The dog pooped in the car on her first road trip, but that epic trip to Yellowstone is still my favorite family 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!

Thanks to a van named Fern, I finally saw Fern Canyon. And got a great trip back to my childhood.

For years I had been dreaming of seeing Fern Canyon, an oasis of green and wet in a remote corner of northern California. 

What was keeping me away? The four-hour drive from my home with few places that I could stay nearby without camping. But then a friend offered to drive me in her van — a van, no joke, named Fern!

That was cool.

Especially because even after all that anticipation, finally walking through a 50-foot high canyon covered in ferns didn’t just live up to my expectations, it exceeded them.

But the coolest thing about that journey in Fern was how it drove me back to some of my favorite childhood memories, only with some great new upgrades:

1. The water spigot 

As a kid I spent tons of time in a van, especially the 1968 Chevy van my parents drove my sister and I to what felt like every campground in California. I remember many hours of being bored, hungry and thirsty in that van, and how whenever I told my father I wanted something to drink, he'd reach for the engine block between us and pantomime pouring me a glass of water from an invisible spigot, a trick that usually silenced me for at least an hour.

But Fern? Fern had water! A re-purposed olive oil can with a spigot that actually filled my glass with water. Score one for Fern.

2. The bed

My most vivid memories in my parents' van are of waking up in my sleeping bag while they were driving at night. 

In those moments surrounded by darkness, with no idea where I was and no control over where I was going, it felt like floating in outer space. And yet I also felt completely safe, sure that my parents knew where we were headed.

So I would look out the windows and watch the trees and poles flying overhead until I fell back asleep, not caring where we were going, just happy that my family was going there together.

All those feelings came back to me as I laid down to sleep in Fern, looking up at the roof and feeling as secure as that kid in the Chevy, easily falling asleep for a solid eight hours without disturbing dreams or waking up once during the night. 

And again, Fern had something even better than my parents' van: a comfy mattress for me to sleep on instead of just the floor or all our baggage. Score two for Fern!

3. The surprise dinner

Perhaps to ensure that our journey in Fern was a true adventure, my friend and I did not fully prepare for the trip. 

We did not make reservations for a place to sleep, but the friendly young person in the kiosk at Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park had a campsite to offer us. 

We also did not bring enough food for dinner, but my friend suggested we announce loudly our need for food while walking through the campground in the hopes that someone would answer our call. 

Sure enough, a man overheard us and suggested we drive five miles back to the town of Orick, where the local volunteer fire department was holding a fund-raising dinner. There we each bought a plate piled high with steak, baked potato, salad, green beans, and desserts.

But as happy as I was eating tri-trip and huge slices of watermelon instead of another protein bar, that meal in Fern could never beat the miracle M&Ms I ate one night in my family’s van.

My mother usually only let us have sweets on special occasions like Halloween and Easter, so it was quite the surprise when my parents stopped at a roadside stand one night on the way home for a carton of eggs, and for some reason bought a package of M&Ms for us.

I remember holding the colorful candies in my palm like they were precious jewels, eating them one by one so slowly that each had warmed through by the time it reached my mouth. And I loved the feeling of the shell cracking on warm, slightly melted chocolate so much that I resolved to always eat M&Ms like that, if I ever got them again.

To this day, those M&Ms are the best thing I have ever eaten. Sorry, Fern — that will forever be a score for the Chevy van.

Other cool things we found with Fern:

 4. The Pay Phone

Me phone home.

With no cell service at our campground, I could not get my phone to make a call or even send a text. 

Luckily, the visitor center at Prairie Creek Redwoods has a working pay phone that I used to finally call home and tell my husband we arrived safely and scored a campsite for the night.

That phone alone was a wonderful trip back in time, making my friend squeal with joy when she picked up the receiver and heard an actual dial tone!

 5. And, yes, even an old Chevy van:

Funny enough, we also saw an old Chevy van on our trip to Fern Canyon. 

On the north end of the tiny town of Orick, there is a van that has been parked along the highway so long that it is nearly completely covered by the vines growing on its carport. It wasn't as old as the 1968 Chevy my parents had, but it was still super fun to see. 

Thanks to my friend and her van Fern, I had one of the coolest trips ever:

And this video will take you to Fern Canyon itself:

New Year’s in New Mexico: Nowhere to eat after the last fun night with my sister

Karen and me posing at the state line.

At the end of 1996, three young women drove to New Mexico to welcome the new year. But 1997 didn’t feel welcoming to them when they woke up in a tiny town with nothing to eat because all the businesses were closed for the holiday. So they hit the highway with growling stomachs, wondering how far they’d have to drive to find breakfast, when they finally saw a building full of light and people: McDonald’s.

That was cool.

I remember sitting with my sister and friend Karen, for once feeling grateful for the hard chairs, bright lights and beeping noises of a fast food restaurant because that morning it meant warmth, food and coffee. And for many years, us sitting relieved and happy in that bustling restaurant was my favorite memory of our trip.

 

But now I treasure even more the night before, because it was the last time I remember having fun with my sister: A sister that was fully present, relaxed and happy.

The night began with us setting off sparklers, which we hadn’t done since were kids, because they had long been illegal in our home state of California. But New Mexico still allowed fireworks, so we bought a box of sparklers and set them off in the motel parking lot.

 

I imagine that for just about everyone else our age, standing in an empty parking lot setting off a box of sparklers sounded like the lamest way in the world to spend your New Year’s Eve. But I couldn’t have been happier because I was with my sister again, and holding the sparkler sent me back to our house, with our parents watching us set off fireworks on our quiet street.

 

After the sparklers, we became adults again and started drinking. We didn’t want to go to a bar, so in our hotel room my sister introduced me to something that sounded disgusting but turned out to be quite good: Root beer and Southern Comfort. Mostly I was just happy to be drinking Southern Comfort again with my sister, as both were there the first time I got drunk.

 

Once she was tipsy my sister decided she needed a cigarette, but we used all her matches for the sparklers. When they didn’t have matches at our motel office, we set out along the main drag, three semi-drunk young women in a small town on New Year’s Eve. I can’t remember how many gas stations and motel offices we went into, or how many cars full of men slowed down to inspect us as we walked along the highway, but eventually we got matches and we all got back to our room safely.

 

I had no idea that our mission that night was foreshadowing our morning, when we once again hit the road on a quest that took much longer than we expected. And I had no idea that setting off sparklers behind a motel in Carlsbad, New Mexico, would be a memory I would forever treasure. 

 

I spent two decades trying to get back to that parking lot, that feeling of being with someone who had always loved you and always would. For years I convinced myself that the person who didn’t take my calls, wouldn’t answer my emails and never really seemed to enjoy herself once I finally got her to spend time with me, wasn’t really my sister.

 

No, my real sister was locked away, and I just needed to find the right key to free her, find the right combination of me that she could love again. I couldn’t accept that she had always been free, and my problem was me.

 

Me not accepting that this was all the family I had left. With my mother dead and my father gone, didn’t I deserve a sister who loved me? And if I couldn't make her love me, this person who knew me better than anyone, how could I possibly hope that anyone else could love me?

 

But other people did love me, and wanted to be part of my life. They took my phone calls, answered my emails and enjoyed spending time with me. Yet I couldn’t stop chasing the person who didn’t.

 

I realize now I had been chasing her my whole life, forever the little sister begging my older sister to play with me. And instead of straining to go back to our childhood, I needed to finally leave it. To finally realize that I would never be happy until I let go of this dream of a sister, and instead focused on the people who wanted to focus on me.

That was cool. Because it is so much better for everyone that I finally let her go. Finally understood that people aren’t who you want them to be, they are only who they are. And that relatives are people who share your blood, but family are the people who love you. 

 

And while your relatives can love you, often the best families are the ones we find. Because what’s cooler than someone sharing your life because they want to, not because they had no other choice?

 Our trip was made possible by my grandfather, who bought me the car we drove.

Stop the car, there's a Historical Landmark!

Sign on Highway 20 in Penn Valley.

On our first road trip together, we had the “Scones Incident.”

“Could you get me a tall coffee?” my husband asked that morning outside a Starbucks in Barstow, Calif. 

But when I came back to the car, I was holding only my coffee.

“Where’s mine?” he said.

“Oh.” I held up the bag in my other hand. “I got distracted by the pastry case. There were scones!”

He shook his head and laughed.

 

That was cool.

 

Because two decades and countless miles later, I’m still getting distracted by scones, only now they are Historical Landmark signs.

“Wait, ‘World’s First Long-Distance Telephone Line?! Can we check it out, please?!” I cried while we were heading down Highway 20 near Grass Valley earlier this year. I had no idea there was such a thing in Northern California, and now I had to see it.

A bit miraculously, my husband agreed to head up Pleasant Valley Road to French Corral, the tiny town where the telephone line had been strung. But although there’s really nothing else in French Corral except a few houses and a cool, barn-like Wells Fargo building, we could not find that telephone line marker, despite driving by it twice that first day.

I figured I’d never get to see that telephone line, but on our way home from Grass Valley the next day, we passed the sign again and my husband sighed. “Do you want to try again?”

I sure did! And this time we crawled down that road once we reached French Corral, our eyes peeled, and finally I spotted the marker, barely bigger than a mailbox with no sign next to it.

But it is right next to someone's driveway, which is probably why it’s so hard to find. Maybe there used to be a sign, but whoever lives there took it down, sick of people like me looking for that “dang marker,” pictured at right.

Finding that historical landmark took two days and 40 extra miles on narrow, winding mountain roads, but I was so happy to see it, and even happier that my husband had offered to drive me there.

Because years earlier he threw a fit when I wanted to make another side trip. We had stopped at a park to pee the dog on the last leg of another road trip when I saw a short trail of Donner Party historical sites, but my husband did not want to wait for me to hike it. Granted, he had just spent the last two weeks driving us to Yellowstone National Park and back through snow and the dog’s explosive diarrhea, and he just wanted to get home. But the trail would just take another 15 minutes. And when would I be back there again?

I did walk that trail, but my husband wasn’t happy about it.

 

So it was that much cooler when he offered, twice, to try and find another historical site. I guess he finally has completely given into “Scones.”