Part 2 - Cannonball Run takes a Backseat to the Adventures in the West

July 26, 2023

Over the first 2 days of our Cannonball Run, we completed the 2,000 mile drive from Manhattan, NY to Billings, MT. If you haven't seen that post yet, feel free to catch-up on it here.

Day 3 (Saturday, July 16) - Billings, MT to Yellowstone National Park

Time: 5 hours

Miles: 200 miles

When Jake and I woke up in Billings, MT at our beautiful Home2Suites, we were both still in disbelief that we had covered 19 hours/1,300 miles the previous day. We both felt accomplished and were a bit tired, but we were so excited for our drive that day to Yellowstone that it didn't matter. Here was a picture right as we were leaving the hotel and about to load the car.

We started our day at the glorious Walmart. You may wonder why we were going to Walmart. Well, Jake and I had booked a reservation at a campsite in Yellowstone National Park for the upcoming night. We did NOT bring anything related to camping in our luggage, so we created a large shopping list in Excel including:

• Tent & sleeping bags
• Bear spray
• Food
• Lamps
• Etc.

I wish that we had taken a picture of the cart because it was filled to the brim. In case you were wondering, we did not waste any of our camping supplies; everything was later donated in Los Angeles.

We decided not to purchase meats at Walmart and instead stopped at Montana Prime Meats in Billings. We bought beef sausage for the fire while camping and Bloody Mary beef jerky (the beef jerky was incredible!). It was now time to head towards the mountains...

For years, I had wanted to do Beartooth Pass in order to enter Yellowstone through the northeast entrance via Cooke City. Beartooth Pass is only open a few shorts month per year due to the high elevation and insane switchbacks on the mountain. Here are a few shots from our trip up the mountain:

This first picture was not taken by me, but illustrates how insane the road is.

In case you want to see some of the best views on one of the best possible roads, make sure to visit Beartooth Pass. The road is everything that we had hoped it would be and more. Truly one of the top highlights from our trip!

Once we made it to the top of the pass, we took the time to go on a short hike at nearly 11,000 feet of elevation. The flowers at the higher altitude were beautiful. I also decided to do a snow angel (will add the video at a later date).

We finally made our way to the northeast entrance of Yellowstone.

As we pulled into Yellowstone, Jake stated that he was really hoping to see some wildlife. Within 5 minutes we were looking at bison about as close I had ever seen them (only other time I had seen them was the last time I was in Yellowstone).

We even got to see baby bison!

We continued through the MASSIVE park to try and make it to Old Faithful before it got too late. Here were some of the views that we had:

We did pass a black bear, but I wasn't able to get a picture of it as we were driving by sadly...

Time flew by as we were driving through Yellowstone. Every time you look around, there is something new that catches your eye. Before we knew it we were at Old Faithful:

One thing I've learned from the internet; others do a better job of capturing things on video than I do. Here is a great video that provides a great representation of what we saw at Old Faithful.

We also walked around some of the other calderas near Old Faithful.

Before we left Old Faithful, Jake and I had to pickup one thing that we had forgotten at Walmart for camping: firewood. Turns out that the shop at Old Faithful sells firewood at a pretty reasonable price, so we were now set for our camping!

Now it was time to drive to our campsite at Lake Lewis located on the southern end of Yellowstone. We arrived at our campsite around 8:00PM MST, so we had to start setting things up pretty quickly. We got out of the car to start prepping the site only to immediately jump back in due to the WORST mosquito experience that we had ever had. The mosquitos were the size of my palm and were seemingly swarming by the hundreds; it was terrible... I put on sweatpants and a sweatshirt to try and cover up. While it did help, it was still not a perfect solution. We finally stood back up after changing in the car to start building our campsite: 

We made friends with our camping neighbors and walked down to the water to watch the sunset together. This may have been the highlight of the entire trip as the water was smooth and the weather was absolutely perfect. I have not experienced a sunset like this before and pictures cannot do it justice.

Before going to bed, Jake and I spent some time staring up at the stars (lying on the rainfly that we didn't use on our tent) and actually counted 7 or 8 (can't remember) shooting stars. Will add those pictures once I have them.

Day 4 (Sunday, July 17) - Yellowstone to Jackson, WY

Miles: 70 miles

Hours: 1.5 hours

Contrary to what you probably think, we slept TERRIBLY... Jake woke up around 5AM and while I did sleep a bit later, I did not sleep well... While I was trying to sleep, Jake had rekindled the fire and started making breakfast:

We may be the first people to have eggs sourced from Montana, New Jersey bagels (only a little stale 3 days after buying), and Walmart bacon over a campfire in Yellowstone. It was a breakfast of champions!

After breakfast, we packed up and hit the road. It was around 8:00AM MST. What we didn't realize is that our check-in at our hotel in Jackson, WY wasn't until 2:00PM MST and we only had 1.5 hour drive ahead. We both smelled to high-heavens and were dead-exhausted. We did not have cell reception at the campsite (you don't have reception in Yellowstone, except in a couple places like Old Faithful) so we figured we would head towards Jackson to try and check-in sooner than our reservation was scheduled.

As we left Yellowstone, we entered our fourth major National Park: Grand Tetons. Grand Tetons might be my favorite National Park in the country. Here was our first view Jackson Lake as we came up on Grand Tetons:

We continued along towards Jackson periodically checking our phones to see if we had service yet. Eventually as we were driving by Jackson Lake, we noticed we had cell service. We looked for a place to turn off before we inevitably lost service again. I glanced around and found a local marina about a mile away. We went and just sat on the dock for a while before calling the hotel...

Yes, I put my feet in the water and surprisingly the water was not as cold as I expected. Honestly it was super refreshing.

We called the hotel from the marina and were able to schedule an early check-in at 11:00AM MST. We enjoyed the view for about an hour before excitedly departing for the hotel.

While enroute to the hotel, we couldn't pass up a few great pictures driving through Grand Tetons:

And after a short drive, we made it to Jackson!

As you might imagine, the front of the Mustang wasn't in the best shape as we made it to the hotel...

We thought we'd go shower, change and go back out pretty quickly, but we didn't account for how tired we both were. We ended up sleeping at the hotel from 11:00AM to 3:00PM before waking up hungry and ready to explore.

For a late lunch, we went to a local brewery on the square where Jake had an elk cheesesteak and I enjoyed a nice salad (don't judge me!) at Roadhouse Pub & Eatery. After lunch we decided that we wanted to hike, but Grand Tetons is about 20 minutes out of town so we decided to take the ski lift up the mountain and hike the top just outside of Jackson. The views were (again) spectacular!

After hiking, we went back to the hotel to have a drink and prep to go out for dinner. Dinner was pretty great (bison ribs) at Gun Barrel Steak and Game House!

We did make it out to the Million Dollar Cowboy bar after dinner, but only for a single drink because of how exhausted we were...

Day 5 (Monday, July 18) - Jackson, WY to Salt Lake City, UT

Miles: 500 miles

Hours: 7 hours

We woke up late the next day (at least for us) around 9:00AM MST. We both felt well-rested and ready to go. The drive for today might look bad, but it really wasn't. Salt Lake City is only about 300 miles from Jackson, however we wanted to make it out to the Bonneville Salt Flats that day (which adds about 100 miles each way). We ate breakfast at the hotel and loaded up the car. Here were some pictures from that drive:

Oh my god are the roads straight...

We made it to Salt Lake City around 1:00PM MST and grabbed lunch. We were a bit more tired and not wanting to drive than we had originally anticipated, but we decided to push through and drive out for the Bonneville Salt Flats. We were glad that we did...

Here's the inside view of my first run at Bonneville.

We have an exterior shot of this as well that I'll upload at a later time.

After Bonneville, we happily drove back to Salt Lake City. We were so happy that we made the trip out to Bonneville; 100% worth the drive! Here were a couple notes from it though:

• The public area of the Bonneville Salt Flats is NOT smooth. Our expectations were very wrong as we thought it would be perfectly smooth. It is extremely rough and obtaining a max speed is not feasible (at least in a fast car) on the public area, but would be possible on the private Bonneville Salt Flats International Raceway
• The ground is VERY unstable and you are constantly fighting traction regardless of power output
• Contrary to what you may believe, we were actually glad not to have the faster Mustang GT. The 310 horsepower was more than enough power on the public Salt Flats and neither of us felt ambitious enough to push any harder than we did
• Do not bring your own car to the Salt Flats if you love it. It will emotionally hurt you to watch what the salt does...

When we arrived back in Salt Lake City, we assessed the salt that our Mustang had collected. If you thought it was dirty before...

Once arriving back in Salt Lake City, we went back to the hotel to shower and change for dinner. For dinner, we went to Red Rock Brewery and I will say the food was fantastic (Red Snapper Wrap) with a nice cold ale!

After dinner we walked around downtown Salt Lake City before heading back to the hotel to rest for the next day's activity. 

Here's a teaser for my next post and another MASSIVE highlight from the trip! What requires me to wear protective headgear, elbow pads, knee pads, and gloves...