Day 11 (Jun 14) Billings, MT to Cody, WY - 110 miles

 

Where we stayed - Best Western Sunset Inn

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Today was a short drive, so before we left Billings, we stopped at the DanWalt Gardens just a few minutes from where we stayed. This is a beautiful place and is one of the most well kept gardens we have seen on our trips in the past. Our pictures really don't do it justice.  Recently it was purchased by another couple and they are managing quite well since they bought the grounds just a little over a year ago.

After the gardens we headed to our next destination and arrived in Cody around noon.  Instead of going straight to our room, we stopped at the Buffalo Bill's Center of the West Museum. This place is huge!!! It is made up of 5 big museums all housed in one gigantic building. In fact, the cost of entry allows you to come in the following day in case you can't see it all the first day! While we had planned to make it a 2 day adventure, we were able to see it all in one day and closed the place at 6pm.  After we finished there, we headed to our hotel.  The hotel turned out to be more like a motel but the entire place looked brand new and it was kind of nice to be able to park the Roadster right in front of our room. 

Tomorrow we head to West Yellowstone for a 4 night stay!

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Day 12 (Jun 15) We Drive to West Yellowstone - 132 miles

 

Where we stayed - Crosswinds Inn

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We left Cody and after about 5 minutes we stopped at a place called Old Trail Town.  If you are into old west history, this is a place you need to stop at.  It is area comprised of 30 plus buildings, each with it's own history of the people that build and lived in each of the buildings along with a small cemetery with the graves of a few of the people that lived in these buildings. Lot's of history here an even more articles of interest from the old west.

Next we headed to West Yellowstone, our stop for the next four days.  On the way, we saw a fairly new forest fire outside Yellowstone National Park.  The town is just outside the main gate on the west side of the park and when you stop at the first intersection, there is a sign announcing that you have left Wyoming and arrived in Montana.

The hotel has been completely updated and looks all new AND only about a mile from the main gate.

Along the way we made a sudden stop because right along side the road was a very large Bison just munching away on the grasses along the road.  As we continued through the park we also saw some deer and a few elk.

Tomorrow we head into the park to hopefully see some geysers.

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Day 13 (Jun 16) A really large screen and a lot of hot water.

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We decided that we would stop at the IMAX here in town (with a populations of 1382)

and check out the park from the vantage point of the best seats in the house.  Not bad. Gave us a few of the views of the park we really wanted to see.  After that, we headed into the park and began our tour of the high points of Yellowstone National Park.

With a size of 3,468.4 sq. mi, you can ever see all of Yellowstone. There are basically two main roads, West to East and North to South. Then there is a figure eight of sorts that if you laid it right on top of the X of the two main roads, then erased the X in the middle, you would have about all of the driving you can do within the park.

We spend the remainder of the day driving the lower western portion of the figure eight and with all the stops we made, we only got to the bottom of the "eight". There and back was almost 100 miles.

Most of the drive tour was all about the "hot spots" within the park.  We saw mud pots, prismatic springs, hot springs and geysers.  At one point we saw 3 geysers going off in the distance as we were waiting for "Old Faithful". The geyser did not disappoint and shot skyward in all it's glory!

We ended the day hitting the City Creamery which is a place in West Yellowstone famous for it's handmade ice cream. It has some standard flavors but a lot more different flavors.  One of Dot's favorites was Wedded Bliss, which was a mix of 4 different ice cream flavors!

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Day 14 (Jun 17) More hot water but mostly traffic.

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We decided to start where we left off yesterday and once past Old Faithful we continued on the road but it took a lot longer than we had planned. While we saw a few more geysers the painted pots and a few geysers in lake Yellowstone. Traffic comes to a standstill when one car spots animals and stop right in the middle of the road or on a narrow shoulder which still puts the car blocking a lane and all the following cars now have to find a way to get around it. Within 15 minutes, a Park Ranger shows up and starts to fix the problem but the traffic will take even more time to clear because everyone wants to see what the original car saw. We got tied up into at least 3 of these.  We were told that it's even worse on the weekends.​

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Day 15 (Jun 18) Today was an off day . . . well sort of. 

 

We did go to the Museum of Yellowstone here in town.  They had two videos, one telling the story of the wild fire from 1988 and the results. The second was a short history of the beginning of Yellowstone.

They also had many displays about all the different facets of the Park from its early days and how they managed the crowds. These included the wagons that carried people from one point to another. There was also a water truck from the early days before the roads were paved over.

Because this was our last day in Yellowstone, we decided to have a wonderful sit down dinner at this place called Serenity Bistro. It was delicious and every plate was uniquely presented. Tomorrow we head for Glacier National Park.

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