Trip to Yellowstone

It was time to plan a trip for Labor day weekend 2017. The gang convened. The members were me, Jinju, UG, Ram, VJ, Pullu, Math, and Prabha. A relationship map between all of us – Jinju and I are roommates. UG and Ram are recently married couples, in fact, high school sweethearts. VJ, Pullu, Math, and Prabha are CIT buddies. And how are we linked to each other?  Well, VJ and I are siblings. UG and I are CEG buddies. The trip was a laugh riot from the start until the end. Initially, VJ suggested we shall visit Alaska. I just then switched my job in August. Planning a trip to Alaska requires more time and effort, so I told him we’ll do it next year and do Yellowstone National Park this year.

Yellowstone is one of the largest national parks in the US and considered as the first national park in the world. It is also a UN World heritage site. It spans across three states – Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. People easily spend more than 10 days to explore the nature and beauty of it. We definitely need at least 2-3 days in the park which meant we were taking Tuesday off along with the Labor Day (Monday). I quickly tried to knock down three crucial aspects of any trip – flight, accommodation and rental car. Regarding flights, the closest airports to the national park were WYS West Yellowstone airport and  JAC JacksonHole airport. Flights to both of them are costly. The most popular airport is SLC Salt Lake City which is 261 miles or 5-6 hours drive to the park. The cheapest flight as predictable was from OAK to SLC to fly on Sat early morning and return back on Wednesday morning. We booked in Delta for 207$.

After flight comes the accommodation. Options for accommodation within the park is limited and expensive. So we decided to stay outside the park. But where? Yellowstone is HUGE with five entrances – north, northeast, west, south, and east. The entire loop within the park is around 150 miles or 5.5 hours of travel. I was in a fix since I had to choose a location between west (West Yellowstone) or north (Gardiner) or south(Jackson) and decent accommodations were costly. Most of the existing information discussed the proximity of the attractions to each entrance but wasn’t conclusive on which one to chose. After mapping the things to do, I decided on to go with West entrance, and it turned out to be the right choice. We stayed at one of the Airbnbs in WorldMark Resort at West Yellowstone, Montana. The last night of the vacation, we stayed at Ryan and Kate’s to catch an early morning flight. This was most luxurious and cheapest accommodation I have ever stayed before.
Finalizing rental car was the hardest to do. Initially, we had 6 members for the trip. Math and Prabha visited Bay area from Sacramento for VJ’s birthday celebration. They decided to join us on the journey.  So we needed 12-seater instead of 7-seater. We made several 2 car bookings though we were sure we needed a single van. I did with Enterprise through Priceline and Math did with Hertz by his gold member card and Pullu with his Google discount. Most of them are pay at arrival. On the day of departure, we found a van – 12 seaters with ACE rental (never heard of them before). We canceled all other bookings and booked the van. We had three issues with the ACE rental. One – To give a better 12-seater van (Baashha van), they charged us extra. Two – They have mile restriction, and we incurred 100$ extra after the trip. Three – Air conditioning wasn’t working in the van they gave us, and we had to change the van before we started to Yellowstone. But renting the van was a good choice because we had so much fun with all of us being together. I found a better van rental option for our next trip – AVR rental.

We were all set except for a surprise. My bro’s birthday is on Aug 31st exactly two days before the trip. I immensely enjoyed the treasure hunt he arranged for my birthday. So I wanted to make his birthday memorable. So my first choice was to invite Putly (his girlfriend then, my sis in law now) to visit the US as a surprise. Her father said NO !!! After enquiring if he needs a laptop or any gift, I decided to sponsor his trip to Yellowstone. I created a check like the cricketers receive for the man of the match.  I arranged for a party at Thalappakatti, which opened just a week earlier to our trip. I called up the owner and told him we need a reservation for 25 people, and he said there is no way he could do that because he is already swamped with people. After a bit of persuasion, he agreed. He loved our gang. Every time I go there, I get a free appetizer or dessert :). Anyways I digress. We had VJ’s birthday celebration at Thalappakatti with almost all of his friends. By end of the day, my gift to sponsor his trip was spun in two ways. One – I am going to sponsor the entire trip for all eight of us. Two – I am gifting the entire Yellowstone National Park to VJ.