We’ve wanted to make this trip for some time now, and finally, here we are. What exactly is the objective beyond the descriptive title already telling you that we are traveling from Glacier to Yellowstone? Well, the fact that we are not starting in Montana for one and the other overarching part of the story is that we’d wanted to drive from Phoenix to the Canadian border in the shortest possible time for a while now. Of course, being who we are, there was no way that we’d simply drive north and south again without many stops between. So here we go on a quick five-day, nearly 3,000-mile (4,800 km) trek up and back.

We thought we were getting out of town early enough at 2:30 in the afternoon, but so did thousands of others. Stuck in traffic, baking in our rental car, when the temperature is pushing 112 can test anyone’s patience, but after the slog comes the respite when on the approach to Flagstaff at 7,000 feet of elevation, the temperature is a solid 20 degrees cooler than at points south. On the other side of Flag, we stop at the small Navajo village of Cameron for gas, but more importantly, we find the calming indulgence of an ice cream sandwich to be the elixir that soothes the savage beast. Yet another stop, this one only 30 miles north of the last. We are at The Gap Trading Post, where the scenery of Echo Canyon demands attention and we decided that we’ve sped past this trading post once too many times and that we have enough time to stop in this afternoon. I left with beef jerky and Caroline with some yarn.

Maybe you noticed it’s late in the day and that we are only about 270 miles from where we started. In case you don’t know where we are, this is the Colorado River downstream from Lees Ferry, and if we are standing over the river, that can only mean we are on the Navajo Bridge near Marble Canyon, Arizona. We still had about 250 miles to drive tonight, so, with no time to waste and the light fading fast, we had to keep on moving north.

Onto the Kaibab Scenic Byway, we drive through Jacob Lake, where a turnoff takes visitors to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, up through Fredonia, where I have my umpteenth encounter with an old tune from the Marx Brothers that has been stuck in my head for nearly 30 years. Once in Utah, it’s only a short drive to Kanab and the Moqui Cave that after two previous visits, we don’t feel bad about passing this time. Time for giggles on the approach to Mt. Carmel Junction, where our favorite neon sign in Utah always elicits laughter. That sign is found at the Thunderbird Restaurant, which is billed as the “Home of the Ho Made Pies,” leaving us wondering just who is the ho that makes their pies.

We followed Highway 89 into the night before reaching the town of Richfield. Because of the time zone change that comes with entering Utah, it was nearly midnight by the time we lay our heads down.