July 22 – MID WAY -Leaving
Yellowstone – Cody, WY, the KOA in Buffalo, WY
It has been 14 days since we left (July 8)
Distance Traveled (travailed?): almost 3,000 miles
Gas mileage: hovering around 11 mpg
Sites seen today of no importance: Coal mine in Gilette, WY,
pronghorn antelope, lots of junkyards
We drove out of Yellowstone fairly early, hoping to make it
to Buffalo, WY (the show Longmire is based on the town). The drive out is pretty awe-inspiring –
mountains, lakes, cliffs, etc. Lots of burned trees leftover from the 1988
North Fork Fires – so hot they killed the seed sources in the forest floor so
the forest is reverting to grassland…nature at work.
Best Animal View Of The Trip
On the way out of Yellowstone, we came upon a lone, giant, male bison munching grass by the side of the road. A man was out of his car taking photos, well within the 25 yard perimeter that is repeated EVERYWHERE as the distance to keep from bison. What was going to happen was so obvious we didn't have time to video it. The bison wandered toward the man who was busily snapping photos. When the bison was about 10 yards away, it charged. I'm pretty sure that dude has never jumped as high and far backyards as he did that moment.
Bison 1, Tourist 0
It was a mock charge and the bison went back to wandering down the road. The bison's photo is below.
First you head over the western hills that make up
Yellowstone, passing a sapphire blue Yellowstone Lake – in some cases hot
spring spill right into the lake, then through the deep canyons and ranches
that define western Wyoming – lots of what I suspect are hoity toity due ranches
and probably some not so hoity toity.
Cody, WY sits at the bottom of a great escarpment. We had to drive down
a 7% grade with a lead car due to construction.
The Honda pilot isn’t really made for this kind of hauling, so I was
continually pumping the brakes. 1st
gear was too slow and 2nd gear was too fast. It wasn’t too bad, but
a bit tiring. I could feel the brakes were uneven, but they stopped the car, so
I guess no worries, right?
Cody, WY is a tourist town. With more time, we would have
spent the night nearby and perhaps seen the
Buffalo Bill museum, but our schedule didn’t allow it, so after picking
up some stickers for our camper and car, we hightailed it east.
But, hungry, we ate Buffalo and Elk burgers at Cassies Supper Club
just west of Cody. It was excellent and had a nice dance floor for what I
assume is country line dancing or perhaps hip-hop. Actually, only Max and I got the buffalo/elk
burgers. Binh got a steak burger, which, upon tasting was like eating a steak
on a bun and beat my gamey and slightly dry buffalo/elk burger. Any case, vegetarians we are not.
14 vs. 16 – Bighorn
Mountains
There are 3 ways to get around the big horn mountains – go
north around them, go via route 14 or 14a through them or go via route 16
through them. We had read that route 14
was very winding and not so good for RVs or folks hauling trailers. So, knowing
nothing else, we chose 16. In any case,
we made it through ok. The haul up to
Deer Valley was worse than anything we encountered on 16. We took a break at the top of the mountains
and marveled at the view. We were at
9600 feet – the highest point on our trip so far.
Showers
Due to some poor planning and laziness, we hadn’t showeredin Yellowstone – so the need for showers was of primary importance. Perhaps you
smelled us where you are? Apologies if so.
Reaching Buffalo, we pulled into the first KOA of our trip.
KOA is a chain of RV parks that range from something akin to
a badly crowded high school parking lot to a full resort. This one was a bit of
the former, but the pool was great for the kids (and me) and the showers and
laundry were very very welcome.
We went to a local mini-golf/ice cream shop and got
completely eaten alive by mosquitoes to the point where we really don’t know
who won though Danny won a free game at the end by getting a hole in one.
The ice cream shop owner was a local school history teacher
and was very interested in talking to us because he knew all about Lexington
and Concord – it’s on his trip list for when he sells his business. I left him
my email address in case he ever came through Lexington.
We went to bed clean.
This guy charged the tourist
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