Road Trip to Yellowstone National Park from Chicago

Travel to Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone (YS) National Park - this has been one of the most aspired places to go in my list.

Finally, could visit this amazing place in the summer of 2017 on the occasion of July 4th Independence day.

Started as a Road trip from Chicago, IL with my family including my 'brave' 22 months old daughter, Atrin, my wife and in-laws. I am calling my daughter 'brave' as she was the only person who did not feel or look tired during the entire course of the 6 day trip. She enjoyed every moments of the trip be it driving through the foggy mountains of Yellowstone in the middle of the night or encountering an elk on the road in the middle of the night.

The trip was a little unplanned because we did not know how much we will be able to cover each day as I could not find any guide or blog on road trip from Chicago to YS. Total drive on return was a little over 3200 miles and total cumulative driving time of 50+ hours.

Started on a Friday afternoon little after 3 pm from our home at Chicago and drove till Sioux Falls, South Dakota (SD) little after mid night. On our way to SD, we crossed Milwaukee, Madison, Wisconsin Dells and mighty Mississippi river. It is around 9 hours drive.

Spent the night in a hotel in Sioux falls that night and started next morning driving towards the west on I90.

After around four and half hours drive we crossed the Badlands mountains. These mountains are unique by their formation. They are formed by deposition of sand, clay, silt and volcanic ash since millions of years which gave a stratified look to the mountains with sharp peaks. The region derived its name as 'Badlands' due to the extreme climate, lack of water, steep hilly terrain and lack of any vegetation in the region.

From Badlands, it took another one and half hours to reach Mt. Rushmore. Mt Rushmore is one of the most visited places on American soil. It attracts crowds by its massive sculpture of four American ex-presidents carved on the the mountains of black hills. The faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln resemble one of the finest art work of human history. I was amazed to know that most of the work was done by calculated blasting using Dymanite and then to chisel it to perfection. A documentary film in the adjacent audio visual museum explains the process of making this amazing art work. I would suggest all visitors to stop by the museum as it provides a wealth of information about building the monument and history behind it.

We easily spent three hours in Mt. Rushmore and by the time we were prepared to leave, it became 7 pm. Wanted to  stop at a nice hotel for the night in another 2 - 3 hours and at the same time cover as much distance to Yellowstone as possible before resting for the night, therefore booked ourselves in a hotel in Gillette, Wyoming which is around 2.5 hours from Mt Rushmore. Knowing that Yellowstone is close to 300 miles and 5 hours away from Gillette, we knew we had to leave as early as possible the next morning..