Good-bye Big Horn...Hello Yellowstone!

On Thursday before we left the Big Horn Mountains, we were invited back to Tie Flume Campground for appetizers and chili. Carol and Dick had a table full of snacks AND peach cobbler! Tom had made a huge pot of chili and rice. Glenda brought ice cream to go with our peach cobbler. I brought my very favorite dip and crackers! Trust me when I say that NONE of us went hungry! We had sausage from a local store, cheese, chips, salsa, dip…tons of stuff and it seems like we hardly made a dent in it!

We were late arriving at Tie Flumes…along the way there was a bull moose in the willow just before we got to Tie Flume! Took a few pictures of him and we were on our way! After leaving Tie Flume, there he was again! Stopped to take a few more pictures since he was closer to the road! Then we took a short detour and found a cow and calf across from the “fishing area”! It was too cool and I was glad that I got to see another moose or two before we left!

Friday morning we packed up and leisurely headed toward Cody, WY! It wasn’t far, so it didn’t take too long! We ended up in the Wal-Mart parking lot! When we pulled in, I think there were about 20 campers, trailers, fifth-wheels and motorhomes! By later that night, there must have been close to 40! The Cody Wal-Mart caters to the RV’rs…they even had signs posted on the nearest places that you could go to dump! I also saw the local bus come through the RV’s on a regular basis!! While we were in Cody, Glenda and I did a “little” moose shopping! I SAW lots of new moose things that I had never seen before and a lot that I have seen before! Surprising to me, Cody had a wonderful scrapbook store with lots of new and current items! A lot of the small towns we’ve been in have had stores that were a few years behind on their inventory, but not Cody, WY! We all went to the Buffalo Bill Heritage Center and took a ride on the Cody Trolley. We decided NOT to go to the “famous” Cody Rodeo, saving that for another trip. The museum was huge and would take several days to go through to see everything in it!

After we got the motorhomes cleaned up, car/truck washed, groceries restocked, etc. it was time to continue west! We traveled through Yellowstone right on out the west side! We were too large to stay in any of the campgrounds in the park itself, so we choose one on the west side since it was closest to the park itself. We got settled in our new “home” with no problems! We were initially only going to stay here for a day or so and then head north to Big Sky, Montana where we were going to stay at Moose Creek Flats. On Thursday when we were going to Tie Flumes we all piled into Glenda & Ray’s truck and it wouldn’t start. Once we got to Cody they bought a new battery. Drove it several times and all appeared to be o.k. Here in West Yellowstone…the truck won’t start again. To tow it the guys will have to disconnect the drive shaft., so instead of hassling with it in Big Sky, we will stay here for a few extra days (over the Labor Day holiday) and then head towards Idaho Falls, ID where we have a better chance of finding a dealer to fix it if it turns out to be something more than the battery!

So we headed into Yellowstone to see some of the sights in the Park. It was stunning to saw the least, but in areas where they have had so much fire, it was so sad to see! Of course, one of our stops was to see Old Faithful and it didn’t let us down! Saw lots of bison and elk…but sadly, no moose! We saw lots of geysers, falls and even the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone! Lots of driving for one day so we headed back home to continue our adventure through Yellowstone today! We began our day back at the Grand Canyons, on the other side that is! Even though we were looking at the same side, it was amazing how different it was! Headed north towards Mammoth Falls and the awesome terraces that are there! I took pictures, but the pictures just don’t do the scenery there justice!

Today was really windy though and you could tell it just about everywhere we went! In fact, it was so windy that as we came around a mountain in the Mammoth Falls area you could see the rocks in the road. It really made you realize what wind erosion could really do. As we were traveling we looked up just in time to see a rock falling from the mountain. Guess where it hit? Not the windshield, but the hood of the car! Made a sound like you couldn’t believe, luckily it wasn’t one of the bigger rocks, but even so, it did leave quite a dent! Nothing we could have done about it, unless we were a second slower or a second faster! My thought is that I was glad it wasn’t any bigger than it was since it could have done a lot more damage! Once again, we saw lots of bison, some Rocky Mountain goats, lots of elk but NO moose! We looked in all the areas that moose frequent in the park, even the “Moose Bog” but I guess they figured we had seen more than enough moose in the Big Horns!