Day 3: Headed to Yellowstone

Day 3: Drive to West Yellowstone

An early wake up and delicious breakfast with Anna and Bob at The Coffee Cafe!! Nice people and seems to be a locals joint.

We then caravanned onto Twin Falls (2.5 hours from Kuna, Idaho) to see Shoshone Falls.

📍Native land of the Shoshone Bannock Tribe.

WOW! What a beautiful place! Often referred to as the Niagara of the West, Shoshone Falls is a must see. At 212 feet tall and 900 foot wide, Shoshone Falls is one of the largest natural waterfalls in the United States surpassing the height of the famous Niagara Falls. Take your time to walk around and see the falls at all the different angels and if you’re lucky you might also see a stunning rainbow 🌈 at the foot of the falls.

People here were social distancing, some with masks, some without, but everyone was respecting each other’s personal space.

Afterwards we got a hot tip on a local eatery call “Sip & Sweets” where you can make your own sodas, teas, and well, some of the most amazing cookie varieties! We left with a scoop cookie of chocolate chip and a Nutella peanut butter! 😳 There goes my weight loss efforts, haha! It’s all about balance! 😂Thank you for the tip Kara Rose!!

At 1:30pm we said our sweet good-byes and many thank yous to Anna and Bob for their lovely hospitality and Ken and I headed on our 5 hour trek to West Yellowstone.

Can I just say how much I love a road trip? We set out with our plethora of road trip snacks (trail mix, fruits, crackers, popcorn, etc) and hit the open road! Ken does a lot of the driving so that I can take photos and work on my blog. I make sure he stays awake, hydrated, and happy! I think we make a pretty good team.

Music 🎶 is also necessary on a long road trip! We have an unwritten rule that whomever is driving, chooses the music; seems fair! So Ken is driving at the moment and his music picks range anywhere from Seals & Croft’s to Eric B & Rakim. Maybe a little Jilly from Philly, a bit of Allen Stone, tossed with a side of Blue Magic! He fondly remembers the road trips he would take with his family back and forth from California to Sikeston, Missouri every summer. A lot of his music now reflects what they would listen to in the car during those long road trips; on an 8 track nonetheless; let’s not forget that important nugget of musical history. Other musicians that make a debut on his playlist are Marvin Gaye, The Doobie Brothers, The Staple Singers, O’Jays and Sly & The Family Stone just to name a few. I love to see him grin from ear to ear when a certain song comes on and he shares a story around it.

Well we continued to drive thru countless farms, flat lands, and while Idaho is a small state, man it seemed to take forever to get through. At one point we hit a cloud of bugs; so many it sounded like it was raining as they hit our windshield with 💥blast and splat💥 velocity! Yikes!

We eventually crossed over into Montana, the topography changed to a more mountainous landscape, trees, and golden meadows. We carried onto Wyoming as we traveled north to Mammoth Hot Springs. On our way we saw elegant elk, bold buffalo and a BIG beaver. I honestly never knew they were that big.

We saw so many places to stop along the way but wanted to get to our destination before dark. We did however stop at Gibbon falls. As the sign reads, “Volcanic history surrounds you. When the Yellowstone volante erupted about 640,000 years ago, untold volumes of volcanic ash was spewed forth. Intense heat welded the mountains of ash into rock called Lava Creek Tuff. The Gibbon River rushes towards you through a canyon of Lava Creek Tuff. Tuff formed the hillsides high above the river. The road behind you cuts through a wall of Tuff strewn with rocks that were deposited by the Yellowstone ice cap around 14,000 – 16,000 years ago.”

We carried on and finally arrived at the hot springs, to a herd of elk with their babies surrounding the hotel. It was so cool! We carefully parked and walked in, got checked in and went to our room.

Our room is so cute! I highly recommend the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel. It was built in 1913, and has had a major overhaul, but they kept a lot of the old charm. A claw foot bathtub, button switches, and even a sweet bar of soap in the shape of a bear! Adorbs! From the bedroom window we can watch the elk below. I’d say this is a pretty perfect place to lay our heads for a few nights!

No TV here and intermittent wifi so off to bed we go. Have a good one everyone! Until tomorrow…

Update to Day 3, it’s about 11:45pm and we’re headed to bed, and Ken comes out of the bathroom and says “do you hear that, it sounds like a fricken whale, like a whale under the water!!”. We sat in the bathroom and kept listening, it was the Elk, what an amazing and beautiful sound to hear! It really does sound like some sort of whale; Incredible. I will try and load it up onto the site.
Okay, goodnight again!