Off to the wilds of Wyoming and Montana

We took I-25 north to Casper and then on up to Buffalo, which is close to the Montana border. It was an easy days drive and not nearly as flat as I remember Wyoming. It had been raining a lot all summer and was very green so I think that made a difference. Beautiful rolling hills and grasslands, rocky outcroppings … when you think back 150 years when they traveled this region by horseback and wagon train …. It must have seemed to them that they would never get there!

Buffalo is a beautiful small town in the foothills of the Big Horn Mountains. They were hosting the Big Horn Mountain Festival, a very good, small bluegrass festival. (Big Horn Mountain Festival webpage) We were able to park at the fairgrounds, under these huge cottonwoods, plug into electricity and take showers for $15 night and walk right over to our booth and the music. The music was wonderful, the scenery amazing and we met some great people, especially our new friends Nadine & Jimmy. They had the booth next to us and on Sunday, helped us pack up and invited us up to their cabin for dinner.

We took the long way up through Crazy Woman Creek Canyon and were blown away by rock formations and shear beauty of it. Once we came up out of the canyon we drove higher up though meadows of lupine with views to forever out east onto the plains. We built a campfire and grilled steaks and had a wonderful time. We were hoping to see their resident moose and her calf but it was not to be. We did see wild turkeys and deer. We will definitely be coming back through this area to fish and relax, so maybe next time. Thanks, Jimmy and Nadine for a very special memory. (Buffalo, WY and festival pictures)

We left Monday afternoon and headed west to Cody. We thought about detouring south to the hot springs at Thermopolis and staying there Monday night, but decided to go on to Cody. We really lucked out. Cody is of course very crowded as it is a jumping off destination for Yellowstone National Park. All of the RV parks were just packed! Main St. through downtown was jammed. We decided to go on through town and find a campground west of town when lo and behold, we saw a Walmart. And overnight parking was allowed! Come to find out, it is town ordinances that mostly determine whether you can park at a Walmart. Many places where we have traveled don’t allow overnight parking so this was the 1^st time we’ve been able to take advantage of this ideal boondocking situation. It is so nice having a level place to park, trash containers and shopping right there.

Tuesday morning we decided to visit the Buffalo Bill Museum. I know it sounds kinda hokie but in reality it was far, far from it. The building house 5 museums on different wings under 1 roof. Jimmy had recommended visiting just to see the firearms exhibit and it was well worth the stop. (Buffalo Bill museum)

The firearms museum houses over 1500 guns on display, from the earliest guns in history from Europe to guns used in every war. The best part was in between with all the old rifles and revolvers from colonial America, the Civil War and the West. It was really fun seeing the guns used by James Arness in “Gunsmoke” and the Cartwrights on the “Ponderosa” plus many others. If you did not see enough you could go down 1 floor and see another 1200. They also had replicas of stagestop cabins and other western pioneer buildings along with trophy mounted wild animals.

The other museum we went into was a life and times exhibit devoted to Buffalo Bill Cody and the history and exhibits from his “Wild West Show”. He was a  fascinating man with a very colorful story.

You need at least 2 days to get to everything in this museum. We didn’t see the “Art of the West”, a natural history museum of Yellowstone or the “Peoples of the Plains” Indian exhibit. Maybe next time…..(Big Horn Mountains and Cody, WY)

We were not able to get reservations for a camping spot in the Park, so decided to take our chances on a national forest campground. We lucked out again and found a really nice one on the banks of the Shoshone River just 3 miles from the east entrance to the Park. We had to drive in and out both days but it was a great spot. If you are going to visit the park during the summer, make reservations months ahead of time! We unhooked the jeep and took a nice drive into the park Tuesday afternoon. (Yellowstone NP webpage)

Just a few miles inside the entrance we came around a curve and there was a buffalo eating grass right next to the road! Of course I want Jim to stop right there so I can take a picture. By then we were past it and he had to turn around so I could get more than his but. By the end of the afternoon we were very jaded with all the traffic slowdowns because of buffalo crossing the roads or “photo ops” in the meadows along the route. “Oh, it must be another stupid buffalo.” However, one time it was an elk!

The roads in Yellowstone are laid out in a loose figure 8 so if you can camp in the park you don’t have to back track too much to see everything. What we had to do was a north east loop the 1^st day and then hook the jeep back up and drive the motorhome on a longer south to west to north loop to see Old Faithful and exit the park on the north at Mammoth Hot Springs. This plan was going along swimmingly until the highway got closed due to a severe accident. We wound up having to back track part of the way we traveled on Tuesday and go over a very curvy, narrow high road by Mt. Washington. Everything would have been fine except for another “photo op” that had 40-50 cars pulled off on a non existent shoulder, running across the road with their cameras, trying to go down this steep slope after something…never could see it…must have been a bear to cause that much excitement. There was one ranger trying to get traffic moving but as we moved on past more people kept pulling off, including another motorhome. As he blocked almost the whole of our lane and traffic coming up the hill wasn’t stopping, we were soon going to be a mess. I could see several motorhomes coming up the hill so decided to get out and stop traffic! They actually stopped, although it was a bit tense until we wove our way through. One lady actually laid on her horn, thinking Jim was going to hit her and she was too terrified to back up a foot to give us more room.

We finally made it down off the mountain and were able to enjoy the rest of the drive to Mammoth Hot Springs. As all the parking lots along the road were very small and jam packed we did not stop for several other waterfalls but did mange to see 1 more. Everything was full in MHS also, so by the time we made 2 loops and finally found a spot the walk was hot and long. We only went to the 1^st formation, Palette Springs.

For spectacular scenery and diversity of geology, there is nothing like Yellowstone (so far, anyway). I would really recommend visiting any time other than the summer, though! Or winter, unless you like a lot of snow and ice. But it was a trip of a lifetime and Jim can die happy as he has seen Old Faithful erupt!

(Yellowstone NP pictures)

As we were driving north to Livingston, MT and our next show, Summerfest on the Yellowstone, I was looking at the map to see if there were any campgrounds to stay in. Did not have much luck but did see a spot on the highway called Chico Hot Springs. I have a couple of great books on hot springs and the one for Wyoming a Montana goes into great detail. It turns out that Chico Hot Springs is still in existence and is as well known for its gourmet dining as its soaking! It turns out that many famous people have ranches in Paradise Valley as it is called and eat there all the time. As Thursday was Jim’s birthday we decide to come back after getting settled in Livingston and soak for the afternoon. We treated ourselves to a “Moose Drool Ale” but passed on dinner. They have lots of great pictures, antiques  and Jimmy Buffet wrote a song about the area and his ex in “Livingston Saturday Night”. (Chico Hot Springs webpage) (Livingston, Montana pictures)

Downtown Livingston is a fun, funky place with all the old neon signs and storefronts still in place with high priced bistros inside. We saw a special edition of the local paper with menus for most the restaurants, boy did they look good. We could have stayed a week and put on 10 pounds and spent a ton of money.

We had a good show and enjoyed the music; the scenery was beautiful and we had a lot of fun. But when it was all said and done I was ready to start back to gear up for Rocky Grass..  

We left Sunday night after the show and spent the night in a really nice rest stop west of Billings. We were able to get all the way back to Golden the next day. Ran into rain and saw huge thunderstorms out on the plains in eastern Colorado resulting in some amazing rainbows. Jim had a hankering for fried chicken so we stopped at Johnson’s Corners Restaurant, just south of Loveland. My son-in-law Billy told us about their cinnamon rolls and great food so we decided to stop. Oh my, my was the food good! (www.johnsonscorner.com)

Little did I know that this was just a “taste” of what was to come.