Thermopolis and Cody - The Wild West

Saturday, May 27, 2017

We left Hulett at 6:15 am and the temperature was 43*.  About 30 miles out of town there were no trees, just wide open spaces.  We saw lots of cattle and pronghorn and several fields of sheep.  We even saw one pronghorn in the middle of the road.  We also noticed there are no brick houses in the area, only frame houses.  

Between Hulett and Buffalo we had a beautiful view of the Bighorn Mountains and drove through them on the way to Worland.  At Buffalo, we got off the interstate (finally!) and were on a scenic state highway.  We started seeing a little snow on the ground just out of Buffalo and kept going up in elevation.  The temperature dropped from 50* down to 39*.  We reached the highest elevation at Powder River Pass (9,666') and there was a lot of snow.  Near the town of Ten Sleep we saw our first moose in the wild!  

 Beautiful, wide open Wyoming

Beautiful, wide open Wyoming

Some kind of mining operation

 Bighorn Mountains

 Bighorn Mountains

 Bighorn Mountains - love the round cloud!

 Bighorn Mountains

 Wyoming

 Snow in the Bighorn Mountains

 The higher we went, the more snow we saw.

Of course, I had to pose in the snow with a short-

sleeved t -shirt!

A snow fence in the Bighorn Mountains

Bighorn Mountains

 Interesting little town of Ten Sleep, WY

 More mountains

Mountains, mountains everywhere!

We arrived in Thermopolis about 11:15 a.m. It is tucked among the foothills of the Owl Creek Mountains beside the Big Horn River.   We headed to Hot Springs State Park.  The park contains mineral baths, pools, hot mineral springs, terraces and hot waterfalls, and is home to the state's bison herd.  The park claims to be the World's Largest Hot free-flowing spring.  Mineral laden waters well-up from Big Horn Hot Spring at a scalding 127 degrees.  This huge pool, spewing out 3.6 million gallons of hot water every day makes up the main feature of the park.  A treaty between the Shoshone and Arapaho nations and the US specified that the waters of the hot mineral springs here would be available to everyone free of charge.  They had one pool that was half indoors and half outdoors where you could bathe for 20 minutes for free.  There were also a couple other pools and a water park that you had to pay admission to enter.  

 Scalding water flows out of the turquoise Big Spring (above) and into the cooling ponds.  The mineral-laden spring issues 3.6 million gallons of water per day, and the terraced formations over with the water flows are comparable to those of Yellowstone.  

 Water on its way to the cooling pond

 Big Horn River - the banks of the river are travertine, composed of 

mostly lime and gypsum from water from the springs.  The coloring

comes from the 25 species of algae that thrive in hot water.

Hot Springs State Park also home to the state's bison herd.  The bison herd was originally established in 1916 with 15 cows from Kansas City and 1 bull from Yellowstone.  In 1973 a family donated the Spearhead brand and 98 cow bison.  In 1889, there were only 551 bison left nationwide.  That was down from the estimated 250 million that once roamed the country.  The park maintains a free-roaming herd of 24-27 adult and yearling bison on a year-round basis.  This number increases by 10-15 animals during the spring as new calves are born.

There is a road that winds through the buffalo pastures and there were several more hot springs along the road.  

Buffalo

It took about an hour and a half to get from here to Cody where we planned to stay before going to Yellowstone.  Our room at the Buffalo Bill Village Cabins ($113.38) wasn't ready when we got there so we told them we'd go on to the museum and come back later.  

We found the Buffalo Bill Center of the West Museum which was huge! It contains 5 separate museums - Buffalo Bill Museum, Plains Indians Museum, Whitney Western Art Museum, Draper Natural History Museum and the Cody Firearms Museum.  

The Buffalo Bill Museum showcases the fame and success Cody attained through his "Buffalo Bill's Wild West show" and addresses his significant influence on the economic and cultural development of the American West.  The exhibits also reveal an intimate portrait of this major American figure - his personal successes and failures, as well as his financial fortunes and misfortunes.  

 Buffalo Bill Museum

 Linda with Buffalo Bill

Buffalo Bill's private tent looked like this when he was on the road.

The Plains Indians Museum features the stories and objects of Plains Indian people, their cultures, traditions, values and histories, as well as the contexts of their lives today.  They had an extensive collection of art, artifacts, ceremonial items and beadwork as well as dress and weaponry of the Arapaho, Blackfeet, Cheyenne, Crow, Shoshone and Sioux tribes.

 An Indian teepee

 Indian artifacts

 A type of shawl the Indians wore

The Whitney Western Art Museum features paintings and sculptures of the American West.  

One of many paintings here

The Draper Natural History Museum features interactive exhibits highlighting geology, wildlife, and human presence in the Greater Yellowstone region.  

 So life-like

 Loved the owl!

Interesting model of a volcano

Cody Firearms Museum houses the most comprehensive collection of American firearms ranging from a 16th-century hand cannon to guns of modern manufacture.  It holds weapons from almost every significant gun manufacturer in the world and also the Winchester collection.  I gave this one just a few minutes of my time and told Conrad to take his time.  I'd be waiting for him in a chair!

 Guns

A Pair of Gold Colt Single Action Army Revolvers

Leaving the museum, we headed back to our room.  A deer came out of the park across the street and crossed the 4-lane road - not running - just a slow walk!  We had a lot of rabbits running around outside our room.  We also met Leon and "his woman" (that's how he introduced her) who were staying a couple cabins away from us.  He asked us if we got up early and when we told him we did, he asked us if we were quiet.  I overheard him on his phone later (he talked really loud) and he was saying that people would get up around there at 7:30 or 8:00 a.m. and were so loud and wondered why they got up so early because there was nothing to do that early!  I have to admit, I did kind of let the door slam when we loaded up to leave in the morning!  Our room was a small (very small) cabin with a bed, table 2 chairs and tv.  The bathroom was tiny too.  

Our cabin 

So, after 360 miles, 8,652 steps and 3 flights of stairs, it was time for some rest!

Spearfish Canyon, Vore Buffalo Jump and Devil's Tower

Friday, May 26, 2017

We left the hotel at 8:00 am and the temperature was 46*.  We were looking forward to driving through Spearfish Canyon.  Our first stop was at Roughlock Falls.  There was a nice picnic area and some small falls.  We hiked down to the falls and it was absolutely breath-taking!  We stayed here awhile just enjoying all the scenery and the sound of the falls.  We only saw a few people here.

 Driving through Spearfish Canyon

 Roughlock Falls

 Area around Roughlock Falls

 Roughlock Falls

 Linda at Roughlock Falls

 Roughlock Falls

Our next stop was at Bridal Veil Falls.  It is a 60' fall and had a lot of water from snow melt coming down.  This one was right beside the road.  We watched a couple people climb part way up the falls.  They had to cross the creek to get to it though.

 Bridal Veil Falls

We arrived in the town of Spearfish and decided to check out the DC Booth Fish Hatchery.  We've seen a lot of fish hatcheries but this one was real different.  A lot of the medium size fish were kept in ponds instead of concrete "pools".  We learned that trout are not native to the Black Hills area and were imported on trains.  This hatchery was completed in 1899 and started with 100,000 trout eggs.  Years later the hatchery closed but reopened in 1989.  Between 20,000 to 30,000 rainbow trout are stocked from here each year.  There was a real nice museum with lots of information and it has the largest collection of fisheries artifacts in the country.  

In the late 1800s, fish eggs and small fish were transported by train.  By the 1940s they were transported by modern tank trucks.  By the early early 1920s, the fish cars had carried over 72 billion fish across more than 2 million miles of track.  

.

 DC Booth Fish Hatchery in Spearfish, SD

 DC Booth Fish Hatchery

 DC Booth Fish Hatchery

 DC Booth Fish Hatchery

U.S. Fisheries Boat #39, a wooden "Great Lakes" style cabin cruiser, tells the story of early hatchery workers who went on expeditions to Yellowstone National Park to collect trout eggs to be returned to the hatchery and stocked in the Black Hills.

 Inside a Fish Car - this is how fish
were transported to South Dakota

 Taken just because I liked the name!

After leaving Spearfish, the mountains disappeared and the land became flat.  We saw lots of cattle.  Near the state line we saw some antelope.

About noon on, we crossed the South Dakota/Wyoming border.  We stopped at the welcome center for information and ate lunch in their picnic area.  While inside, they were showing live video from Yellowstone and it was white-out snowing!  We'll be there in 3 days!  If you were towing a boat, you were required to stop here to have your boat checked for zebra mussels.  

 Wyoming

 Wyoming Countryside

Not far from the Wyoming border, we came to the Vore Buffalo Jump.  We had read about this place but found found out it didn't open until June 1st.  We decided we'd stop by anyway and see what we could see through the fence.  They had training going on for the summer employees and the owner himself welcomed us and told us to go on in and have a look.  He explained it all to us and told us about the archaeological dig that is still going on in the big hole. There was also a museum with lots of pictures and stories.  Exhibits explain how the Indians used the sinkhole as a trap and processed the meat and other products from the bison. You know Conrad was certainly in his element here!  

Vore Buffalo Jump, Beulah, Wyoming

The Vore Buffalo Jump looks looks just like a big hole in the ground but it is a 200-foot wide natural sinkhole and is more than just a pit.  A few hundred years ago, American Indians drove herds of buffalo into the pit.  This allowed them to collect the meat and hides they needed to survive through the winter.  Up to five Plains Indians tribes used the bison trap from 1550 to 1800.  This sinkhole was first discovered while the route for I-90 was being surveyed in the 1970s.

 Vore Buffalo Jump

Vore Buffalo Jump

We finally arrived at Devils Tower.  The stone monolith, a 60-million-year-old fountain of magma that cooled and fractured into long columns, rises 867' from its base.  Indian legend maintains the tower was the stump of a great tree clawed by a bear.  

Devils Tower is the object of obsession in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  Visible from almost 100 miles away, this 867' fluted, butte-like rock formation is the tallest of its kind in America.  

We walked the 1.3 mile trail that wound around the base of the tower.  The trail goes through ponderosa pine forest and the boulder field.  We saw lots of colorful cloths tied to trees.  They are prayers cloths placed by Native Americans who use the park for traditional ceremonies.

Theodore Roosevelt declared Devils Tower America's first National Monument.  It was an amazing site.  There were a lot of people rock climbing.  We saw lots of prairie dogs on the road leading to the tower.  

 Before we got on the trail

 All of the rock below the tower has broken

off the tower.

 A close-up of some rock climbers

Some of the colorful prayer cloths - Because they
are sacred, you weren't supposed to take pictures
of them but I just had to do it!

 You can see a climber in this picture.

Some broken pieces that will soon be in the pile
at the bottom of the tower

 In this picture, we're still a long way from the tower.

How would you like to live here with a view of

Devils Tower from your back porch?

Notice all the antlers on this store!  This is in the

town of Hulett, WY.  We saw lots of buildings like this

all through the western states.

We only drove 125 miles today and walked 9,542 steps and the equivalent of 28 flights of stairs!  We stayed at the Devils Tower Inn in Hulett, WY.  ($77.21)  Time to rest!!