This year, my move back to
the native land of DC marked the first holiday season in about 7 or 8
years in which I didn't have to travel to see my family, since they are now right down the street from me. What a delight to not have to agonize over
inflated airfares, long lines at security and cranky/inexperienced travelers with
their germy children.
Well that
went straight out the window as the travel bug itched me to find somewhere to jaunt off to for a New Year's getaway. I'd like to say that I took a wall map and threw a dart and it landed on Montana and perhaps that
would make this a much more interesting story, but I digress.
My good
friend Jennifer recently moved to Bozeman, Montana to work for the Yellowstone Park Foundation. I was certainly sad to see her go, but
excited to have an opportunity to visit a part of the country that I typically probably wouldn't get to if I didn't have a friend there.
Jennifer raved about the high quality of life, art community
and amazing scenery that Bozeman offers, so I decided to take her word for it and,
and allow Delta the opportunity to fly me out there to see it for myself. First things first, though, I needed to find
safe refuge for Mr. Smittens, the little foster pup.
Mr.
Smittens (formerly known as Alex) is our third dog we have fostered with CityDogs Rescue. Though fosters hope that their dogs will get
adopted, hence the concept of fostering, Mr. Smittens should stay with us for
as long he wants. We thought about
bringing him to Montana with us, but given that he was just recently recovering
from a very emasculating sugery (see “cone of shame”, bottom right), Mr.
Smittens was afforded the opportunity to spend the week with his Ya-Ya
(Georgio’s mother) instead of making the trek to Big Sky Country.
We planned
to travel to Montana for 3 days.
The main attraction was Yellowstone National Park, but I was also
looking forward to getting a glimpse of the "simple life" out there in Montana. Everywhere we turned there was some sort a
view of the Rocky Mountains. The Coors
Light cans really don’t do it justice.
The first full day we spent in Bozeman, New Year's Eve, we ventured in to the mountains to check out the Big Sky area, which is about 45 minutes from Bozeman. Since we didn't want to be too drained so we could soak up all of the crazy night life of Bozeman (population: 38,000), we thought best to do Yellowstone another day.
Here are a few shots from the drive up the mountain.
After an afternoon of driving up and down the mountain, and possibly getting the Yukon stuck in a snow bank because I thought that since I rented a big SUV I could go off-roading, we made haste to get back to town to prepare for our big night out on the town.
Jennifer had finagled reservations at the hottest, hippest bistro in town, The Emerson Grill. This restaurant was great - it had the rustic, yet up-scale farm house vibe and focussed on the whole "farm to table" concept. I'm not big in to snapping pics of things I eat (unless it looks like something that could potentially eat me), so I'll spare you all the wanna-be foodie pics. My friend Jennifer, a vegetarian, chose the salmon as her entree, so you know this place is decent.
The rest of our evening consisted of bar hopping the Bozeman strip. So, three bars later, after ringing in the New Year 3 hours behind the Right Coast to the musical accompaniment of an oldies rock band The Hotel Bozeman we were on our way back home to get tucked in to dream of our New Years day brunch of gluten-free pancakes.
A day or two later, we were ready for the main event Yellowstone National Park "for the benefit and enjoyment of the people". This is the quote carved in to the arch at the North Entrance of the park. Much of Yellowstone is not open during the winter because its impossible to keep all of the roads clear.
The park spans Montana and Wyoming. In fact when you enter at the North Entrance in Gardiner, Montana, you cross the border in to Wyoming after about 20 minutes of driving. We had aspirations of driving all the way to Old Faithful, which is about a 2 hour drive from the entrance. The guide at the North Entrance who took our entrance fee told us "there's only one road open today". Not being seasoned park goers we shrugged and went on our way.
Well we found out what she meant when we drove all the way to the Northeast Entrance to learn that the road was closed.
Here are a few shots from the drive up the mountain.
After an afternoon of driving up and down the mountain, and possibly getting the Yukon stuck in a snow bank because I thought that since I rented a big SUV I could go off-roading, we made haste to get back to town to prepare for our big night out on the town.
Jennifer had finagled reservations at the hottest, hippest bistro in town, The Emerson Grill. This restaurant was great - it had the rustic, yet up-scale farm house vibe and focussed on the whole "farm to table" concept. I'm not big in to snapping pics of things I eat (unless it looks like something that could potentially eat me), so I'll spare you all the wanna-be foodie pics. My friend Jennifer, a vegetarian, chose the salmon as her entree, so you know this place is decent. The rest of our evening consisted of bar hopping the Bozeman strip. So, three bars later, after ringing in the New Year 3 hours behind the Right Coast to the musical accompaniment of an oldies rock band The Hotel Bozeman we were on our way back home to get tucked in to dream of our New Years day brunch of gluten-free pancakes.
A day or two later, we were ready for the main event Yellowstone National Park "for the benefit and enjoyment of the people". This is the quote carved in to the arch at the North Entrance of the park. Much of Yellowstone is not open during the winter because its impossible to keep all of the roads clear.
The park spans Montana and Wyoming. In fact when you enter at the North Entrance in Gardiner, Montana, you cross the border in to Wyoming after about 20 minutes of driving. We had aspirations of driving all the way to Old Faithful, which is about a 2 hour drive from the entrance. The guide at the North Entrance who took our entrance fee told us "there's only one road open today". Not being seasoned park goers we shrugged and went on our way.
Well we found out what she meant when we drove all the way to the Northeast Entrance to learn that the road was closed.
Nevertheless, we had a great ride through the park. We stopped at the Mammoth Hot Springs, saw wolves, elk, bison and even a bald eagle.
