Tuesday August 11 Next One Week road trip

Nothing is "loosening up" from the Covid-19 pandemic, so we're off of on another short, stay close to home, few people, road trip. This trip will take us through Yellowstone, up and over Beartooth Pass to Red Lodge, down to Cody, Teton N.P. and Logan, UT, then home. 

We didn't know it at the time we made our plans, but this is the week of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally! So we are bound to come across some of the 250,000 bikers that are expected! (the closest we'll be is Cody about 350 miles to the west, but can't you imagine bikers wanting to come over there and see the many thousands of guns in the museum?)

The weather week looks perfect, with temps in the 90s and bright sun. We'll leave about 2:00 for Rexburg.

Wednesday August 12 Yellowstone

 

We really like this Quality Inn in Rexburg. It’s a great location, if you’re heading this way. Three  Hundred miles from home.  Maverick right next door.  Large rooms,  fairly new. Highly recommend. This is the third time we’ve stayed here.

We left Rexburg around 9:00, stopped in West Yellowstone for a  break, then into the park, heading south toward Old Faithful.  Our first stop was the Lower Geyser Basin to take the boardwalk loop.

Boy is it crowded! We don’t recall ever seeing so many people here! The parking lots are overflowing. The theory is that since Americans can’t leave the country this summer, they’re all going to Yellowstone! Of course, there are no tour buses full of foreign tourists!

We drove on down to Old Faithful and had our picnic under the shade of a pine tree in the parking lot. Then we accomplished what we came for which was to hike the boardwalk trail up the hill across the river from the Old Faithful Inn – we’d never done that. It was a nice easy two mile hike with some very interesting thermal pools and small geysers. We even go to see Old Faithful from a distance!!

After visiting the gift shop, we headed back north and arrived In Mammoth Hot Springs by 5:00. We got Cabin #c-52. The weather today was great, lots of clouds at times but temps 65-72. A bit windy at times.

Dinner tonight in Gardiner at the Iron Horse Saloon. We ate there last visit – the ambiance is all western! Fun! We were saddened to see that just a month ago an entire block of downtown Gardiner had burned to the ground.

Interesting observation: we went from West Yellowstone to Old Faithful to Mammoth and did not see a single animal!

Tomorrow we head for Beartooth Pass and Cody, WY.

Thursday August 13 Beartooth Pass to Cody

 Another pretty day, although the wind was strong at times. We took our time leaving Mammoth, enjoying our coffee on the cabin's front porch in the sunshine. We headed east to Tower, then turned left and drove though beautiful Lamar Valley. We FINALLY saw some wildlife! Several large herds of bison. We hiked a little on the Blacktail Ponds trail. Someday, I want to do this hike seriously! Its beautiful!

We left Yellowstone at Cooke City and headed up the Beartooth Pass Highway. The good road twists and turns its way to the summit at 10,947 ft' . Spectacular views in all directions. Its interesting that there are so many small lakes this high up. The wind is howling and its 57 degrees, but its great!

Down the other side to Red Lodge, MT. We stayed at The Pollard years ago. This appears to be a thriving little town! Would be worth a more thorough look!

The road from Red Lodge to Cody is smooth and fast, down the valley on the west side of the mountains we had just crossed. Very little traffic and even fewer people.

We arrived at our Comfort Inn just before 6:00 and had a nice dinner at "Granny's" across the street. Motorcycles everywhere! Everyone we talked to had been to Sturgis and loved it!

We stay in Cody tomorrow and visit the museums. 

Friday August 14 Cody, Stork Trail, Buffalo Bill Dam, Museums

Another gorgeous day! Bright blue skies, no wind, temp up to 80. We started our day with a hike along he Paul Stork Trail. Right in the city, it runs above the Shoshone River. Easy mile+ with good views of this beautiful river, including rafters paddling by.

Next was a trip out to the Buffalo Dam and Reservoir, just six miles out of town. There's an excellent visitors center telling about the challenges of building this dam around 1905. When completed it was the tallest concrete dam in the country. This one was built almost exclusively for irrigation of the Graybull/Bighorn Basin to the east.  We also learned that the Shoshone National Forest to the west was the very first named National Forest, by our old friend T. R.! The story here really brings home the point that without these irrigation projects all over the west, primarily engineered by the Bureau of Reclamation, towns like Cody wouldn't exist.

After lunch we headed over to the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. This is a world class museum! Actually several museums all under one roof. We rambled around the Draper Natural History Museum, the Firearms Museum (with more than 7,000 guns on display!), the Plains Indian Museum and the Buffalo Bill Museum. We never got to the Western Art Museum - we'll do that tomorrow. Buffalo Bill Cody was quite a character. I'll be looking for a biography!

For dinner we went to the famous Irma Hotel, which Bill Cody built in 1902. The famous cherrywood back bar was across the room. Great meal! Lots of Harley guys around!

Cody is a tourist town for sure. Not only does it have the museums but its also the east entrance to Yellowstone.