Off Like a Herd of Turtles: Family Travel Blog

Dream Lake Rocky Mountain National Park Our family had the wonderful opportunity to travel in a socially distanced way to Rocky Mountain National Park in July 2020. Early in the pandemic, we realized RV travel might be the only way to safely travel for the foreseeable future, so we nabbed a 2018 used Airstream Bambi 16 footer. After a few weeks of prep and learning (mostly performed by my husband, Adam) and a few weeks of concurrent trip cancellation (we cancelled 5 trips that involved flights during COVID time) and re-planning (performed by me), we were off! Because we have two darling children, Zooey, 7, and Oliver, 2, and we try to keep their lives screen free, we wanted to take our time driving with traditional car activities- reading, audiobooks, drawing, music, word games etc so our longest intended driving days were 6 hours according to google maps. Of course, when your trailer tires are supposed to only drive at 60 mph, and you need to stop for wiggle

Mammoth Hot Springs is a wonderful destination in itself as well as an excellent place to stay to enjoy the Northern end of the park. If you are following my Yellowstone Overview recommendations, then you will be staying 2-3 nights here, hopefully 3 nights if you are arriving later in the day on night 1. The Mammoth Hot Springs Lodge is a great place to stay with excellent food (though reservations needed for dinner). There are various types of accommodations- lodge rooms with bathrooms or without and cabins. There is a lovely communal room with games to play and books to read. However, I wouldn't spend too much time here because in Yellowstone the action is outside. The Hot Springs themselves have hiking paths surrounding them and are definitely worth pursuing for an hour or two. There is a 5 mile hike called "Beaver Ponds" that takes off right from the lodge which makes it very convenient if you have young nappers and only part of your party wants to stay. I