Road Trip June 2026 - Yellowstone to Boise

Driving through Yellowstone National Park is a combination of somewhat annoying (vehicles, people) and, at the same time, so interesting. You never know for sure what animals you're going to see. This time, we saw more bison than we ever had. In addition to quite a few close to the road, there was a very large herd (guessing about a hundred of them) off in the distance. Also in the distance were lots of elk and sandhill cranes.

Humorously, this bird was sitting on the bison's back for quite some time. I don't think the bison even noticed. 

Just west of West Yellowstone, there's a campground near the Henry's Fork River where we often stop to camp. The pelicans are a mainstay although they were a bit further from the campground this year than they've been in the past. They're also usually more active and we try to take photos of them in flight but this time, they were content to just float along. Or stand, as the water was so shallow. 

 

When in huckleberry country, we have to try out the local flavours. 

This was the sunset from our van. 

The next day we made it to Craters of the Moon National Monument which has a campground there as well. It's been a very windy trip and this, along with some rain, kept both of us awake much of the night. 

We had a short driving day so we decided to go into Boise for lunch. I excitedly told Andrew that Boise is home to 2x CrossFit Games Champion Justin Medeiros. He'd didn't seem too impressed. LOL! 

While at lunch, we realized we were close to the Zoo Boise so put that on our agenda as well. It was a bit disappointing in that there was so much wire on the cages that it was hard to see the animal and virtually impossible to take photos.  I managed to get a couple photos through glass. 

We h

Boise is so much bigger than either of us imagined and it then took us what seemed like forever to get out of the city! We were much later to our campsite for the night and a bit grumpy and tired. Speaking for myself at least! 

Road Trip - June 2025 - Yellowstone National Park

After six days and eight paragliding flights for Andrew, we left Five Springs and headed to Cody to spend the night and get cleaned up again. We couldn't get into the historic hotel we usually stay so went to the Best Western Ivy Inn which was very nice and also had guest laundry facilities. Another much needed re-fresh after hand washing clothes for the past couple weeks.

We had time to spare in the afternoon so, in addition to a coffee stop, we found a short hiking trail along the Shoshone River. 

The drive through Yellowstone National Park was slow and meandering with lots of stops for wildlife. We saw bison close to the road, bears so far away that even with a zoom lens on the camera they just looked like brown lumps, Harlequin ducks, a fast flowing river and big waterfalls.

Just the other side of West Yellowstone, we stopped for the night at Coffee Pot Campground (which we’d been to before) where there are tons of pelicans along the river. We spent a lot of time trying to get good photos of them both on the water and in flight. 

This cute little guy was our friend at the campsite. And the Huckleberry Spritz was a very nice impulse buy to finish off the day! 

June Road Trip (2)

We meandered through Yellowstone National Park en route to Wyoming -- where Andrew had scoped out a couple more potential flying sites he wanted to check out. 

We saw lots of wild and not-so-wild life in a couple short hikes. Once out of the park, we took roads less travelled and it's amazing how much more wildlife you see on the backroads! 

Food and squawking!

Tourist trail rides in the park.

Small creatures . . . 

And very big creatures!

An osprey mom and one of her babies. We saw a few heads pop up from the nest but it was hard to catch more than one at a time on camera. Papa osprey was hunting nearby.

Baby pronghorn. Mom was keeping a watchful eye on us.

Andrew hiking up a hill near Cody, WY. He ended up walking back down due to high and cross wind.
Good decision making! 

Meanwhile, I took a few photos nearby of wildlife. Love the red rock in the distance. 

There were lots of wildflowers in bloom! 

On one of roads less travelled we came across Legend Rock State Petroglyph Site. They were amazingly well preserved. Definitely some of the most clear petroglyphs I've seen.