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To RanchesterOct 3, 2008
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Elk in Yellowstone National Park
Buffalo in YNP
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| October 3...Lazy J Campground---Ranchester, WY Today we left Yellowstone National Park. We really wished we could have stayed longer but I made reservations late and was only able to get 5 nights. There are only about 4 campgrounds open in this park and another 2 campgrounds in Teton National Park. We could have gotten a site in a private park outside of Yellowstone. But it is such a long drive to get in & out of the park. We left Madison Campground and went across the park to the East Entrance. We saw our first elk near Norris Geyser Basin. We hadn't seen any until today. When we got over to the Canyon area we saw a whole herd of Elk. I guess they're coming down from the mountains now....hummm, what does that mean? I think I know...... We also saw a small group of buffalo in the road and a few herds in the Hayden Valley.....lots of buffalo. We went through the Fishing Bridge area and found more buffalo. The herds here in Yellowstone seem to be doing very well. We drove past Yellowstone Lake for quite a while. It sure is a big, pretty lake. Next time we get here I hope we can take a boat ride and see more of it. We passed some very pretty smaller lakes and some amazing scenery on the road east. Well, finally, after a long drive (which shouldn't be missed) we came to the East Entrance. We left Yellowstone NP on hwy 14,16,20 heading for Coty, WY. Wow, did we enter another park? The scenery is just beautiful. There are mountaims, lakes, streams and the colors are so pretty. We came to Buffalo Bill State Park and Buffalo Bill Lake....nice. Then we went through a canyon....what a drive :-) When we got to Cody, WY, I couldn't believe my eyes. This city has grown so much since we were here. I didn't recognize the place at first. When we go to the old part of town I gave a sigh.....this is Coty, the old part of town looks the same. It's nice to see 'old familiar faces' again. If you want contrasts, just drive west of Coty in the morning and east of Coty in the afternoon. Take a look at the pictures if you think I'm exagerating. The area east of Coty is flat and dry. It's hard to imagine such a quick change in how the terrain looks. We didn't get very far when Joe noticed a problem with a tire on the left side of the RV. He pulled over as far as possible on an area of the road that was a little wider. #@^%$#&@!! Another bad tire. It's all shredded and this one is flat. We had to call 'Good Sam' again. We're told they'll be here in about an hour. We are thankful that it will only take an hour....we are in the middle of now where after all :-/ It isn't hot here...the temperature is very pleasant. So we decided to get in the RV and have lunch. It sure is nice having your house with you when you're stuck on the side of the rode. Then I got on line and Joe read... It had been only 40 minutes and the repair guy was there. It turned out that the town of Greybull, WY wasn't too far up ahead. When the tire was changed, we headed for Greybull for another new tire. At the tire repair, the owner told us he no longer carries Carlisle tires, he said he's had too many problems with them. (I checked on line and found a number of complaints about this brand and only one person saying he hadn't had a problem with them). We left Greybull with our new tire and planned to travel on to I-90 before stopping for the night. We were now going into the Big Horn Mountains. We had checked with the volunteer at the campground in Yellowstone and were told that this would be a pretty ride and an OK route at this time of the year. Well, he was right...the temperature was very nice and scenery was very pretty....but he didn't tell us we needed mountain goats to drive up here! I knew it would have steep roads, we've driven steep roads before....but wow, these were the steepest we've driven. Our poor truck, it sure was getting hot...there were pull-outs, so we stopped pretty frequently. I will say we did enjoy the views from the pull-outs :-) But next time we come through this area with an RV,we will go another route. After what seemed like hours of only driving up & up & up....we did finally start going down to the valley on the other side of the Big Horn mountains and went through the cute town of Dayton. When we came to the town of Ranchester we found an RV park and signed up for the night. We are only about 1/4 mile from I-90....mission acomplished ;-) |
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