After I finished my watering chores this morning, I drove to Yellowstone National Park. The east entrance is less than an hours drive from Cody, and it is a beautiful drive to get there. I passed more billboards praising Wyoming’s gun and cattle culture, as well as a Bob’s Big Boy statue in the middle of a field!
My first stop was at Artist’s Palette, in the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. I had visited this area last year when I was starting in Jackson, but I wanted to go back as it is such a beautiful place. I was there early enough that it wasn’t very crowded, but nothing like last year when there were only two of us enjoying the sunset! The falls were very full because of the snow melt.
I was hoping to take the road directly from Canyon to Tower but it wasn’t open yet so I had to take the longer way around through Mammoth Hot Springs. There wasn’t much traffic and the drive was beautiful so I did not mind the extra time in the car, I also had an excellent audiobook to listen to, The Whalebone Theatre. I saw a lot of bison, particularly when I got to Lamar Valley, there were hundreds of them out, including a couple that crossed right in front of my car. There were several times that traffic slow down when they were people standing at the side of the road with cameras pointed, someone always asked what they were looking for, usually it was bison, occasionally bears.
I had not been to the Lamar Valley area of Yellowstone before as it was part of the area that got flooded last year and was closed. I’m so glad I was able to drive through and enjoy the beautiful vistas there. There were several places that roadwork was being done, some of it I’m sure because of last year‘s floods, and just regular maintenance during the non-snowy season.
I decided to leave the park via the north east entrance and loop around back into Cody that way. I had heard that Sunlight Basin was a beautiful spot, and it was, even though it was raining part of the time I was driving through. I drove over the highest bridge in Wyoming and stopped to look at the gorgeous canyon, then took a dirt road further out into the basin. When I got to the summit, I was awed by the beauty before me, I can’t get over how varied the terrain is in this part of the country. I made my way back down with a view of Heart Mountain for most of the drive, I’m hoping I’ll have the opportunity to climb it before I leave.
When I got back into town, I decided to stop at the Irma Hotel, established by Buffalo Bill Cody, that he named after his daughter. I went into the saloon, checked out all of the mounted heads on the walls, the various fundraising posters advertising rifles as grand prize (with the rifle mounted on the poster!) and decided to stay awhile and get one of their specialty drinks. I got the Doc Holliday, which was huckleberry vodka with lemonade, it was very tasty, relatively strong and only six dollars! That’s about half to a third the price of cocktails at home.
I had a zoom meeting so decided to check out the local library and do my meeting there. I was one of only two patrons in the whole library and found a comfy chair with a nice view of a little lake. The library has a good sized cafe, the Pardners Cafe, and beautiful photos, quilts and other artwork by local artists- including a large mosaic cowboy boot on the shelf behind me! After my meeting, I stopped at a local burger place for a burger and onion rings, I got the burger with the ghost pepper cheddar, which was really really hot! Ghost pepper cheese seems to be very popular in these parts.
Later, I went up to the little library in the main lodge and sat and read, it’s such a peaceful place. The library shelves are organized by type of book and each book has an index card with a typed label of the book title and author, to be used like an old school library card.
