Weeks before Valentine's Day we started talking about making special plans. I didn't have much in mind, just our typical dinner and alone time at the house, but Paul was wanting to do something a little more special. When he realized that President's Day fell the weekend after Valentine's, he came up with the brilliant plan to snowmobile in West Yellowstone for the long weekend. I was so excited!
You see, West Yellowstone is known as the snowmobiling capital of the world and it's beautiful there. Miles and miles of groomed trails winding through snow covered trees, venturing to tops of mountains and running by picturesque streams. Another reason I love it so much is because we went there on our honeymoon! I'm a sucker for nostalgia and I couldn't wait to go again.
We headed out on Saturday morning towards West Yellowstone. The drive would take about 3 hours if we drove it straight but what's the fun in that? My mom bought us yet another book detailing scenic day trips and back-roads of Montana. (The teacher in her keeps our bookshelves stocked.) We picked a route along the way and detoured to some really cool places. We stopped frequently to take pictures or explore and it ended up taking us all day to make it to Yellowstone.
The drive itself was beautiful. I took way to many pictures of the same mountains, over and over again. At every different angle they would get prettier and prettier. Our detour took us through tiny little towns and back-roads that turned to gravel. Soon, road signs disappeared and after consulting a few different maps and our GPS we made it to our first destination: Renova Hot Springs. There are lots of hot springs around here; most of which have been tapped and fill swimming pools or hot tubs. Renova Hot Springs was nothing like that. This hot spring is a local spot in the middle of nowhere. There is no fee and the water levels and temperature are determined solely by nature. People have arranged circles of rocks to contain the hot water bubbling out of the ground and the icy cold river water mixes to make the water cool enough to get in. Sure enough, the water was hot despite the river being frozen up stream. I'd never seen or felt a hot spring so I thought it was very cool.
Next, we ventured through several other tiny towns to make it to our next stop. Ghost towns are all over out here. The gold rush created these cities and eventually they emptied out. Nevada City and Virginia City are these restored ghost towns, full of history and original buildings. It was so interesting. It's "off season" still so nothing was open. It truly felt like a ghost town. Hotels, stores, house and banks were all abandoned. We peeked through the windows and they are full of memorabilia from those times. We can't wait to go back in the summer when tourism in these little towns are in full swing.
We finally made it to West Yellowstone around supper time and settled into our hotel. On Sunday morning we headed out on our snowmobiling adventure. When we came on our honeymoon it snowed heavily all day. There were certain trails we couldn't go on because it was too dangerous in the heavy snow but on this trip the weather was perfect and we got to take some extra trails that were extra beautiful. It was perfect and beautiful and so much fun!
Monday morning we headed back towards Helena, but in a different direction than we came. This time we drove through Yellowstone Park for several miles and then detoured to Big Sky to drive around our honeymoon resort. We drove by our cabin that we spent our honeymoon in and explored the mountain roads. I loved, loved, loved being where we spent our honeymoon. It brought back such vivid memories of our incredible trip and I couldn't get over how lucky I felt that we lived so close to the place that inspired us to move here.
We really do feel lucky and blessed that we're getting this chance to be out here, exploring and making the most of every moment. The memories we're making will last a lifetime and all time we say, "I'm so glad we came."
Love and Happiness,
Bethany
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