Travels with Don and Pati

DAYS 5 & 6 - DEADWOOD-CODY-HELENA, MT

Friday we said goodbye to Deadwood on a beautiful sunny warm day and headed back up to I-90 and turned west. As soon as we crossed the border into Wyoming we stopped at a Visitor's Center and got a super nice woman who told us of some side trips we could take along our way. Since we were still a full day ahead of Nicki and Brian we had the time. That is the one plus of their delay: we got to see parts of the country that we hadn't intended to but have enjoyed so much. What a beautiful country we have.

Our first stop was Devil's Tower which was a 45 minute drive north from the Visitor's Center. We could see it clearly for miles and when we arrived and stopped at a little country store for a break it was right there in front of us. We decided not to take the drive up to the base of it since we had a great view anyway.

We took a different route back to I-90, headed west and when we got to Buffalo, Wyoming turned south for the scenic route through the Bighorn National Forest. What an amazing place that was. Mile after mile of scenery you only see in movies and then you realize it is in our own country. There was hardly any traffic but I can imagine in the summer that the cars are bumper to bumper. We crossed the Horn Mountain at some point during the trip. There were a few buffalo along the way but not much else.

We stopped for the night in Cody, Wyoming, had dinner and went to sleep. On average we're arriving at our hotels around 7:00 p.m. every night and Don's usually been up since 4 or 5 a.m. and does all the driving so we're both tired.

Today we left Cody early (for Pati) which means about 8:00 or so. We headed out US 16 out of Cody and the sign said "Yellowstone 50 miles". That road took us right into the East entrance to this beautiful National Park. Yay for our Senior Park pass we bought a few years ago when we took that long trip out west. It has saved us money twice now on entrance fees. Our goal was Old Faithful and it took us another hour or so to get there. Along the way we saw wild buffalo roaming free and many, many beautiful mountains and hills. There was still a lot of snow on the mountains and as we drove further into the park, there were snow banks right along the roads with some fields being covered with snow. Yellowstone Lake was covered with snow and looked like it was still frozen. It probably wasn't solid but it sure looked like it. We got parked and went into the Visitor's Center mainly to use their restrooms but ended up buying t-shirts off course. We moved the car a little closer to Old Faithful and walked out. It was COLD, in the high 30's-40's. I put my fleece jacket on plus my raincoat and was ok. The wind was blowing too so that made it feel colder. We walked up to Old Faithful and found out from the Park Ranger that it wasn't due to go off for another 40 minutes. We went into the VC and sat in the auditorium mainly because it was the only place with good WIFI but stayed for the short movie about the park. When it was over, it was time to walk back out and wait. There were a lot more people there than you would think but still not as many as I imagine there will be in the summer. Everybody was friendly except for the Japanese tourists. I think they were never taught any manners. Old Faithful went off around 12:12, right on schedule. It started to snow lightly when we first walked out and kept getting thicker as we waited. Then on our way to Helena, it probably snowed on us for at least the first 40 miles, maybe more. After that, it was rain. No sun for us today.

After that, we headed toward Helena, Montana. That took us another 3 hours going out the North Entrance of Yellowstone. We're stopped for the night in Helena. Nicki and Brian are at Gillette tonight which is about 6 hours from here. We've decided to move on to Great Falls, MT tomorrow and will meet them there, spend the night and cross the border Monday morning. It'll be good to see them.