This is one of our favorite weekend trips for several reasons. Not only was it halfway between winter and spring but it was my 2015 Christmas/Birthday gift to Heather. However, not everything went according to plan because when we got outside the park, the road in was closed! We had to circumnavigate the whole park to get in putting us hours behind.
We were already on the road for over 5 hours and when we get to the park entrance on the north-west side, it is completely closed and our lodging was on the south west side, 2 hours away! I called the park offices to see if we could switch accommodation from the south-west lodge to the north-west lodge because we were in that parking lot after-all. and they originally said "no" and were kind of rude about it. I was on the phone with the park booking folks and even asked to speak to a supervisor...still, they would not just switch our room to the closer lodge.
Basically, they told me to pound sand AND I would still have to pay for the south-west lodge if we did not make it there or chose to stay where we were. So, i went into the lodge, explained the situation and the guy at the front was pretty understanding. He told me he may not be able to do it but after a few moments of silence, he just simply says "ok" I will do it for you.
WTF? Why did they not just do that an hour ago when I called? But Heather and I were grateful and he just switched our reservation outwith charge. So we got up early the next morning and made the 3 hour drive south and thus, stayed in two beautiful parts of the park over two days. Lesson learned on road closure and conditions and a more interesting and complete experiance...lovely!
