Crossing Big Horn Mountains to CodyOct 22, 2010
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Motel View at Sheridan, WY
Big Horn Mts - East Side
Starting up Big Horn Mountain
| This morning before going to breakfast, we were watching a show on TV about Extreme Rides showing one where people were strapped to a harness, raised over 300 feet in the air and then dropped free-falling for about 100 feet until the slack tighten and floated them to the ground (all this time they we strapped on their stomachs). They interviewed two older men that took this ride. When I was getting my breakfast, Kathy came up to me and whispered for me to look at the two men sitting at a table and she would tell me more when they left. Here, these two men were at the same Motel in Rapid City that we were at (she seen them checking out while she waited to report a problem with their Business Center printer) and they were the same two men shown on TV this morning. The world becomes smaller every day. Today we ventured across the Big Horn Mountains seeing the snow-caps on the east side, traveling across the mountain top, and then seeing the snow-caps on the western side. First, we drove up the east side of the mountain (curves everywhere and steep grades were abundant). Once at the top we travelled on the top of the mountain for 5-10 miles before starting our descend. We would have had twice the number of beautiful views of the mountains had our camera operator remembered to turn on the camera before trying to snap the picture as we drove by. Having been at over 8,000 feet we did not witness any snow (temperature was 49 - started at 54 at Motel) but there was very thin ice showing in the standing water. We saw several signs, both up and down the mountain, showing rock ages anywhere from 300 to 500 million years old. As we were starting down the other side, we came around a curve to a scenic pull-off and we pulled in just in time to see one of the young men in a car stopped there, relieving himself as we pulled up. No, we did not get a picture as Kathy was laughing too hard!!!! What excellent timing we have!!!! Near the bottom of the mountain, we saw several wild turkeys right along side the road. We did get pictures of them. The remaining 50+ miles was back to flat grass lands with little to see other than we did see about a dozen wild horses but they we too far off in the distance to get a picture (we needed binoculars). In addition, we saw several herds of Pronghorn Antelopes. We arrived in Cody, Wyoming where we will be spending the next two days exploring Yellowstone. |
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