life…Road trip to Yellowstone (day 1)

KC to WALL, SD.

Last October John and I were driving home after a 43 mile bicycle ride when a conversation started about our next summer adventure. Our thoughts turned to Yellowstone. Neither of us had ever been before, but we both had an itch for a bit of adventure. By the end of the car ride we had made a plan, researched it, and decided we were taking John’s sister and her husband with us (even though they had yet to agree). Over the next nine months we made a multitude of plans. John planned the most elaborate and organized itinerary I have ever seen. Although I teasingly called it the “clipboard of fun” it was in honestly the most epic adventure lining twelve sheets of paper. Our two trip buddies agreed to go and the four of us starting collecting a great deal of camping supplies. John put me in charge of food for the trip after I had asked him for the responsibility. Nineteen meals for four people for ten days. That was a fun grocery shopping experience. A little shout out to my mom for spending seven hours with me prepping all our meals.

Finally the day arrived where we began charting a course to Yellowstone. Four sleepy people piled into the rental and headed west. Trent said it best a few minutes into the drive, “Somewhere way over there is the Rockies.” Not quite. Roughly nine hours later we made our first adventurous stop in the Badlands National Park. Maybe it was because we had been in the car all day long or maybe the kids in us just came out, but we treated this park like it was our own personal playground!

We were only thirty minutes from our destination, but we decided to spend a few hours in the Badlands. It was way too much fun to simply drive through it. Hopefully you’ll have as much fun looking through the pictures as we had experiencing it. More to come on our adventure…