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Published: January 30th 2017
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When you get a wedding invitation to your brother,s wedding in Great Falls,MT and you live in Riverside,CA what do you do???? Plan a road trip!
First step! Rent a car (Chevy Eqinox) and buy camping gear! My husband (Justin) and I decided on a spontaneous road trip taking us through some of the destinations we had always dreamed of going to. Zion National Park, Yellowstone National Park and Great Falls, MT. We began our trip at 3:30 am on a Tuesday in July 2016. We left Riverside,Ca headed twords Zion National Park in Utah. We planned on camping overnight at the Wathchmam campground. We booked our space the night before for a river front campsite $35.00 a night. So worth it for how beautiful our campsite was. We arrived at about 11am. Checked in, set up camp and got to the travel shuttles to head towards the emerald pools trail and the grotto trail. We ended the first day at the Zion brewing co. With a nice dinner and yummy yummy beer. They have a pomegranate sour that will knock your socks off. The Brewery is located near the main market right at the park entrance. Just a quick walk
from our campsite.
One thing I have to say about Zion in the middle of July... HOTT!!!!! We spent the night struggling to sleep because of how hot and sticky we were. We woke up early the next morning and knocked out all of the remaining trails besides Angels Landing. A little too hardcore for us. We ended that night again at the brewery where we were surprised by the small rain storm we got. It was hot and rainy but only lasted a few minutes! I will never forget that night. The rocks were beautiful from the brewery patio and we easily drank 2 pitchers of beer while we talked about the last two days and how we want to bring our kids back someday.
We went back to the campsite and put our chairs in the river and drank beers until it was dark. We struggled to sleep in the heat again and we knew we had to wake up early to leave for Yellowstone. We sat in the car's air conditioning and that wasn't helping so we decided at midnight to pack up camp and head to Yellowstone where we knew it was a full 30 degrees
cooler!
It was the longest stretch for us. We headed to Yellowstone in Wyoming. We got lost for two hours in Idaho going the wrong direction, we got stopped for 30 minutes at a road closure. We finally heard Siri say we would arrive at Yellowstone in 1.5 miles. This was so exciting considering we had been driving for 12 hours with only two bathroom stops. Little did we know... Yellowstone was 161 miles around and there was no phone service so we would need to use a paper map to get us to our campsite 90 miles in. Oh man! Oh and did I mention I booked us a one night campsite for $25.00 a night on the way up while we were lost in Idaho? We finally arrived at our campsite at 3:00pm... don't forget we left Zion the night before at midnight. That's right! 16 hours! We ate sandwiches and set up camp during a raging wind storm! We took a small nap because we were afraid if we left the wind would take our tent! We ended up leaving to explore some of the gysers and ate cheeseburgers at a small diner in the back of
the gift shop.
We were so happy that the weather was cool so we could set up a campfire and make some s'mores. The next morning we had to go to the campsite office to see if we could stay in our spot and book another night. Unfortunately not. We had to pack up our tent and move about 4 spots down. We set up camp again and then we set out to explore the whole park.
We left at 9 am. Grabbed breakfast and coffee at the same diner and set out. We saw every site to see and not to mention 100's of bison! We made it back to our campsite at about 4pm. We decided to head back to the diner for another dinner and then back to camp to enjoy our last night. We sat by the fire for 5 hours flirting and looking back at our crazy trip! We went to bed at about 10:30 pm so we could wake up early to break down camp and head to Montana! We were so scared breaking down our tent in the dark at 4am. Bears? Bison? anything could walk up to us at any moment.
We
set out for Montana! Surprisingly we arrived around 11 am. Only to find, our much dreamed of hotel room wasn't ready and our rental car needed an oil change! What!? We went to get an oil change while we waited for a room. Don't forget, we hadn't showered since Tuesday... it's now Saturday and we were exhausted. Needless to say. I was cranky! We got a call at 1pm that our room was ready! Yay! We headed back to the hotel for a much needed shower and nap! The wedding was at 6pm and we got there by 4 for pictures! Yes we are champs!!! We left the wedding a bit early so we could get some rest before our long trek home! We woke up at 7am and headed home! We drove straight home! From Great Falls,MT to Riverside,CA in 16 hours! It was the best trip of our lives so far! We wouldn't change a thing. The hot sleepless nights, the long hours in the car and the embarrassing paper towel tent baths.... let's just say we bonded haha. Best trip ever with the love of my life! #dandjrunaway #laytonsinlove
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