Idaho-Yellowstone to Cody, WY

Waking up again to temperatures in the low 40's we knew tha it was time to leave for someplace warmer! And Hank says that the girls around here wear too many clothes. In order to get to

Cody, WY where our next reservation awaited us we had to go through Yellowstone one more time. Driving along the Madison River I searched for the trumpeter swan that I had seen on the

two previous days to no avail-guess it was too chilly. But just a bit farther along the road we saw 5 elk grazing not far from the road. Shortly thereafter we saw many Canadian Geese and the most exciting of all, we saw a bald eagle in a tree across the river and too far to get a photo, but we knew that we had seen that majestic creature! Because we had been caught in the traffic tie up in a large construction area on the Norris loop the day before, we decided to take the route past Old Faithful and the southern loop to the East Entrance of the Park and our route to Cody. We drove past all the geo-thermal features that we'd seen two days ago, but Old Faithful was too much to drive past. By the time we got into the parking lot an eruption was just finishing up, but at least we were able to stretch our legs a bit. We then traveled up through Craig's Pass-8200' in elevation then down to Yellowstone Lake (man is that HUGE?) and on to the Fishing Bridge (which one cannot fish from any longer) and then headed for the East Entrance. That required us to travel up to the Sylvan Pass more than 9000' in elevation. There was snow all along the road once we got nearly to the top. I've included a photo of the snow on 7/6! On the way down the other side we came upon a motorcycle accident and that beautiful touring bike was bashed up against a stone retaining wall-all beat up. There were Park Rangers dealing with the accident and we just kept driving. I've also attached a photo of Hank leaving the Park!

The drive from Yellowstone to Cody was very scenic along the Buffalo Bill Cody Byway-there's a photo from that at the top. As we approached Cody we came upon a huge hydro-electric dam-once was an engineering marvel, but has now been surpassed by higher dams. When we got into Cody we found that our KOA Kampground was out to the East of the town, but located it with little problem. Got settled then went back into town to explore and get our bearings. After getting some groceries, and purchasing a new camera (mine had finally died!) we checked out some of what Cody has to offer. Hank had been hankering (no pun intended) for a western steak and if Cody couldn't provide it no place could. We decided to have dinner in the Irma Hotel Restaurant built by Buffalo Bill Cody in 1902. Restaurant looked very busy, but we were soon seated! Service was good-food was excellent and so was the service. Lots of individuals in western dress-some obviously "wanna-Bee's" some locals. After dinner we had to walk off the huge meal and shops and souvenir vendors were active. There was a gunfight skit being played out in the street to the entertainment of many! Cody is famous as a rodeo town and one takes place every Mon. throughout the summer. However, it was very chilly and damp and the old folks decided we just wanted to go back to the Tin Tent and crash. Tomorrow before we leave Cody, we'll check out the Buffalo Bill Museum.