We left Ennis, Montana and headed back through Yellowstone to allow us to drive the Bear Tooth Pass scenic Highway. Lamar Valley had most of the 3,500 Buffalo grazing there as we passed through.
We tested Betty's recovery from Mountain (Altitude) Sickness via the transit over 10,947 foot Bear Tooth Pass and she passed. We spent the night in Powell, Wyoming before heading to Cody.
Cody has the impressive Buffalo Bill Heritage Museum which was well worth the time to visit. Camping again in a KOA campground, we had dinner in the Irma Hotel, built by Cody and named after his daughter.
A visit to Cody was not complete without a visit to the Cody Rodeo. Most of the professional cowboys were at a big rodeo in Oklahoma I believe, but the kids events were great, and the hundreds of kids chasing three calves with ribbons on their tails was worth the price of admission.
We headed east on highway 14 through Big Horn Canyon, which my friend Ernie said was spectacular, and rightfully so. Beautiful red canyons, switchbacks and waterfalls made this one of the prettiest parts of our 7,000 mile journey.
We spent the night camped at the base of the Devils Tower. We hiked the trail around the base while half a dozen crazies rappelled down the face.
My friend Ernie warned of the scarcity of Hotel rooms available in the west and in reality rooms were available, but in some places the rates were outrageous. $250 for a Super 8 room in Kali spell. The reason for the shortage was partially from the flooding in of the Missouri River, and mostly because of the heavy snow fall and late spring, shortened the visitors season.
We found the cabin above in Keystone as we wanted to stay out of Sturgis. This was ideal, the front of the cabin looked through a hole in the trees at Washington on Mt Rushmore.
We met up with two hashers in Stugris, Rick from Rhode Island, a friend of many years and Chris an Orange County California Hasher, our mother Hash.
We rode the Iron Mountain Road (SD 16A) which is my favorite piece of highway to ride anywhere. 17 miles, 314 curves, 14 switchbacks, three pig tails, three tunnels, four presidents (Mt Rushmore view) and two splits. This road was so neat, Betty had me ride it twice, the second time in the rain. We had moved from our chalet to a hotel in Keystone that had a separate room with a large Jacuzzi which warmed us up after the ride in the rain.
We rode up to Sturgis and made the rounds, bought tees and patches and headed back to Keystone after a long day.
We met our friends in Deadwood for breakfast (and Rick had his bike washed) then headed for the Badlands and the 1800 mile trek home!
The trip was every thing we had hoped and well worth the time and expense.
I missed Devils Tower on my cross country trip last year :-( I need to go back.
ReplyDeleteI saw lots of buffalo on the way to Bear Tooth Pass, I have pictures in my blog of a town's main road closed because of them.
Did Rick also get a wash? ;-)