Our 10 day trip

My wife started this blog to describe our trip to Yellowstone/Glacier NP and Grand Tetons and kinda create like a semi-travel blog. But given that it does not look to be about to be finished, here is my attempt to start off with what she blogged out and then carry it forward in subsequent posts


As narrated by Poornima-----------------

Yayyy! We (to be more precise, my husband & his friend Sriram) have been planning on this trip to Yellowstone, Glacier and Grand Tetons National Park for more than 4 months. The week from June 15-June 19 was hectic. We have been ironing, packing and shopping the entire week and were finally happy to leave on June 19. We packed a whole lot of frozen food since after googling we found there were absolutely no indian restaurants in the vicinity of these National Parks and were doubtful if we would even get any veggie options. We packed rice, hot plate, rice cooker, all the required seasonings and puliogare powder just in case we don't find anything green, thats edible :-(. That left us with 2 big suitcases, my carry-on and his large 500mm bazooka lens with case, which by the way was his carry-on.

Itinerary:
June 19: Leave San Jose @ 5:30 p.m and reach Bozeman @ 11:30 p.m - Stay @ Holiday Inn
June 20: Reach East Glacier - Stay @ East Glacier Motel
June 21: Grinnell Glacier Hike, roam around Many Glacier - Stay @ Historic
Tamarack Lodge on the Westside Glacier NP.
June 22: Visit West GlacierNP, Drive to Grand Tetons - Stay @ Anglers
Inn, near Teton Village.
June 23: Visit Grand Tetons, Drive to South of Yellow stone - Stay @ Grant Village
June 24: Visit Yellowstone, Stay @ Alpine Motel - West Yellowstone NP
June 25: Visit Yellowstone, Stay @ Days Inn - West Yellowstone NP
June 26: Visit Yellowstone, Stay @ Travelodge
June 27: Visit Yellowstone, Stay @ Travelodge
June 28: Drive back to Bozeman, Leave @ 1:30 p.m and reach SanJose @ 6:30 p.m.

June 19:- Subash, Shiva's cousin dropped us in the airport and we found ourselves standing in the United Airlines counter, excited and ready for adventure. Hmm, but who knew the adventure would start this early. When we tried to print our boarding pass, the climax unfolded. Our flight got cancelled due to some mechanical problems. We were automatically re booked to the next day's flight which leaves at 7:30 a.m and reaches Bozeman at 4:30 p.m. Wonderful, our glacier trip would have totally messed up. Moreover our friends Preethi and Sriram(in short P&S) who were supposed to join us in Bozeman that night would be left stranded since all the hotel reservations were in Shiva's name. P&S had already boarded their flight in chicago and were waiting for takeoff which was delayed due to bad weather. So here we were at the mercy of the UAL guy at the counter. Fortunately, he found us a delta flight which departed at 6:30 a.m next day and reaches Bozeman at 11:30 am and printed the tickets, explaining they were the last 2 tickets available and he had to convince the delta guys to allocate it. In the meantime i was frantically checking out expedia & orbitz to find out if there were any alternate flights. Luckily, we found a delta flight that was flying the same day @ 6:10 p.m and reaches Bozeman @ 10:30 p.m i.e even earlier than our schedule flight with just 2 tickets available. We ran to the delta counter, literally begged to book us in the 6:10 p.m flight and fortunately the good man at the counter, printed our boarding passes and checked in our baggage at no extra cost. So after all the initial mess-up ultimately we got in to our flight and landed in Bozeman @10:30 p.m. But, P&S got stuck due to bad weather in chicago and missed their connecting flight in Denver. Sriram had to stand in the customer care line for more than 4 hours to get re-booked in the next day's flight to Bozeman and were totally exhausted.

June 20: We checked out of Holiday Inn, and left for Bozeman airport in our rented Toyota 4Runner. P&S eventually made it to BZN at 9:45 a.m but the stupid UAL guys missed their luggage. So we had to wait till the next flight @1:30 p.m. We shopped a bit at walmart, stocked up on water bottles, plates etc. and grabbed our lunch in the meantime. We reached Glacier around dusk and checked in to East Glacier Motel. But to our disappointment Going to the Sun Road was open only till Jackson Glacier overlook, this meant we would miss logan pass and we'll have to drive around the Glacier NP to reach to the west side. We visited Many Glacier during dusk and spotted a bear cub and a coyote that day. We reached our motel at around 10:30 p.m, had our frozen parathas and subzi for dinner and slept tight.

The journey continues......