WY: Buffalo--Thermapolis--Jackson

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After the last update from Buffalo, WY, we traveled on Rte 16 to Thermopolis, WY. The town advertises their hot spring as the world’s largest mineral pool. We arrived here last Saturday (10/29), found a cheap place to stay at the Elk Antler Lodge, & then rode our bikes over to the hot springs to go for a dip. It’s actually a swimming pool that has the water from the hot springs piped in, but it felt great!!! And Ken got to go on his first-ever waterslide - okay, his first waterslide was the 4 ft. kiddie slide, but then he worked his way up to the big slide & it was so much fun. It was even a bit scary because it went really fast & had a bump that you hit & then flew up in the air & then it tossed you onto the sides of the slide. Ken got a bit addicted -- it was a lot of fun.

We left Thermopolis the following day, Sunday (10/29), heading for Jackson. The drive took us on this spectacular road through the Wind River Canyon. Ken and I randomly picked a turnout along the canyon road to stop & go for a hike. We ended up finding a trail marked by cairns that led us up through the sage grass to the bottom of bluff. To our surprise, we found a rock-climbing rope affixed to the bluff, with clearly marked climbing routes. It was pretty cool! We checked out the area & we were making our way a little higher into the scree when Ken mentioned that we should look for rock fossils (we had seen signs all along the route that identified the approximate age of the rock layers we were seeing - they were millions to billions years old!!). And we actually ended up finding rocks with seashell fossils. It was such a great hike with unexpected discoveries.

We arrived in Jackson that same day. It was a nice town - we checked out a few shops along the town square, but then headed out of Jackson the following day (Halloween) to make our to Yellowstone.

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