Let me preface this by saying that I have *never* planned a vacation more than this. It started way back in February, on a bright day in Norman where the low temperature was probably about 4 degrees. Actually, I looked it up and the low that on February 19, 2021 was 2. Scipio did not enjoy it by then:
We were at home, watching youtube videos on the TV from national parks, and I happened to look up the camping situation at Grand Teton, and lo and behold – there were sites available 6 months from then, in the middle of August. Well, then. How long a drive? 17 hours? That’s doable. Yellowstone campsites? Also available at pretty much every campground, including the coveted Canyon Campground.
We went for a walk in the snow. My mind was spinning with plans. I texted my advisor, Liz, and asked if she’d be okay if I took 10 days off (two Elizabeth weekends plus one work week) right before school started. She was indeed fine with that. Should we fly or drive? Car rentals were insanely expensive, which meant the 17 hour drive was indeed what we would do. What would we do with Scipio? We could cross that bridge when we got to it.
And all of a sudden, we had campsites booked at two of the world’s premier national parks – 3 nights at Grand Teton from August 13-15, and 4 nights at Yellowstone from August 16-19.
From there, we had months to watch video after video after video after video. For some reason, I was more excited to see the Tetons than Yellowstone – I’d say we spent 60-70% of our time planning the shorter side of the trip, even though Yellowstone is an infinite to-do list. We spent a good chunk of spring building an itinerary, and then all of the summer updating our itinerary as new information became available to us. First off, Elizabeth’s Aunt Terri had never been to Yellowstone and it was her dream. Would it be alright for her and Pam to tag along on our trip? I answered noncommittally, preferring to let Elizabeth choose. When Elizabeth invited them, the invitation was then extended to more family members – Winston and his girlfriend, Terri’s kids, Michael and Irene, etc. This wave of invites required Elizabeth and me to make our first wave of adjustments – going back to the NPS website and reserving for campsites at Colter Bay, going to the Yellowstone Lodges website and initiating a monthslong battle from Elizabeth to get our campsites in the same village, and adding additional spots to our whitewater rafting reservation in Gardiner. It was all a lesson in adaptability.
I was out walking Scipio one day in the spring when I mentioned to my parents that I was considering proposing to Elizabeth on this trip. They were, needless to say, rather excited. Realizing that it would be unfair to do this in front of all of her family without mine there, I extended an invite to my parents to join us. Because of the beginning of my mom’s school year, they couldn’t match us exactly, but they could create their own mirroring trip, starting off with Theodore Roosevelt National Park, going toward Yellowstone and overlapping us in Grand Teton in time to see the proposal. I figured that would be all, until Taylor found out about the proposal too and booked flights for her and Alex into Jackson Hole to join us. I can’t stress enough how fluid planning was. Elizabeth and I booked Pam’s flight to Laramie, where we’d pick her up, from DCA on the way back from Rehoboth Beach one week before we left. Terri and Garrett booked a flight to Bozeman, then had to rebook a day earlier when the engagement photographer I’d hired said she could only manage August 13 earlier in the day. Winston and his girlfriend broke up, then he had to take the LSAT while we were out west. Lyndsey had summer classes. It was a constant flux of planning. But still, with a remote summer internship and all of the Internet available to research on, Elizabeth and I continued to update and adapt our itinerary to new plans.
Finally, after a heavily-travelled summer, we returned from Rehoboth. I was wrapping up my last week at NWS Blacksburg, and with my summer project winding down, I started compiling a checklist of things we needed and slowly checking it off. A small mountain of items appeared first in our office, then migrated into the living room. I managed a laundry list of item shipments in the final days, including a camera lens rental (a Canon 24-70 mm) and a GoPro dash mount. And I managed a Scipio who pouted when he realized he was off to be boarded for a week and a half.
On the night of August 11, I was still managing to help everyone adjust their schedules to the proposal. We said a tearful good-bye to Scipio and dropped him off at Fetch and Stay, then grabbed dinner at Chili’s before making a (damaging) final Target run. In the gathering twilight, I began running things out to Elizabeth’s car. The packing job was going to have to be superb to carry all of our camping stuff, all of Pam’s stuff, and still have room for her to sit in over a six-hour drive. Through several hours of careful Tetris, I fit so much crap into that Subaru that I deserved an award. We went to bed, exhausted and excited, for a few hours of sleep. Wake-up call was before 5:00 the next morning; the trip was about to begin.
