The Great Poop Geyser: Why the dog pooping in the car made family road trips my favorite vacation

Driving out of the Montana wilderness.

In 2016, my husband and I took the dog on our first family road trip to Yellowstone National Park. 

Like most adventures, it had moments that soared and some that sucked, especially one roller coaster morning that took us from the high of watching the dog play in snow for the first time to the low of hearing her poop out much of that snow into the car.

And while the dog’s diarrhea remains one of my most vivid memories from that trip, it is still by far my favorite family vacation — one that was only made possible by my husband convincing me we needed to buy a bigger car, and that I should be the one to drive it home.

That was cool.

Because as soon as I took our SUV on the freeway where I was suddenly taller than all the cars around me, I felt my anxiety about driving melting away. So by the time I got home I was ready for more, and began pulling out maps to finally plan a road trip that I had been dreaming about for years: Driving from California to Yellowstone.

That hadn’t been an option with our previous cars, especially my husband’s two-seat pick-up truck that barely fit two people and a cat, or my grandmother’s tiny hatchback, which I couldn't even take onto the freeway, let alone cram my whole family into for 10 days of driving across five states.

But now we had a proper adventure-mobile, so once I plotted our route, we decided to head out as soon as we could in the fall, because there was still one fear that even a 4WD couldn’t quell for me: Driving in snow. 

I had never learned how to drive in snow while growing up on the coast of California, so when I moved to Seattle I got a crash course. One night while driving our fish-tailing pick-up truck home through a snowstorm no-one had predicted, I got so scared heading up our hill that I abandoned the truck halfway up and walked the rest of the way to our apartment. After that, seeing even one flake of snow on the road seizes me with panic.

So knowing that weather in Wyoming and Montana could be even more unpredictable than Seattle, we left California as early as possible in October in the faint hope we wouldn’t hit snow, and as we headed out I was checking my phone’s weather app even more than I did our road map.

And though we hit that dreaded snow on the second morning as soon as we drove from Nevada into Idaho, it was light and the sun soon came out. Later I forgot all about the snow and Idaho became magical when we stumbled upon a great place to stop and walk the dog: Shoshone Falls, the “Niagara of the West.”

On the third day we drove into Wyoming on one of the most beautiful stretches of highway I have ever driven, and I quickly fell in love with Wyoming, too, even though we hit more snow there, despite my weather app never showing a hint of flakes in the forecast. Even while I stood in a grocery store parking lot in Jackson Hole with snow falling all around me, my phone still insisted the weather at my location was only “partly cloudy!”

But we wouldn’t have to brave the highways again for at least two days, so the next morning we all fell completely in love with that snow, especially the dog. On our morning walk, we let the dog run around in this new “fluffy white stuff” and she was ecstatic, rolling in it, dashing about with the “zoomies,” and yes, eating plenty of it. 

Watch the dog falling in love with snow and other road trip highlights here:

We left the snow all smiles that morning, with no idea of the geyser we would see even before we got to Yellowstone.

The dog started whining soon after we drove into our first national park together, Grand Teton. Since we were surrounded by wildlife — sheep and goats in the mountains, huge elk in the meadows along the highway, and probably bears just out of sight — we figured the dog was just excited about all the exotic new smells and incredibly anxious to get outside and find the creatures creating them.

But because the dog has a very strong prey drive, and we were not allowed to walk with the dog in a national park anyway, we kept driving, hoping she would get used to the smells and relax.
When she didn’t, and the whining got just louder, my husband began searching for a parking lot, or even a turnout, he could possibly stop in, But before we could pull over, we heard the most horrible sound of gushing liquid.

Driving through Yosemite on Tioga Pass.

“Is she peeing?” my husband asked his eyes on the road.

“No, she’s not peeing,” I said, looking behind our seats as the horrible smell arrived. Yes, all the snow the dog just ate was now coming out brown, all over her dog bed.

As awful as those moments were for us and the dog, I am grateful for what happened next, as it proved my husband was the perfect person to take on a road trip, first dropping me and the dog off at our hotel room, then heading out on two impossible missions: 1. Get rid of the diarrhea destroyed bed. 2. Find a new one we could afford in the very expensive tourist town of Jackson Hole.

Because we certainly couldn’t just toss the soiled dog bed in our hotel room waste bin, and all of the Dumpsters at the hotel were locked. Then when he drove through town, all he could find were more locked cans, all tightly closed to thwart bears. But, finally, he found one where he could discreetly toss the spoiled bed, then set off the find a new dog bed.

When he came back with both missions calmly completed, we treated ourselves to some local Thai food that we ate in the hotel room so we didn’t have to leave the dog alone in case of more accidents.

And yes, the dog’s tummy problems continued, because while my husband was tackling his tasks, the dog threw up on the carpet of the hotel room. But thankfully it was mostly water, and I was able to clean it up before he got back. (He admitted later that he could tell something had happened, but was kind enough to not mention it at the time).

After the Grand Teton geyser, we let the dog out of the car obsessively. Before we finally drove into Yellowstone, my husband took her on a long walk to make sure she wouldn’t need to go to the bathroom before we headed into the park on a beautiful day for driving.

“You’re very lucky,” said the man behind the desk at our Bozeman hotel that morning. “Yesterday it snowed and they closed the roads, but today the weather is perfect."

And we didn’t hit snow, or poop geysers, again on the trip, as we luckily started heading home just in time — because on our way out of Montana, we stopped at a rest stop near Butte and I was heading to the bathroom when a car covered in snow pulled into the parking lot.

When the woman white-knuckling it behind the wheel got out, we all ran up to her to ask where she had come from, which thankfully was the opposite direction my family was headed. But I never forgot the look on her face behind that mound of snow on her hood, and I vowed right then that if we returned to Montana, it would be in the summer!

And we did just that the next year, driving even further into Montana to see Glacier National Park on another epic family road trip. Because despite all the challenges of the first one, I still consider a road trip as the best way to spend a vacation with my family.

Hitting the highway again.

And my husband? I’m pleased to report that he fell in love with them, too, admitting that he
was apprehensive about the journey before it started, but loved it at the end, telling me I did a great job planning: the towns I chose to stop in, the distances we had to drive every day and the hotels I chose had all been very good, so he was happy to go wherever I wanted the next year.

And the dog? Watching her hanging out the car window as we drove out of the first national forest she got to run through in the Cabinet Mountains, her eyes still high from all the smells, I knew she would be OK with returning to Montana, too.

So we went back there in 2017, this time heading to Glacier in August to miss all the snow, then in 2019 took another family road trip to Zion. And while both those parks are jaw-droppingly beautiful, I believe that first family road trip will forever remain our favorite — yes, even though the dog pooped in the car!