Part 1 | Western Road Trip 2017 Completed

Our trip last month to Wyoming was not completely a road trip, I guess.  That's because we took a plane to Salt Lake City from Logan Airport in Boston. It seems to me that to be an "official" road trip you must drive the entire trip. Anyway, it was in SLC that the road trip component of our three-week vacation actually started and ended. Here we hung out for a couple of days seeing some of the Salt Lake City sites via a brand new Suburu Forester rental, and then we picked up our rented (reservation made four months prior) pick-up truck camper from Cruise America and headed out of Dodge, er I mean Salt Lake City.

The main objective of the trip was sightseeing in Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks, and it was in these two parks in Wyoming that we spent most of our time. Some of our travels took us briefly north into Montana (where we camped one night along the Yellowstone River in Livingston… and visited and fell in love with Bozeman the next day), Idaho (most of a seven-hour drive from West Yellowstone south to Salt Lake City at the end of the trip was through Idaho along routes 85 and 15), and of course Utah (where the airport is).

Below is a map showing the roads we drove. Some of them were driven more than once. I am a big fan of driving a scenic road in both directions, as the scenes are different depending on the direction, as well as the time of day. Our total driving distance was about 1,900 miles.

If you are a member, you can pick up free maps at AAA. I often use a clean map after our return home, to record our route as you see here, and we save as a remembrance our well-worn “working” map on which we made all kinds of notes and remarks. Our maps will reside in a pocket folder with other paperwork from the trip.  At least for a few years, we tend to keep a collection of all kinds of things collected, such as receipts, maps, brochures, even the campsite placard that you tape to the front windshield during your stay.

We also used AAA to get our hotel reservations in Salt Lake City and for the car rental.  For years we have been using our local AAA branch for this.  On the other hand, they can not help with RV rentals or with campground reservations. 

By the way if you are 62 or over don’t forget to get your lifetime pass to all the national parks.  It’s only $10!!  And that is for all parks and I presume national historic monuments, etc.  And it is for your lifetime.  There is rumor of the price going up to $80.  My wife even bought a second one in case she lost the first, though if we are traveling together one pass is enough for an entire car load of people of any age.  The pass also got us campground fees for 50% off!

The senior pass is the size of a credit card.
You will also need to show a picture ID.