Wyoming! Wyoming!

Daily Mileage=514; Total Trip= 8459 (passed the 8k mark and we still just keep going and going and going!)

In order to get to South Dakota and the Mt. Rushmore area we had a day of driving across Wyoming. Hence, tonight's blog title song. The fastest way to get across the state (and trust me, there aren't many cross state roads in WY,) was to backtrack through Grand Teton and part of Yellowstone NPs). We didn't mind it too much because the roads are beautiful. And we got to see the Tetons again in a different view. This time with clouds below them. We saw a bear while in the park and to end this portion of the trip on a perfect note, a moose and its calf in a stream as soon as we left Yellowstone.

As you can see from the daily mileage it was quite a long trip but as Rich says, it's not as long as the trip to NY and it's much more beautiful! We used the two bad days or one bad day rule and decided to do it in one day. We stopped and had lunch in Cody, WY which is the rodeo capital of the world. Had we known this before we started, we probably would have spent the night there. It was real hokey but it would have been a hoot! We had buffalo burgers and roasted elk sandwiches. Pretty good stuff although Rich says they're too lean and therefore too dry. Anyway, if you're coming out this way, you should spend a day in Cody. It's about 40 miles from Yellowstone NP on the eastern side.

Wyoming is beautiful. Remember the 2 NPs we've been raving about are in the state. Then we saw a totally different, almost desert-like terrain. We also saw lakes and reservoirs. This one is the Buffalo Bill Reservoir (which is the other state that wanted Buffalo Bill's grave but Golden, CO won out! See earlier blog.)

One of the interesting features we saw was the rock formations that would just jut out of the mountain and trees. They looked misplaced. Some of the rocks were very red, almost like the red rocks of CO or the Grand Canyon, AZ.

We travelled over a 9,000 foot pass, The Bighorn Mountain Pass that was incredible and we saw tons of deer and even some snow on the ground. It's named after Bighorn Sheep that were present there but due to environmental issues and man became extinct in the area. They have now re-introduced them and hopefully, they'll make a comeback. (There is a road going around this mountain.)

We saw plenty of ranches today. Wyoming is definitely the state that has wide open spaces. We saw tons of Black Angus cattle, regular cattle and horses. Later in the afternoon we even saw tons of deer and pronghorn (look like skinny deer but have black antlers that turn at the end. They're pretty cool.) In this photo, these are the cattle, it's pretty hard to get the pronghorn from a distance.

By the way, Wyoming is ranked 50th out of all the states in population (497,000 people) and 9th in area (98,000 square miles). So you drive for a long time (even on interstate roads) and don't see anyone. I think some of the population needs to shift out here!! Any volunteers? We saw more pronghorn than people!

I've forgotten to mention what we have been "reading" on our audio books. We started listening to the History of the Middle Ages. It's 27 hours long (and seems to be longer than the actual middle ages) so we did some of it and then changed to a murder mystery, Mistress of the Art of Death. It takes place in the late 1100's and the main character is like Kay Scarpetta of the middle ages (think we have a middle ages theme going here!) It's quite good but unabridged so it's only 13 hours long. On that note....

Good night and we'll be in touch tomorrow!

Love & Joy, Mare & Rich