Yellowstone! The ultimate destination of our trip, but far from the only place we visited while we were on this big road trip west. I should back up just a bit and share how this trip actually came to be. About 8ish years ago my cousin Cathy Ritterbusch decided it had been far too long since the big family had gotten together and she set out to plan what has become the first of the Ritterbusch family reunions. We all met up in Ohio at a beautiful state park there and spent time together as a family hiking, camping and one evening there was a big celebration with food and stories and the whole thing. It was there someone decided, we should do this every two years and each time another family get's to host...to pick the location, to plan some activities and host the big family meal. Ryan and I missed the next get together, that happened in 2016, I believe in Pennsylvania. But, in 2018 Uncle Chucks girls, whom we all call the "Ritterbusch girls" offered to host the next gathering in the Outer Banks - we joined them for a few days before heading home to be with Ellyn.
It was at that reunion in the Outer Banks that Randy, on of my cousins suggested Yellowstone in 2020 and so the planning process began. The trip in 2020 was canceled, I don't need to spend time explaining why, but, it wasn't all bad because when we decided to push back a year we were able to scoop up camping site in Yellowstone (they are HARD to come by) and our trip morphed from being a 1 week fly in/out trip into the big family caravan road trip it became.
So, for lots of reasons "Yellowstone" became the name of the trip and because the family reunion was part of this leg we spent 5 whole nights in the area - the longest time we were in any one place for the entire trip. Mom and Dad and Dan McGrath all left about 10 days before we did and added the Glacier to their trip, so it wasn't until Yellowstone that we finally had the whole group together. In total, in Yellowstone we had 3 campers, 2 tents and 2 houses (in West Yellowstone) with a total of 25 people and two dogs. Not a bad turn out!!
Of all of our driving days, this one had me the most worried. First of all, it was long, nearly 500 miles. Next, we'd be driving through the mountains to get into the park, plus that's right where things start to get really remote and you use cell service and GPS service and gas stations are few and far between. Add to that all of the caution the parks and booking agents give you about making sure your camper fits in the sites and roads that are too tight for long vehicles. THEN, on top of that, add in all the news about long lines in the parks and huge gobs of people traveling through them this year. If you add that all up, you can see why I was stressed about this part of the drive.
There are a few routes to get from SD to Yellowstone, passing through Cody and the east entrance to the park but we opted to take the northern most route that took you through Dayton and the Bighorn National Forest. I'd talked with the camp host at Stockade and he recommended this route saying it would save us over an hour over the other options. Chris and Brenna opted for the more southern route, labeled as the "scenic route" on the signs leading up to the split.
And, this hike landed us our very first big group picture thanks to Kristin and her camera holder! It's not the full Ritterbusch crew, but it's a big chuck of us. Thankfully we did get ONE picture of the whole entire group together. That's posted at the very end of this post.
If I'm honest, the advice we got was bad - Chris and B made it to Cody nearly an hour before we got there, but, I know Ryan would agree when I say that we were not sad about our drive at all. It was BEAUTIFUL and, if you're willing to take the NOT fast "fast route" we took, do it. We climbed to nearly 10,000 ft (not my favorite) and the sites we saw on that drive were truly spectacular. I'd rank this piece of the drive second to our time in the Badlands. A very different view, but one that I'll remember. It rained on our drive through the mountains and I know Ryan was thankful for this big truck and air brakes. We were safe, but I was stressed and perfectly happy to be down on the other side of the mountains when we finally made it to Cody.
Tuesday was our first real day in the park and I can't believe I've been chatting your ears off this long with pictures of Old Faithful and Grand Prismatic sprinkled in here and we haven't even gotten to that part of the story! So, here we go. Tuesday we got up bright and early and headed out to Old Faithful in hopes of catching an 8:30 ish eruption.
In my last post I talked about the importance of getting to the big sites early and Old Faithful is exactly one of the places I meant. We watched Old Faithful there at the base on the boardwalk and then ventured on a short-ish hike that Ryan had found in researching the trip called Old Faithful Overlook. If I remember right it was about a two mile hike, out and back to an overlook spot where you can see Old Faithful from a little further away with FAR fewer people. We made it to the top in time to see the eruption an hour or so later (they call it Old Faithful for a reason....it erupts at exactly the time they expect it to nearly every single time).
If you plan to visit, make sure you save time to do this hike, it was well worth it. Following the hike we spent some time down on the boardwalks walking through all of the different geothermal features. Very neat...very hot! Which, reminds me. The temperatures on our trip out there ranged from 39 in the morning when we'd wake up to mid 80's by the afternoon. You'd go to bed wishing we could turn the AC on and wake up needing to turn on the heat.
After Old Faithful we decided we had enough energy (and patience) to try and hit Grand Prismatic on the same day so we hopped in the two cars and set off. Mom/Dad/Dan and Cousin Jeff in one car, us McGraths in the second. Dad pulled off to grab a parking spot along the side of the road in a LONG line of cars so we advanced forward to find a spot for ourselves. In a case of perfect timing, we'd all lost cell service in this area so by the time we made it out of our car and to what we thought was the walk to Grand Prismatic Mom and Dad were nowhere to be seen. Turns out we'd pulled off a little too soon and instead of being at Grand Prismatic itself we were actually at the beginning of the overlook hike. Having made it that far (and parked nearly a mile away) and without cell service to connect us, Ryan and I decided to take the kids on the hike alone and figured we'd find Mom and Dad and the others at some point. The hike was HOT and maybe a little more than the kids had in them, but we made it to the overlook and it really was very very cool to see.
We never did make it to the Grand Prismatic walk itself and it's probably the ONE thing I wished we'd have been able to make time for, but there is always next time. And, honestly, we were all tired of the crowds and the heat by the time we were done site seeing on Tuesday.
We needed a serious change of pace after our site seeing on Tuesday so Wednesday we opted for the road less traveled and met up with part of the Ritterbusch crew that was staying in West Yellowstone. They proposed a hike that was really quite close to our campground called Lone Star Geyser. If you do nothing else inside Yellowstone, do this hike! It was the perfect fit for us and the girls. The hike is listed as 5 miles long, which I immediately said we couldn't do, but it was flat, paved in some areas and Ryan was so smart to suggest we borrow Chris and Brenna's wagon. We used it to carry our food and waters but then to pull the kids when they got tired and whiny. I'm so glad we did this hike - it was one of our favorite experiences in this park.
Unlike Old Faithful it erupts less frequently (every 3-4 hours) and for much much longer, probably around 45 minutes in total. When we arrived at the geyser we found out that we had at least an hour, maybe longer to wait until it was time for it to go off so we putz'ed around the area exploring. There was a slow flowing shallow river for the kids to play in, Dad taught the kids to toss "buffalo chips" (yep...you read that right, he taught them to throw buffalo turds...a memory I'm sure they won't forget!), the explored, found strategically placed arrow heads (thanks Dad) and overall it was exactly the morning we all needed. It was nice to spend some time with the Ritterbusch group all together, catching up and chatting without the rush around, run around, stand in line, park, walk, complain parts that we'd had the day before. The kids needed this day too. A day where they could explore without being yelled at "hurry up", "no, no more stuffed animals", "be nice to your sister", "we'll get there when we get there", "put your shoes on", "get buckled", "get in the car", "get out of the car"....you all know what I mean. It happens...road trips, fun for awhile, less fun at other times.
The geyser itself was cool, but I think it was all these other things that made this hike so perfect for us. I'm thankful for the research the Ritterbusch girls did to find something even the little girls could do...something for us all which is hard when we had ages ranging from 6 (Hazel) to probably 80 (Aunt Karen - she didn't make it all the way to the geyser, but she sure did try!)
After our hike we hosted the group back at our campsite where we had cheese and crackers and guacamole and relaxed. We took them down to the shore of Yellowstone Lake - another really cool part of being at Grant Village - it was a very short walk down to the lake. Our path down jutted you right out onto a cool little sandbar (which was really more of a rock bar, than sand) where the kids could play in the water. I think Lily and Nate even got fully in and swam, but the kids just waded in skipping stones and exploring around.
Thursday was really our last big day in the park because we spent Thursday night and Friday morning in West Yellowstone for the family reunion. So, Thursday on our way out of the park we stopped at the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. Admittedly this was not on my radar of things to do, but Dad was admit that we really needed to see it and I think we're all really glad we took the time to drive up there (and left early enough to do it with fewer people). Dad says we saw this area of Yellowstone when we did this trip as kids, but I have zero memory of being here. It really was quite magnificent.
We poked around here at the Canyon for a few hours, seeing whatever we could see before the crowds got too bad and parking became impossible and then we started to make our trip west and out of the park. The thing about Yellowstone is that if you can stay inside the park, even just for a few days, you have a much better chance of seeing and doing the things on your list. Staying outside of the park, near any of the 4 entrances means that you have a minimum 2 hour drive to get to just about anything. Our campground didn't have water or electric and we were there for a total of 5 nights, which took a lot of planning and infrastructure to keep our fridges running and batteries charged, but it meant that we could get up early and get to things before everyone from outside of the park made it in. The park is manageable in the early hours of the morning. After that it's hot and crowded and the best thing you can do is find something out of the way to do.
Earlier this year when the Murphy/McGrath family was together for the first time since COVID, I forced everyone to get together for a big family photo and it's one of my favorite photos of the year. We knew we had to do the same at the family reunion and I'm so glad we did! The Karen/Jim/Chuck and Rae families are all represented here.
Our Thursday was really spent hanging out with these people, sharing stories and spending time together - it was good for all our souls. Having the youngest kids, we were the first to break from the group and head to our house. This one night was the only night we stayed in a house for the entire 17 day trip...all other evenings were spent in our camper. It was nice to have walls and doors and bedrooms and two real sized bathrooms. After putting the kids to bed us four adults (Ryan and I and my parents) sat outside on the little deck watching the sun set and reminiscing about all the good times we'd had on the trip so far. Mom and I peeled off soon after to head to bed and read but the guys stayed up to chat, as they normally do.
Less than 5 minutes later I heard Ryan whisper yelling "Girls! Come quick, there's a moose outside!". Mom and I rushed out, Abby too, she was still awake and sure enough, we watched a full size female moose trotting right in front of our house, probably less than 50 feet away from our front porch. I think Ryan would rank that as one of the coolest moments of the trip, a top for my dad as well. I am pretty sure it's the first ever wild moose I've ever seen!
Friday morning was much less eventful. We packed up, grabbed breakfast in West Yellowstone and headed back to our campsite at Grant Village. We spent one final night in Yellowstone, hanging out at our campers and exploring Yellowstone Lake a little before we left Saturday morning for the Tetons. Which, stay tuned, that's the next post that's headed your way.
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