Yellowstone to Cody

The drive to Yellowstone from Idaho Falls was an uneventful relaxing drive.  When we arrived it was a cold and windy day, later as you will see in the photos it began to snow and rain.  The hot springs and mudpots and the whole geothermal nature of Yellowstone was amazing.

Hot springs

Mudpots - just boiling bubbling and stinky mud

Geysers Mudpots and Fumeroles - Oh my

We stayed at the Old Faithful Snow Lodge which is just across from the famous Geyser.  We arrive about ten minutes before Old Faithful was scheduled to blow so I set up my camera and waited. This is of course the precise moment it began to rain and snow and the clouds  moved in and the flakes got big
and well, damn, I took about the worst panorama ever... bugger!

Old Faithful

The Snow lodge was a beautiful building.  Carol and I loved the architecture and the way they decorated the whole place.  We had some really bad service but when we checked out, I had a chat with the manager, who was very gracious and the result was a complete refund for our stay. I don't normally complain but this time was a bit too much.  Anyway - Here are a couple of pix from the Snow Lodge.

Snow Lodge Lobby

Room 1010

This morning after all the hubbub at the registration desk I scraped the ice off the windshield and we got underway right at 8:00 - on the snow and ice covered roads.  More snow was predicted but we had blue skies and still had the high winds. The route to Cody (112 miles east) was closed so we had to drive 100 miles north to Livingston then 120 miles east and then 75 miles south - some detour. It is 50 miles to the north exit in Gardiner, MT and these 50 miles took us two and half hours because of the snow and ice, and some road construction too. The roads were awful until the last five miles where the snow completely disappeared, the sun came out, and the temps went into the forties... go figure.

A branch of the Yellowstone in the park - many animal tracks in the dirt here, I saw deer, elk and maybe wolf tracks.

The exit

Near the gate in the panorama above you can maybe make out an Elk and to the left of the sign there is a small herd of deer - white tails. We had also just passed wolves working on a carcass of something.

The wind was high and when we were on route 90 heading east we saw a tractor-trailer blown over on the other side of the highway. Leaving route 90 and heading back south toward Cody we traveled route 72

Route 72 - somewhere in Wyoming

Clark Fork of the Yellowstone - a tributary

We arrived in Cody at about 4:30 and checked into the Irma Hotel.  This is the hotel the Buffalo Bill Cody built in 1902 in this town he founded.  The bar in the restaurant was a gift from Queen Victoria and valued at $100,000.00 in 1902.

Irma Hotel

Irma Hotel Restaurant and Bar

We visited the Buffalo Bill Museum which is home to the Whitney's Museum of Western Art.  Spectacular. We only had time for a tour of the art gallery but so may paintings and sculptures of the west by Remington, Russell, Catlin and others.  Amazing.  We are going back in the morning before heading to Deadwood.

And of course a gallery, this one of shots from around Yellowstone - yesterday and today

Gallery

Hope you enjoy these photos