Yellowstone Hot Springs - photo by Tim

(Continued from Part One.)

Once my husband and I finally decided on Yellowstone National Park as our destination, we began to try to figure out how long of a road trip – in distance and in days – we wanted to commit ourselves to. One week seemed too short, and two weeks was too long due to limited vacation time. Finally we decided on ten days total for our entire vacation, encompassing two full weekends so that we only had to use seven total days of available vacation time. That would be enough time to get there, see the area fully, and mosey on back home via a different route than we took to get there.

That last part – the whole different route thing – spurred ANOTHER round of debate. Do we go clockwise – Arizona/Utah/Wyoming/Colorado/New Mexico/Arizona? Or do we go counter-clockwise – Arizona/Utah/Wyoming/Idaho/Nevada/Arizona? Since we’re going to be so far north into Wyoming, do we want to check out any of Southern Montana? Since we’re going to be so far west into Wyoming, do we want to check out any of Eastern Idaho?

The whole vacation planning thing, fun as it all is to me, was by this point starting to drive me a little crazy.

Keep going, click here to

Grand Tetons - image by Jay

Another TWO WEEKS went by with us hemming and hawing, researching and discussing, before we decided that clockwise was the way to go. And then it was ANOTHER week before we decided to cut New Mexico out of the loop due to time constraints. So, the final progression of states was locked down – Arizona/Utah/Wyoming/Colorado/a little bit of Utah again/Arizona.

Okay! Now it was time to get down to brass tacks. There were routes to be mapped, hotels to be booked, and plans to be made! I decided to take things in chunks, as would be their natural progression during the trip. From the Phoenix area, I had to get us up as far north toward Wyoming as could be reasonably accomplished in a straight shot. I decided we’d do a long-haul day and get up to Salt Lake City, UT on our first day of the trip. Now, as I’d mentioned earlier, that’s going to be around ten and a half hours of straight driving, over more than 650 miles. But it would be worth it to put us only 4.5 hours/275 miles from Jackson Hole, WY, which is where we’ve decided to spend the first chunk of our trip.

Jackson Hole, photo by woodleywonderworks

Once we hit Jackson Hole, we’re going to spend three nights in an inn right in Teton Village, and spend our time exploring the Grand Teton National Forest, parts of Yellowstone National Park (about an hour away), and the Jackson area in general.

By this point we’d successfully hammered out the details of the first four days of our ten-day trip. With six more days to plan out, we were still inundated with a myriad of options to consider and decisions to be made. I started feeling like it might have been a good idea to use a travel agency to plan the details from the beginning, but I was in too deep to back out now. I renewed my determination to see every last minute of our vacation planned to perfection.

To be continued, so stay tuned!