The Great American Road Trip - Part One
By Susanne Liebich
11/1/25
I love all kinds of travel. It is exciting to take a plane to a unique destination and experience the culture. However, my absolute favorite mode of travel is the American Road Trip. It stems from my childhood when my parents, who did not have the resources to fly us to various places, planned excellent two-week road trips. We would pack the cooler with sandwiches, cookies and drinks, wear our day clothes to bed the night before, and get up at 4:00 am in the morning to head out before rush hour in Boston. My siblings and I would fight over who had first dibs on the way back in our station wagon. My father was a student of history and made sure these road trips stopped at famous historical and cultural sites along the way including Gettysburg, Amish country, Harper’s Ferry, Williamsburg, Fort Ticonderoga, and Washington DC. We also explored gorgeous parks like the Blue Ridge Parkway and funky oceanside places like Ocean City and Maryland. We stayed in little motels and ate at diners and small restaurants and ate cheeseburgers and egg salad sandwiches. These were the most magical days of my childhood.
This fall, because our son was getting married in Utah in early October, we planned a short road trip to Wyoming which is only about four hours northeast of Salt Lake City Airport. Having last visited 27 years ago when our kids were little, we were looking forward to going back to Jackson, Grand Teton National Park, and Yellowstone. The difference in topography between the vibrant red sandstone mesas, buttes, and plateaus of the southwest and the mountainous, granite, sometimes snow-peaked and tree-covered mountains of the northwest is striking. It was exciting to feel that sense of awe and grandeur that we felt three decades ago as we rediscovered these landscapes .
Sometimes, going back does not always live up to expectations. Jackson, the most expensive place to live in the country, has become a hodgepodge of touristy tchotchke shops, motels, and restaurants. What used to be an old cowboy town, and still felt that way 27 years ago, was a tacky sprawl. We stayed outside town, closer to the Grand Tetons so we could take Teton Park Road through the park early the following morning. That weekend, the Park Service partially closed some of the services within the parks. The ferry we were planning to take across Jenny Lake to Hidden Falls was closed. There were throngs of people parked in the lot and along the main road. We opted to leave overcrowded Teton Park Road and headed to a less-traveled eastern road toward the Gros Ventre wilderness. There we experienced no crowds, stunning Teton views, and brilliant fall foliage. Our detour brought us toward Lower Slide Lake, which was created by a massive landslide of the Gros Ventre in 1925 caused by heavy rains and snowmelt that blocked the Gros Ventre River.
Early the following morning we were heading out of the Tetons toward Yellowstone and made a spontaneous decision to stop at the uncrowded Snake River Overlook where we had a chance to see the sunrise reflected heavenly pink and mauve off the magnificent Tetons. The quick decision to avoid crowds and capture magical moments outside of the typical bucket list moments was the right one! As we drove down the road toward Yellowstone, the brilliant quaking aspens reflected off the lake with the Tetons in the distance.
As we approached Yellowstone, we, along with throngs of others, made our way through the mysterious world of geysers, fumaroles, waterfalls, and canyons that is Yellowstone National Park, the very first national park in the USA. (Note: extra credit if you know who designated this iconic park!) We experienced the same crazy crowds as in the Tetons, and made the same decision to skip some of the overcrowded sites for the less crowded but equally as enigmatic Painted Pots and West Thumb Geyser Basin, and ended our day with the less frenetic but magnificent Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. Our day was capped with mystical and astonishing random acts of nature.
Our final stop on this five-day pre-wedding road trip was to the not so crowded, hippie-town of Lander, Wyoming. Having navigated the ultra-crowded National Parks of the previous three days, it was a relief to come to a place of quiet natural beauty and northwest vibe. People come to Lander to climb, to hike, to experience the awe of the Wind River Mountain Range and the history of the Native American Shoshone…. and, to feel the old Northwest and to relax. We stayed in an old flour millhouse Airbnb right in town. We hiked in Sinks Canyon State Park and visited the Lander Wild Horse Sanctuary where wild horses are rescued and rehabilitated to live their lives in peace and tranquility.
The end of our 2025 Great American Road Trip, Part One, thanks for joining this journey! ….Onto Helper, Utah for Sam and Megan’s wedding…. Part Two next month….