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Twenty years ago, on my first trip to Yellowstone, I spotted an older couple puttering through the park on a pair of Honda Trail 90s.

They weren’t in a hurry. Just rolling along through a herd of buffalo like they had nowhere else to be. They looked like they’d unlocked some secret to having more fun than everyone else.

I had no idea what a Trail 90 was. I’d never been on a
motorcycle trip in my life. But I knew one thing:

I needed some of that.

Fast-forward twenty years, a few half-baked plans and way too much Facebook Marketplace scrolling, and suddenly we had the bikes: a pair of Honda Trail 125s, the modern-day descendants of those little Trail 90s I’d seen all those years ago. We had a route. We had absolutely no excuse left.

So we pointed those tiny machines toward Yellowstone.

We buzzed through eastern Idaho, crawled over Teton Pass,
and eventually putt-putted our way into the park.

Top speed? About 45 mph. With a tailwind.

Turns out, that was just about perfect.

We had plenty of time to stop at every fishy-looking creek, wander down every scenic side road, pull over whenever something looked interesting, and visit every hole-in-the-wall pizza joint we could find.

No grand lesson here.