The long drive up the Pacific Coast Highway ended with us sleeping in the car for a few hours until we were ready to move on to King’s Beach at Lake Tahoe, California. We pulled up and the view was spectacular with snow-capped mountains as a backdrop to a beautiful lake. It is still crazy to me how I can be on the beach of a lake with 90 degree heat beating down on me with a huge mountain range filled with snow in my view. The best of both worlds is what I would call it! The scenery at King’s Beach on Lake Tahoe is tough to match, that’s for sure. After checking out the beach a little bit, we checked out Trip Adviser for some major attraction and activities within the area and King’s Beach mini golf was at the top of the list. Someone who wrote a review dared to say that it was the best mini golf course in the country. Now if you know me at all, you know that I am obsessed with mini golf; live and breathe it. If you don’t know, now you do!
That course was definitely one of the hardest I have ever played in my life and stands as my favorite course in the country right now; well done King’s Beach! With holes that require “Xtreme Golfing” such as hitting the ball while sitting down or even kicking the ball into the hole instead of using the club, it was a ton of fun. Also, it was only $10 to play 36 holes which was a great deal for the level of entertainment this course gave us. If you are ever at King’s Beach, I would highly recommend playing! Watch out though, your temper may get the best of you on some holes.
Once we dominated mini golf, we got some lunch, relaxed and drank beers on the beach for a while. Once we felt our time was up, we kept rolling through to work our way up to Yellowstone National Park!
Yellowstone is a land of sheer beauty and serenity with wildlife getting within inches of you. Pulling into Yellowstone around 7 a.m., we were soon acquainted with the morning commute; a huge herd of Bison taking up the whole road! There was about 50 of them walking as slow as can be on both sides and in front of the car. Some were definitely too close for comfort, but it made for some great pictures! After being escorted in from the local wildlife for a half hour, we made our way to Madison Campground where we got a tent site and finally set up camp.
After getting all set up, we drove around a bit to see some of the natural beauty that Yellowstone is so well known for. We walked around the lower hot springs and they were just surreal. The raised, wooden walking path took you through turns of 200 degree surface temperature springs that steamed out a warm sulfur mist from the earth. The colors were fantastic, too, with deep hues of blue accompanied by orange accents from bacterial growth in the water runoff.
Later in the day, we drove up to Old Faithful and made it in perfect timing because within 10 minutes of being there she exploded about 150 feet up into the air. Getting to see the power of mother nature was an awesome experience that I will not forget anytime soon.
The following day, we drove around Yellowstone to the Lower and Upper Falls which was beautiful. A roughly 300 foot water fall accompanied by eroded canyon with a rainbow accent made for amazing pictures and an even better experience in person! As we were driving around further, we saw a huge crowd that was attracted to something specific, so naturally we pulled over to check it out. Within 100 yards was a wild black bear cub accompanied by its mother. The mother was rolling around with the cub playing and teaching the youngin’ how to climb trees as well. The shutters of all of the cameras there sounded like one of those coin machines in a bank, rattling off noise. It was crazy to actually see a wild bear, especially so close!
With the day winding down, we went into town to get some dinner and then decided to hit the hay with a big day ahead of us. Next stop: Salt Lake City/Park City, Utah!
Check out the rest of the pictures from Lake Tahoe and Yellowstone National Park on the Ultimate Road Trip Facebook Page!
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