Family Adventure – USA style!
Starting and ending in Denver, our road trip took us to some iconic destinations. Some may say that a three week road trip with a 5 and 7 year old is madness…but I beg to differ and my children had a great experience! The American Midwest is one of my favourite landscapes, the people are so friendly and the bears are not so scary (if kept at a distance)!
Our first destination after we picked up our (large to us but small by American standards) SUV was Yellowstone National Park. It is some drive from Denver, around 12 hours, which we covered over 2 days. There is no getting away from it, it’s a long way, miles and miles of empty Wyoming plain dotted with small herds of bison, deer, cows and sheep. But the miles soon pass and we arrived at our log cabin just by the NE entrance to the park, our home for 3 nights. Almost off the grid, with no TV and no WiFi, our cosy cabin was perfectly located to explore Yellowstone. We were even visited one evening by a lone bison! I would like to impress on you the sheer size of Yellowstone National Park. It is vast. It can take 3 hours to drive from one side to the other. Luckily I had prepared for this and divided the park up into 3 manageable days. There is so much to see and the possibilities are endless. There are steaming geysers, stunning rivers, mountains to hike, back country camping, hot rivers to swim in, weird and wonderful geological formations to ogle! And the wildlife…well its amazing. We saw great herds of bison, and got stuck in a few slow-moving ones, 2 bears in the wild, elk, bighorn sheep and pronghorn to mention a few.
West Yellowstone was our second stop in the park, where we went to the Grizzly and Wolf Rescue Centre. After a one-night stop in West Yellowstone we left the park, heading south towards Jackson. On the way stopping off to swim in the stunning Jackson Lake with the Teton mountains as the backdrop. My new favourite place for a wild swim! The famous cowboy town of Jackson is buzzing, with a real upmarket feel, designer shops and renowned restaurants. We stayed in a lovely hotel which had a great swimming pool. If you time it well and are in Jackson on the right night then you can go to the Rodeo. This is an absolute must, it really is. It is a proper Rodeo, not put on for the tourists, and the children loved it! The bull riding, the horse riding, lassoing, it was all incredible. Next time I am in Jackson I would like to get involved in the adventurous activities that are on offer, downhill mountain biking to name one, or skiing if it is Winter. There is also a plethora of hiking trails in the Tetons and they really are beautiful mountains.
After a couple of days (which could have easily been a couple of weeks) in Jackson we head further south to Park City near Salt Lake City, Utah. Temperatures are on the rise now, edging 90 degrees. Park City was just a stop off on our way to the desert, but while here we did treat the children to a day at the Mountain Resort where there are mountain coasters, rope courses, chair rides, zip lines, trampolines. There is the Olympic Park here too, which would be more suitable to older children. After a recharge here it was back in the car for the 4/5 hour drive to Moab. Moab is known as a multi-sport Mecca as there is so much to do here! It is located on the Colorado River and next to Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, so you can do everything from rafting to 4x4 tours. After the long hot drive we reached Moab and the car told us it was 102 degrees!! Yikes. We were staying for 3 nights, how would we all cope…!? Luckily I had booked us into this amazing little ranch that was literally an oasis in the desert. It had a natural spring which had enabled the owners to carefully landscape an area of trees and pools to keep cool, complete with a swimming pool and hammocks. We took the opportunity one morning to get up early and get into Arches National Park for an explore. This could only really done early, as by 10am it was getting hot again and time to escape back to the little oasis. Red rock, sunsets and relaxation were the order of play in Moab, too hot to do anything else! Oh that, and a little hunting for Native rock art and dinosaur footprints!
Then it was back to Colorado, stopping at Glenwood Springs on the way and driving through the mountain resorts of Vail and Breckenridge. Glenwood Springs is well known for its hot springs and there are plenty of opportunities locally to have a dip in the warm waters. Rafting is also big business here and I lost count of the number of rafting trips we saw on our drive through! Back in Denver after two weeks on the road it was starting to feel like home and it was time to journey south to our friends’ cabin in the mountains. Pure fun ensued, driving ATV’s in the hills at night, staring at star filled skies in the silence, taking the children on an ATV adventure, shooting guns (safely) and getting to know the locals! After 4 days we were all covered in dust, the children needing 3 baths to return to clean!
Things I loved about this road trip; the varied and beautiful scenery in this part of the USA, there is always something different to look at; the amount of wildlife, just roaming free; the friendly locals; the blue sky weather; the big skies. My overriding impression is of a place where one can be free, where there is no curtailing, where parking is free and nowhere is too busy! You can definitely find a little slice of heaven here, I already miss that cabin in the woods!
It was an amazing holiday, one which I hope the children will remember (at least the older one), but I would say its not for the feint hearted. The distances are large but the driving is easy and as long as you prepare then time in the car or RV can be mostly painless, even with younger children. I would 100% recommend it! Get in touch if you want more advice and Enjoy the photos!
