Advertisement
After a good night at Crazy Woman’s Camp ground, took care of breakfast and the “Unhooking” of the RV’s and hit the road at 8:00 am. Leaving Gillette, WY we felt like the South Dakota winds had followed us. It was pretty strong for the better part of the morning, but calmed down later in the high country. By the way, a correction to yesterday’s blog is in order. The mountains we saw in the distance were not the Rockies, it was the Bighorn Mountain range. The weather today was a bonus, sunny, with not a cloud in the sky, and temperatures in the high 60’s. The forecast had been for rain, so we were most pleased.
The scenery on this route to Yellowstone is very diverse. We went from rolling prairies with lots of cattle and dozens of deer, to the Big Horn Mountains that had to be traversed. As we journeyed toward Buffalo, WY the range came into view, and the closer we got, the more spectacular it became, with high snow covered peaks. Buffalo, at 4500 ft, is a small quaint looking town, and is located at the beginning of Rte 16, known as one of the
most picturesque highways leading to Yellowstone National Park. It is also the safest of the two routes available, with less grade and switchbacks. You begin the climb immediately upon leaving Buffalo, passing through the Bighorn National Forest and the Powder River Pass at 9966 ft. I think our gas mileage must be down to about 3 MPG, with the RV constantly kicking into low gear. This is a very beautiful stretch of highway, with steep drop offs (Diane loved these), mountain streams overflowing with the snow melt, and large Lodge Pole pine. We then passed through Ten Sleep Canyon. They have road markers here along the way, pointing out the various rock formations, for those geologically inclined. These formations were from 450- 500 million years old. It would be impossible to describe in this blog the beauty of this area.
Leaving the Big Horn, the landscape changed back to rolling hills, dotted with oil wells and lots of deer. We meandered through Worland and decided to stop at a small rest area at Greybull for lunch. It was adjacent to an airstrip and Ray was quite pleased to see many vintage WWII aircraft parked near the fence. Leaving Greybull,
the road takes you through many small communities with populations below 100. The smallest was the town of Emblem, WY which had a population of 10, and believe it or not, had it’s own Post office. Even if only one person worked there, the Government employed 10% of the town. No wonder they’re losing money!
After refueling in Cody, we entered into Yellowstone National Park. We passed through the Shoshone Canyon and the Sylvan Pass, with snow drifts along the shoulder higher than the RV. This is a very scenic road coming in from the East gate, with numerous switchbacks, mountain streams and a spectacular view of Yellowstone Lake. We decided to spend the night at the Fishing Bridge Camp Ground, as it is one of the few that are open in the park. After quite a confusing check in, that required us to hook up and unhook and move twice, we finally got settled in, enjoyed cocktails in our RV with John and Diane (too cold to sit outside). Diane then prepared a delicious dinner which we enjoyed at "Chez Cunningham". After dessert at 8 pm, we all decided to crash. Having gone through two time
zones, we still haven’t caught up.
Miles - 326
Total Miles - 1040
Animal Sightings - Lot's of deer, grazing horses and steer, and Buffalo
Advertisement
Tot: 0.083s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 15; qc: 31; dbt: 0.0432s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Raymond
non-member comment
Beautiful
Very nice, the scenery is beautiful although I'm not liking the snow. Have fun! Crazy ladies