Yellowstone, Part 1
So in 2018 we had a pretty good year. I was still working my full time job but we had booked a lot of sporting events on the side. At the time that's all my photography was, just on the side. But it was still our best year at that time. After all the hard work put in learning the last few years, shooting different events and learning more as we went along, we needed a reward! I didn't want to go up north or anything like that, it had to be someplace new. After looking at the map....Yellowstone National Park! One of those places that is an absolute dream vacation! Now it was time to start planning. 2019 started off with planning a road trip! How does it get better than that? You'll hear me say we in this Blog a lot. That's cause I had invited my dad to go along with me. What's the point of going on such an awesome trip and not having anyone to enjoy it with?!
Their was a lot of stuff to get figured out. What time of year to go, drive or fly, where to stay, the list go's on and on. Researching online will be a life saver for you. Between peoples personal blog's if you search "Yellowstone National Park" on Google, video's on YouTube and the park website itself should give you just about everything you need to know. But I'll give you a few of the things I picked up while planning our trip.
The very 1st thing, get bear spray. Every blog, video, v log will tell you to get bear spray. And because once you get out their, they (everyone) recommends taking your bear spray every where you go. You can rent it from the park when you get out their or you can just order it online and have it shipped to your door. Each person needs to have a can of it on them. Don't get the cheap stuff either. The stuff everyone, including the park Rangers uses is called Counter Assault. Seriously, coming from Michigan, I don't know crap about bears. So if that's what the Park Rangers use, Ill take their word that its the best.
The 2nd thing is figuring out where your going to stay? You can camp in the park or they do have cottages you can rent. I wasn't going to camp. I needed electricity to charge camera batteries and dump photo's from memory cards onto my laptop. And the Army pretty much ruined me for EVER wanting to camp in my life ever again. Not gonna happen. If your going to stay in a cottage in the park, you need to book it about a year in advance. We found an awesome little place, about a mile away from the North East entrance to the park called the Grizzly Lodge. It wasn't super fancy, but it had everything we needed. A coffee pot, microwave, 2 warm beds and hot water. And it was way cheaper than staying in the park. The view around this place was amazing. We had mountains all around us and also we were high enough up to be in the clouds. By far one of the coolest places Ive ever stayed. One morning on the way to the park we had a momma Moose and baby Moose run across the road in front of us, less than 50 yards after we pulled out of the drive way. We were still getting situated in the truck with our coffee when it happened. Caught us both completely off guard but was really awesome to see.
3rd and final thing, before you go. If you are scared of heights or driving on super twisted mountains, this is NOT place for you to go. Just about every where you go in the park you will be driving up, on and around mountains. The Bear Tooth Pass coming in on the North East was especially nerve racking. Super awesome to see.....once! If I ever get the chance to go back to Yellowstone National Park, I wont be going that route. As cool as it was to see, it's one of those experiences that I need once. My dad or myself had no idea what we were getting into.
When I say Yellowstone National Park is a dream vacation, it really was. I have watched shows from National Geographic on it, I mean it's like an amusement park for people that love the outdoors. It was someplace that I had been wanting to go my whole life. Their is thousands of miles of trails you can hike. You can stay on flat ground or hike up mountains. Plus the possibility of all the wildlife that you might see. Thank you for reading part 1, we'll get started writing part 2 soon. In the meantime, click on the photo below to view the gallery from our trip!
