Getting There

Our Gear

A few days before we left we bought some essentials, for me the most important item was the cheapest pair of hiking boots in the city, because who would have wanted to hike seven miles a day in flat Nike skateboarding shoes. My friend would likely say our most important purchase was the $30 two person tent we bought from Target, but I beg to differ.

The packs, pads, and sleeping bags were Luke’s parents old gear, I’m guessing from the 80’s? These cornerstones were outdated by 20-30 years, they got the job done but were not the most comfortable doing so. The packs were remarkable, Aline by Academy Jasper vintage backpack camping nylon with aluminum frame, $100 on today’s market. We first touched them in 2017 and now they haven’t been used since 2018, I would know I still have one. In our packs we had a roll of toilet paper, a vintage Optimus white gas camp stove, white gas in a water bottle, nylon parachord, some extra clothes i.e., socks, and of course food.

Our last stop was Costco for the food we intended to live off over this journey, and I promise you it was as appetizing as it was left sitting in the car uneaten. Two large summer sausage beef sticks, two large jars of peanut butter, 14 packs of Sardines in olive oil, sweet potato crackers, other crackers, the cheapest 30 case of water in the US, instant coffee, one MRE and steak beef jerky which did not make it out of the parking lot.

The Getting

This trip technically started for me Saturday 9/30 at noon. I joined my father in attending the Chicago Cubs second to last regular season game on a company outing. Great game, the Cubs won 9-0 but I knew once I got back to South Bend the real trip was waiting for me. It was 11:30 PM when we left. The best part about making this trip with two people was rotating drivers when you were tired. Back and forth through the night, he made it out IN and through IL, I made it through IA and halfway through NE before nearly running out of gas.

A little background how I manage myself cutting across the country driving. When rolling on a 10 plus hour drive anywhere I break down my stops into time frames of gas refills, mileage until next turn, bathroom breaks, or rest. I’m no stranger to stretching a tank of gas because, why not?

When refreshing my memory on our series of events I wrote this down as the Nebraska gas fiasco. My memory says it was around 6 AM, I just passed through Lincoln, and it was finally time to fill up. I assumed it would be no problem finding a gas station when I needed one, not quite. We ended up miles off the highway down a mud road between corn fields in a packed full Ford Focus. I was following Google’s directions a square country mile to turn myself around to the nearest gas station. We eventually filled up at a one pump station, the local hang for the elderly, in Friend, NE.

We hit Denver and drove North stopping in Boulder, CO to lace up and see what these big rocks had in store. It didn’t take long to realize it was an ass kicking. Granted, this was my first-time hiking in this setting, my body was thoroughly unprepared. I suffered every step of that first mile and a half hike. It always seems faster hiking back, and in that case, it couldn’t be truer. Nothing like racing a nasty wet grey storm back to your car down a mountain. That was all the warming up I needed. We drove on.

Through Wyoming toward Yellowstone on that dark Monday morning around 4:00 AM Luke drove past a sign for Sacagawea’s Gravesite, the cemetery resides in Fort Washakie, WY. I tell him to turn around because, why not?

We approached the cemetery following another car along the path into the graveyard, odd for that time of night/morning but I thought nothing of it. We came to the end of the path and sat in our car with the head lights blasting the Sacajawea Memorial Statue. The other car pulled up behind us and put their lights on us from behind, it was the Sheriff. A nice enough guy to understand our situation as travelers passing through, he gave us a lead to the site’s location, because again it was dark. After he drove away, we got out our two little flashlights and started to walk the graveyard, 15 minutes passed, and we found nothing. I was walking through a maze of grave sites, side stepping mounds of dirt with head stones popping out of the ground everywhere.

The sheriff said we could not miss it and I believed him, it had to be a giant head stone. Still no luck, we retreated to the car. A few minutes of conversation later, we knew we couldn’t come here and not find her actual grave site, so we prepared to go back out. After a slight change of direction toward the Southwest part of the graveyard Luke finally found it. There was no mistake, it was the biggest head stone in the cemetery but that doesn’t matter when you can’t see your hand in front of your face. Even with two little handheld flashlights it must have taken us another 20 minutes to find it.

Next stop Dubois, WY.  We slid into the little village just outside the Grand Tetons as the snow started to stick. In those situations, it was hard to sleep even if you wanted to, creeping along the snowy and slushy winding inclines. I remember seeing one car give up and pull off to the side, but there we were in a Ford Focus trailing a large construction truck through the mountains. That truck led us through the dreary pass until he pulled over to a construction site.

We continued crawling along the same road for what seemed like an hour at a speed of 25-30 mph give or take. If you hadn’t noticed I decided it was a good time to take out my camera and start snapping shots. The perfect scenic overlook off the side of a mountain let us grab our breath and take in where we were. Snow was coming down casually and you couldn’t see where the forest ended, it really did look surreal.

Not far from that lookout we made it to the Moran entrance, paid $50 good for parking in the Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone National Park for 7 days. It was Monday and we still believed we would do four nights in Yellowstone, so we drove North toward Yellowstone before pulling over for a great view littered with every car passing by on the side of the road.

Jackson Lake was overwhelming. There I was, a hiking rookie staring at endless adventure. The snow-covered range towering over the lake with the clouds to match. We were giddy to get down to the water and look around, so we stopped for a break and I grabbed some of my first memorable shots of the great outdoors. We soaked it in for about 15 minutes then organized our plan. After roughly 1,600 miles we made it to the Yellowstone South Entrance.

Enjoy this video I was able to reconstruct from random clips between my Gopro and camera.  Mostly driving, quick commentary, and plenty of entertainment. Don’t forget to like, comment and share.