Trip Report: The Perfect Family Trip, Northwest 2016

[tragusa3]

In a groove...

I believe we are becoming accustomed to this lifestyle. Just 3 short years ago, my wife and I had never taken more than a week in a row off. Not for 20 years. There's been a change, and it's for the better! In the last 3 years, we have traveled over 20k miles, covered over 30 National Parks and probably as many states. This is a travel resume' that I didn't think in my lifetime would be possible. I had even convinced myself that travel was for "other people". People with time, that I'd never have.

Well, life and circumstances change. My family has been blessed. Not with riches, but with love and time...the all elusive TIME.

We just returned from another epic 40'ish day summer! Another "Perfect Family Trip"! This year took us to the Northwest. We covered parks that many would put near the top of their rankings. The cornerstones were Yellowstone and Glacier. We traveled almost 7k miles. And once again, we had our cameras by our side the entire way.

The thread in my signature titled "Southwest 2014: The Perfect Family Trip" was so rewarding for me. I enjoyed sharing, I enjoyed the feedback and comments, and I learned from the input. I hope to cover this trip as well as the first, and I hope for the same rewarding participation. Please join in.

We've had a different philosophy on this trip, and didn't know how it might change the experience. For SW2014, I had researched and planed down to the gnat's eyelash. 90% of our nights were reserved, and 90% of our daily itineraries were decided. In other words, the trip was intentional. This year, I'm not sure why the change, but we researched very little and planned even less. Of course, we had reservations for Yellowstone and Glacier, but the rest of our nights were left to the wind. We also had zero itineraries planned. We weren't even sure what was in the parks until we went to the visitors centers. Both strategies have pros and cons, and we now think we understand them better.

June 3rd was my last day of school. We finally left the house of June 4th. Our itinerary would be the following:

1. Grand Tetons
2. Yellowstone
3. Glacier
4. Black Hills
5. Badlands

Much fewer parks than SW2014. We tried to fill in-between parks with whatever we came across. At times we did well and at others we struggled to find anything. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

In the first 3 days, we logged in some heavy miles. Day 1 was about 480. Day 2 was 575. Day 3 was somewhere around 500. It wasn't in the plan that way, but I was feeling good. We stayed in a campground the first night (due to it being hot), but the next few would all be Walmarts or Cabelas.

We high tailed it like this until we hit western Nebraska. We were on I80 and came into Chimney Rock and Scott's Bluff. Thanks to my planning thread, we knew we would come across these and were ready to slow down.

I am out of town right now and don't have access to my photos, so, I'll stop here until I get back home. We weren't home a week when I decided to drive 1500 more miles to see my parents for a bit before the school year started. I'm a gluten for punishment.

Again, I look forward to this thread. I'll post lots of pictures, but it will take time. Bear with me. Speaking of bears... 🙂

[tragusa3]

I hear ya Hanes!

Here's the deal. I've been working tirelessly at editing the videos for the trip. We'll be around family for the holidays and I wanted to have them done by then. I've got one final installment to work on. This trip ended up being 12 installments of about 25 minutes a piece.

I've been getting hugely interested in the hobby of shooting video and editing. I don't seem to watch tv much anymore, instead I watch creative youtube vloggers for ideas, etc. My goal would be to get as good as Casey Neistat. Look him up on youtube His Page HERE and you'll see the style I'm shooting for. I'm a long ways from it. I'm not as entertaining in front of a camera, and I'm not as talented at editing. Hanes, seeing your posts throughout the years, I bet you'd be good at it.

The short of it is, I may be just a few weeks from finishing my videos and can then finish out posting here. For those that haven't done a trip report, you may not realize that it can be so time consuming.

[Hanesworthy]

Yo Tony!

I been keepin' my eyes peeled here for more of your family trip updates, cuz as you may recall I take family business very seriously. Me and da boys are sorely disappointed lately, and we aren't very good with disappointment - if you catch my drift! Just sayin'.




Maybe during the upcoming Thanksgiving Break?

[floridacamper]

tragusa3 wrote:
Thanks guys.

Regarding lunch. On this entire trip we ate out a total of ONCE (a Chinese place in Cody). We always pack picnics. It saves money, sure, but that's the third reason we do it. The first is that lunch becomes part of the park experience for us. The second is that it saves time. For instance, on the Northwest loop of Yellowstone, there is a fairly long unpaved road that you can take that meanders through the rolling hills. We drove until we were far from anyone and stopped there for lunch. I'll post those pics in the next section.

Most of the time we have no trouble finding picnic tables. The main map for Yellowstone shows where you can find them. Once we waited about 15 min for one to become available. All other times, our truck tailgate is a great picnic spot. We can put it where we want it and it is always available! LOL We didn't do it on this trip, but on our last trip we brought the Coleman grill and grilled burgers and stuff while touring the parks.

I would think that in the majority of parks (at least the ones we've been to), eating lunch at restaurants is either not an option or you pay dearly for the time it takes to leave the good stuff to find food.

Hope that helps.

Thanks so much for your quick response, can't wait to hear more and to see more pics. 🙂

[michigansandzil]

tragusa3 wrote:
The first is that lunch becomes part of the park experience for us.

Agreed. We do eat out quite a bit, but our best experience in the entire week we spent in the Smokies was at a picnic area. We say that the national parks have the best picnic sections in the US.

[tragusa3]

Thanks guys.

Regarding lunch. On this entire trip we ate out a total of ONCE (a Chinese place in Cody). We always pack picnics. It saves money, sure, but that's the third reason we do it. The first is that lunch becomes part of the park experience for us. The second is that it saves time. For instance, on the Northwest loop of Yellowstone, there is a fairly long unpaved road that you can take that meanders through the rolling hills. We drove until we were far from anyone and stopped there for lunch. I'll post those pics in the next section.

Most of the time we have no trouble finding picnic tables. The main map for Yellowstone shows where you can find them. Once we waited about 15 min for one to become available. All other times, our truck tailgate is a great picnic spot. We can put it where we want it and it is always available! LOL We didn't do it on this trip, but on our last trip we brought the Coleman grill and grilled burgers and stuff while touring the parks.

I would think that in the majority of parks (at least the ones we've been to), eating lunch at restaurants is either not an option or you pay dearly for the time it takes to leave the good stuff to find food.

Hope that helps.

[floridacamper]

Thank You for your trip report, we are headed up there next May and are really enjoying your trip! Looks as tho ya'll had a great time. I do have a question tho, you said that ya'll ate lunch while out touring the four loops as you put them. Did they have picnic tables along the side of the road where you could pull over and eat your lunch? Just curious thanks again for all your work you're doing, keep it going...

[ediemarie]

more feedback: have a trip along some of your route planned for next year.
really enjoying your report.

[Hanesworthy]

tragusa3 wrote:
By the way, hello Hanes! Glad to see you're still around. 🙂

You have a good memory, my old AVS friend! I'm HT-less since moving house a few years ago, but I'm fantasizing about some form of explorations to the Southwest (like your trip last year). Since it's just me and the missus again now that the kids have almost entirely flown the coop, instead of a luxurious trailer or RV I've been eying some type of 4 wheel pickup based setup that allows us to explore the back roads/country away from the campgrounds for a few days at a time. Maybe a popup truck camper or even this cool rig.



Hey - an old guy can still dream, right? I mean, heck - if we could both pull off a HT before Logan who knows what the limits of our capabilities might be?

[tragusa3]

There were pros and cons of staying in FB the whole time. We were there around June 15th or so and would have been fine without electric. If the time of year is right that you don't need A/C, I wouldn't stay there again. I thought that the Canyon area was better located as a home base. We also like the northern half of the park better than the southern, so FB was a long drive from the things we enjoyed most. I did like the close proximity to Hayden Valley, as we went there every night to watch animals until after dark. But, the Canyon area is about as close to that.

If we made a second visit, we would probably not go to the entire southern half of the park again.

[kokotg]

Enjoying the trip report! We'll be doing Yellowstone next summer, so this installment is especially interesting to me...right now we have Fishing Bridge booked for two nights and then a few more nights in West Yellowstone. If you had it to do over again, knowing what you know now about Fishing Bridge, would you stay there again or pick a different campground?

[longdrive]

thanks for the update - we're still here reading away waiting for more

[zb39]

Love this TR. Thank you for posting it. Brings back a lot of memories of the area with our kids. We are thinking of going again(8th time) next year. Kids will be 20 and 24 then. Of course it will depend on there internships, maybe we could fly them out. Love your pics and the writeup.

[MobileBasset]

Thank you so much for this thread.

[kknowlton]

Loving this trip report! Very informative - and fun to read as well. Great pictures too!

[welove2drive]

That sounds like four tiring days! Thank you for sharing your trip. Awaiting part 2 🙂
Marcia