjoy. We ended up spending several hours here which was well worth it to relax after such a great trip and with so much new ahead.

After a fantastic day in the Grand Tetons, we opted to grab a nice dinner at The Ranch House Restaurant at Colter Bay Village, which I was delighted to get the vegetarian Curry Cauliflower Toss.

Tomorrow we get up bright and early for the longest continuous car ride for our family in one day.

National Park Road Trip: Yellowstone Day 2 (Part 8)

August 5, 2019InACents Leave a comment

After our family’s first full day in Yellowstone, and only seeing the northern half of sites, I was quite surprised just how much there was to see and do. I am also very thankful that my wife opted to download the Gypsy Yellowstone app, as it proved to be an invaluable tool in making sure we saw the most important sites within the park.

Going into the park with little expectations, it was quite exhausting with so many sites to see. It is also quite astonishing how many different landscapes there are to see within Yellowstone. One area will be dense forest, and then the next area you go are boiling mud pots, or barren geyser basins. I could only imagine what earlier pioneers thought upon discovering the beauty of Yellowstone.

Artists’ Paintpots

Probably one of my personal favorite spots within Yellowstone was the Artists’ Paintpots. We got a really early start and arrived at this site at 6:45 in the morning. We were the only ones in the parking lot, at least for a couple moments, and started to make the 1-mile hike back to the site.

Being so early made for some cool scenes with the fog in the partially burned lodgepole forest.

Watching the various boiling pods of water and bubbling mud so close was fascinating!

We ended up spending roughly an hour hiking the trail and enjoying the various scenes, especially since for the most part we had the trail to ourselves.

Following Artists Paintpots, we continued on the journey south and made a quick stop at Gibbon Falls to see the cascading water.

Fountain Paint Pots

At the recommendation of the Gypsy app, we decided to do the short hike and explore the various formations at the Fountain Paint Pots site. The boardwalk gets you up close to various sites, some with boiling water, others gushing steam.

The Clepsydra Geyser was erupting rather violently, but the steam coming out of the formation made for it being rather difficult to actually see anything.

Also near the Fountain Paint Pots was a little road that tended to be well worth investigating, that took us to White Dome Geyser and Pink Cone Geyser.

We happen to be driving through just before 9:00 am and were one of very few cars on the trail. We also got extremely lucky to see Pink Cone Geyser going off for an extended period of time. Apparently this only erupts approximately every 16 hours or so, and you can pull up practically besides the geyser, which was fascinating to watch.

Grand Prismatic

One of the areas we were excited to see was the Grand Prismatic spring in Yellowstone for its beautiful color arrangement.

The short hike from the parking lots takes guests past Excelsior Geyser Crater, which used to be very active but has remained relatively dormant for quite a while.

The boardwalk than takes guests near the Grand Prismatic spring.

While pretty cool to see, you do not really get a good perspective of the colors being at ground level. If the wind blows the steam in the right direction, you might get a glimpse of the colors of the rainbow. However, overall the views were pretty unimpressive.

They really should consider building a higher up platform to really get a good angle looking down into the spring. We hear there might be a trail in the hills behind the spring, but we did not have time to fully explore more.

Old Faithful Geyser

By this point in the day, it was a little past 10:00 am when we arrived at the Old Faithful Geyser site. This massive facility was packed full of vehicles and probably one of the busiest sites we saw the entire time in Yellowstone.

The kids quickly accomplished their Jr Ranger badges and by a couple minutes past 11:00 am, the Old Faithful geyser started to go off in a very quick and small display of power.

So we explored the Old Faithful Inn, had a quick bite to eat, and sat on the deck waiting until the next eruption at 12:49 pm. Fortunately this show was way better than the prior and we could move on with our adventure.

Old Faithful was our last official stop in Yellowstone as we then made our way to Grand Teton National Park.

However, we made one last unexpected stop at the Continental Divide sign, which while nothing spectacular to most, was pretty cool to say we were there.

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Trip Report

National Park Road Trip: California or Bust (Part 10)

Knott’s Berry Farm Hotel

National Park Road Trip: Grand Teton National Park (Part 9)

Grand Teton National Park

Grand Teton National Park

National Park Road Trip: Yellowstone Day 2 (Part 8)

Artists’ Paintpots

Fountain Paint Pots

Grand Prismatic

Old Faithful Geyser