We drove through Bighorn National Forest and that was a
scary drive. We drove up the mountains until we hit an elevation of almost
9,500 feet. The views of the mountains were unlike anything I’d ever seen
before and we got to see lots of snow covered mountains. What goes up must come
down-that goes for the mountain, too. As we went down the mountain, there was a
slew of cars ahead of us which required constant braking. There was a loaded
tractor trailer ahead of us and we both thought the smell was coming from him.
The tractor trailer kept getting further ahead of us but we kept smelling
burning brakes. Chris pulled over and sure enough, it was our brakes we
smelled. They were smoking and you could feel the heat from a couple feet away-they were close
to catching on fire. Luckily, I married a very smart guy and he adjusted the
trailer breaks and downshifted to put more strain on the engine rather than
brakes. This worked for the rest of the drive down the mountain-phew!
We decided to eat at a Taco John’s. This little fast food
place seemed popular out West and their ads looked tasty! It was much like a
Taco Bell except they use real shredded beef and it was much fresher
tasting—real pico de gallo and not smothered in cheese-pretty yummy!
At a certain point, Wyoming turned into a desert-like area.
The ground was extremely dry, no grass, just rocks and sand. We drove many
miles through this desert like area. There were a lot of oil drilling areas and
industrial areas, too.
The Buffalo Bill Center was very cool. It was comprised of
five museums. We got to see firearms and learn about who the real Buffalo Bill
was. There was an entire museum dedicated to the Plains Indians, too. Cody,
Wyoming was a really cool town. They have a nightly rodeo, but we could not
make it and get to Yellowstone in the same night…maybe on our next trip ;)
Chris drove the last two hours to Yellowstone. They were
pretty uneventful, so I won’t bore you with minute details!
There was a sign for Yellowstone and we felt like we had
finally arrived. There was a nice lady at the gate who gave us information and
directions. She did require us to take our little mirror park pass down in case
it blocked our view of a buffalo. We drove for an hour and a half in the park
until we got to Madison Campground at Madison Junction where the elevation is
over 6,000 feet. We weren’t sure we’d ever get there. We got to see a lot of
areas where wildfires had burned up the park. We stopped to read about the
wildfire of ’88 which destroyed a lot of the park. The wildfires are good for
the park though and allow new growth. Nature took its course after the fire and
there were thousands of trees maybe 20 feet tall that needed the heat from the
wildfire to open the pinecones so the seeds could grow. It was really cool to
see how nature took its course in this area. Yellowstone is over 2 MILLION
acres and we could spend a couple days driving across the park just looking at
things. We got to our campground around 8:30. When we got to the park it was 95
degrees. When we reached Yellowstone Lake, the temperature had dropped to 50
degrees-it was chilly! The lake was very rough. We saw Bison in fields and
passed a smelly sulphur spring area. Chris was driving, so he didn’t get to see
it, but there was a bull elk hiding in between pine trees with HUGE HUGE
velvety antlers. They looked like they were as big as me holding my arms out to
make the “Y” in the YMCA dance. Everyone says you’ll see wildlife, but I can’t
believe how close the wildlife roams to the road!
We set up our camp sight and started a small fire. We were
both exhausted so we didn’t last long before we decided to go to bed…just long
enough to make a s’more!
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