Yellowstone ........ Well sort of :(

We headed north from Colorado to try and see Yellowstone National Park before it closed for the season. We had around 4 days until it was scheduled to shut so we jumped in the car and headed to Jackson Hole. Unfortunately, the night before we had grabbed a pizza after trick or treating and I was feeling a little off. This made the 8hr drive a struggle as I was unable to keep down anything including water, we had to make a number of stops so I could “empty my system”. I still ended up driving the whole way, as Dee wasn’t listed as a driver and didn’t feel confident driving in the winding, windy and icy conditions through Wyoming.

White wonderland

When we finally arrived, I was so exhausted! We managed to stop and pick up some medication to stop the vomiting and some hydrolyte which I could only just sip to avoid it coming back up. Dee was also starting to feel sick, so we decided to have an early night. When we awoke the next morning, there was around 6 to 8 inches of snow everywhere, this had unfortunately caused the closure of the Yellowstone park roads. We weren’t too upset though as we weren’t yet completely over the illness from the day before. Dee and I spent most of the day laying back in the hotel room while Lilly and Kobe played just outside the room building and having snowball fights.

Kobe and Lilly’s snowman

The following day we left Jackson Hole to head around the side of the park to West Yellowstone. We thought we would have a better chance on getting into the park as the roads were still open on that side. During our drive around, it continued to snow and when we arrived the park entrance was also closed on this side as well. We had booked two days here, so we headed off to the Bear and Wolf Discovery centre as it was the only thing that was still open. We wandered around checking out the enclosures, all the time the snow continued to fall. They have some great displays there and even though it was cold we enjoyed checking out the Bears, Wolves and other animals. The next morning, we woke to even more snow which ended our hopes of getting into the park. We decided to take a drive up the edge of the park where a small section of the highway crossed into it. It was a nice drive through that section and nice and slow due to all the snow and ice one the roads. We did manage to see a coyote running across an open section of the park. We took a walk around town in a bit of a snow storm but as the park season was coming to an end a lot of the business and attractions were closed.

Quake Lake

it was cold!!

Bear and Wolf Discovery center

We had planned on visiting a few small academies that were in some of the towns further north, unfortunately the weather forecast was more severe snowstorms for the next few days. We made a last-minute decision to head towards Seattle and try to get there before the severe weather on the forecast really set in. We headed off in the morning along completely whited out landscapes and snow-covered roads. We drove the rest of the day through Montana in snow, ice and rain. There were definitely some white-knuckle moments during the drive as Dee and I were constantly amazed at how fast and the risks some drivers took, but I suppose they are familiar with these types of conditions.

Yellowstone

Driving conditions were a bit sketchy at times

We stayed the night in Spokane where it was also snowing when we arrived, thankfully the next morning the weather had warmed up a bit and melted a lot of the snow on the road. We drove through to Washington State stopping at a few of the natural attractions. We visited the Petrified Forest which wasn’t really a forest at all, but a heap of fossilised sections of trees. It was very interesting and other than the museum being closed it was a great stop to break up the trip. Washington State is quite beautiful and a very scenic drive with an always changing landscape.