A 200-mile day trip in Wyoming

 While in Cody, Wyoming, we decided to take a short day trip along the Chief Joseph Byway. Little did we know that it would turn out to be so spectacular and LONG! But well worth it.

Here's the location in Wyoming and the route we took.

As you can see, this route is located in the way NW part of Wyoming and borders Yellowstone Park.

You can see the Start and Finish point in the lower right in Cody.

The start of the Chief Joseph Byway starts innocently enough then...

...here's what we found.  Oh, and we did this in our Ram 1500, NOT the motorhome.

This is only a part of the view from the top before heading down.

Cooke City. Old, old mining town. A long way from civilization. Look at those steep mountains in the background!

What is a WOOKA?

We saw a number of cars stopped along the side of the road and instantly that something was up ahead.
We have never seen a Grizzly Bear before, and now here's two!

It's as if he's saying, "What are you lookin' at?"

Look at the snow levels still in June.

Kim took some fabulous photos !

Now, for some scenic views. Again, these are all Kim's photos, most were taken while we're driving !

This is a great shot!

As is this one.

This valley along the Beartooth Highway was formed by glacial action.

This is the barrier fence at the bottom to catch any rockslides from the photo below.

You can see the slide from the top that occurs over and over again and the barrier at the road below.

This is Heart Mountain along the 75-mile trip back home after leaving the mountains. It was formed millions of years ago by a landslide from the surrounding mountains! It's over 8,000 ft tall. The geology is mind-boggling.

Anyway, you can see why we included so many photos. Kim and I ended up with over 500 photos. 

A spectacular day-long 200-mile trip in NW Wyoming. If you're ever in the area, be sure to take this journey.

steve/kim/katie

Katie is feeling shy.

Devil's Tower, and more Wyoming sites

Rather than a blog entry for each stop, this is an entry with LOTS of photos from our travels over the previous months.

DEVIL'S TOWER, WYOMING

Amazing lava dome in NE Wyoming that is left over after years and years of erosion of the topsoil around it.

WYOMING COAL TRAINS

Four tracks with coal cars loaded with coal from the Wyoming coal mines. Two going in each direction. One loaded, one returning empty. All day and night. Over 100 cars each. Amazing production.

AYERS NATURAL BRIDGES

Sweet little park with a natural bridge over a stream and small lake. 

SACAGAWEA GRAVE SITE

When we planned this summer's route, I thought it would be interesting to visit this gravesite. Over the years, we've visited a few memorable grave sites like Shoeless Joe Jackson, Hank Williams Sr., Steve Prefontaine. All of them very moving.

FANTASTIC WYOMING CLOUDS

Every day we had clouds like this....stunning.

WIND RIVER CANYON

We've gone through this canyon before in years past. It's about 25 miles long. But each time we've done it, we're in the motorhome and it's very difficult to pull over to take it all in as well as to take any photos. This time, we travelled in our pickup and took our time. It's really an amazing canyon between Shoshoni and Thermopolis, Wyoming. 

You can see the semi-truck and cars in the distance for scale. 

Some of the rocks here are over a billion years old. This whole area got lifted up around 75 million years ago. Same time as the Rockies were formed. 

We'll try to keep our travels more up to date as we've been to the Big Horn Mountain, Big Horn Canyon, the city of Cody, the Chief Joseph Byway, the Beartooth Highway, Heart Mountain and Yellowstone already. In the meantime, please enjoy this one.

Steve/Kim/Katie

Having a ball. Over 15 years of travel and not tired of it yet.

Mount Rushmore, South Dakota

 ...not to brag or show off, but this is our 4th time visiting Mount Rushmore. Like so many places we visit, one or two times seeing them is not enough. They just get richer each time we take it in plus; there's always more depth and history that is learned each visit. Mount Rushmore is like that. You have to just sit on a bench and marvel at it.

Oh, and it's free to see it. Just a nominal parking fee.

That is a monitoring device to track rock movement.

Very creative way to depict the pupils.

Great photos showing the scale of the wall

This was the original intent, but it proved to be too large of an undertaking

Looking back at the history is very fascinating...to see how it progressed.

work in progress

This was the next intent, to have them with jackets but funding ran out. Good thing they started at the top and not the bottom !!

Aerial view of construction.

Work in progress. Jefferson was supposed to be to the far left as you can see, but the rock was unstable, so they "flattened" it out and moved him to Washington's left.

here's the rock face before carving. what a difference!

Also, there's a mildly strenuous walk that goes to the base where all the chips fell after sculpting and blasting and then you can visit the Borglum studio to see how they manage the scale from model to real-life.

inside the studio with original work

LOTS of steps

Great upward view from the trail shows a whole new perspective

The entrance to show perspective

Here's a couple of links should you want to read and see more.

https://www.nps.gov/moru/learn/photosmultimedia/photogallery.htm

https://www.nps.gov/moru/learn/index.htm

and one about the main sculptor and his son, who took over the project when the dad died.

https://www.nps.gov/moru/learn/historyculture/gutzon-borglum.htm

and one from youtube.

https://youtu.be/kH0Yw0R84i0?si=mj13BcmeuVPGPPlk

If you ever have an opportunity to visit, go early in the morning to get a good parking spot and less people taking selfies and getting in your photos. It gets crowded. 

thanks for viewing.

steve/kim/katie

Here we are on our first visit! 

Gotta include Katie...not at Mount Rushmore!

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