As soon as October arrives, I start craving apples and pumpkins and crisp Fall weather. In Southwest Louisiana we have the pumpkins and if we’re lucky we’ll get a few mornings below 60 degrees. We can of course buy a large variety of apples from the supermarket, but there’s nothing better than apples freshly picked from an orchard. I grew up with a large garden where we had apple, pear and persimmon trees. I had forgotten those tastes until Eric and I made a trip in 2011 to Washington state during the harvest season.
“A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step” ~ Lao Tzu
Eric & I have enjoyed traveling together since we first met, but what really solidified us as a serious travel duo was the year we spent living in Delaware. Eric’s first job out of college was with a Taiwanese company whose American base was in Delaware. What was supposed to be a six month training ended up being a full year, so we made the most of it. I didn’t have a car & wasn’t working during that time, so I would spend the week planning trips for the weekend. We would rent a car each weekend because the company car they had loaned us could only run a few miles before dying. Plus, it smelled like soy sauce because a previous tenant had spilled a gallon of soy sauce in the front seat & never properly cleaned it. Quite often, we’d get the same rental car, a red PT Cruiser — we LOVED that cruiser!
Drive Time: 7.5 hours (including drive back to Salt Lake City)
I grew up with Ansel Adams posters of the majestic Grand Tetons hanging on our walls. So when Eric’s family requested a trip to Yellowstone, my only stipulation was that we include some time at Yellowstone’s southern neighbor. If not stopping to hike, it takes less than 2 hours to drive around Grand Teton National Park, so we saved it for our last day & returned to Salt Lake City that evening.
We entered the park from the north, heading south towards Colter Bay Village. Our original plan was to drive the loop & return for a night at Headwaters Lodge, but plans changed & we decided to return to Salt Lake City that evening. This meant we retraced the route more than once, so instead of telling what we drove, I’m going to focus on where we stopped (in the order that I would suggest someone actually follow).
