ROAD TRIP OUT WEST!!!

I recently went on a road trip out west to see National Parks with my best friend who was moving to Wyoming. The biggest of which was the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone. With stops along the way to Denver, Colorado National Monument, Dinosaur National Monument, and Flaming Gorge.

We drove to Denver first to stay the night. We didn’t get much time there and I really want to go back. It is such a pretty city and has so much to do. There are plenty of museums and a really great outdoor mall called 16th street. If you are looking to stay in Denver I would suggest staying near the 16th street mall. It has a lot of places within walking distance. We stayed at the Comfort Inn which was very well priced for the area. And def check out the Blue Bear if you are there by the convention center, it’s huge.

Next we did a couple small side trips to Red Rock and Leadville on our way to the Colorado National Monument. We got to  see the Rockies and a neat little town called Leadville on the way to CNM along with amazing views at Red Rock.

We camped in Grand Junction and then drove through the Colorado National Monument the next day. I asked around about the monument and none of my friends who had been to Colorado had been there. Even people who  lived in Colorado had not been there. I was a little worried it wouldn’t be that great. It turned out to be AWESOME!!! I highly recommend driving through it if you are in Colorado. It is a 23 mile drive up and down the mountain. The views are breathtaking and there are over 20 stops and overlooks. There are also several trails and a visitor center along with camping. I would love to go back there and hike around.

After the monument we drove to Flaming Gorge stoping at Dinosaur National Monument on the way. It was a pretty drive along the way and both places for the monument were on the way. The Quarry was interesting and the museum in the next town was nice as well.

At the end of the day we camped at Flaming Gorge which is so pretty! There are campsites with bathrooms & showers which are around $25 or you can camp by the Gorge for $10 which is what we did. It was beautiful and prong horned antelope will literally walk right up to you by the Gorge. There is also a great restaurant close by that we ate breakfast at.

Then it was off to the Grand Tetons with an overnight stop along the way in Jackson Hole!!  Jackson is an amazing little town right next to Grand Teton Village. I recommend staying there, it is a great town to walk around in. The Grand Teton village is a short drive from Jackson hole and has several trams to ride to the top of the mountain! There are amazing views at the top and a restaurant to eat at. On the way to the Grand Teton Village from Jackson is the Walton Ranch where John Walton lived with his wife before he passed away. It is on the right and has a cool fence and sign.

Now to see the Tetons! They are just as Awesome as everyone says. We took the teton park road to get to see the best parts of the Tetons. They were beautiful!! Along the way we stopped at Jenny Lake which is one of the clearest waters in the world. Then we stopped to get some more amazing pictures of the mountain before making one last stop at Jackson lake.

We made it through the Grand Tetons after several stops we were in Yellowstone! It is way bigger then I thought an involves a lot of driving. There are tons of wild animals and you will definitely see buffalo and elk while you are there and maybe a bear if you are lucky (or unlucky). Along with the trees that were burned in the many fires that have hit the park, it is sad to see them for miles. Just to give a heads up if you want to take an amazing picture of grand prismatic like you see in photos it is a 5.2 mile hike. You can see it close up and actually touch it with a short hike but as you will see from my photos it is covered in fog and hard to photograph. There are several springs to see there along with the geysers. The most famous being Old Faithful which goes off every hour or so. Some of the other pretty pictured springs are only pretty during certain parts of the year like the artist paint pots which had some dry spots when we were there. We ended up camping at Yellowstone as well and this involves a warning not for bears but for freezing! We camped in June and it ended up being 20 degrees at night and we woke up to it snowing. We didn’t get eaten by bears while we camped so that was a plus. It was amazing to see Yellowstone but there were more disappointments there than any other place we saw. Mainly due to only having a day. Overall is was good and you need to see Yellowstone once in your life for sure. I would recommend spending a few days so you can see the park properly.