Yellowstone NP - Cody, WY - Big Horn NP - Devils Tower WY

The drive down from Livingston, Montana to Yellowstone Park (just across the border into Wyoming) was a beautiful drive with views of snow capped mountains, with green fields with pasturing cattle browsing about.




When we arrived in Gardiner, the last Montana town before the park entrance we paused for gas and to wash 5 days worth of dead bugs off my car. Peg took these photos while I did the work. Also some pictures of the Yellowstone River as it passes through town.







We proceeded to the Roosevelt Arch which is the main and original gateway into the park. It happened again. In an earlier blog I mentioned while we were in Redwood Forest driving my Z through a giant redwood tree that some Japanese tourists were milling around and admiring my car in the parking area. They were taking a lot of photos and when I came up I motioned for one of ladies to sit in the car so her friend could photograph her. It made her day. While we were stopped in line to drive though the Roosevelt Arch, again some Japanese tourists saw my Z and took many pictures of it. My guess is that my beautiful car is a rarity in Japan and what they have there is no comparison.

Back to Yellowstone, including material from their own pamphlets. Established in 1872 as the world's first national park, at the heart of the park is volcanism. Several times over the last 2 million years huge volcanic eruptions occurred here. The most recent spewed out nearly 240 cubic miles of debris. The park's present central portion collapsed forming a huge basin. The magmatic heat powering those eruptions still powers the park's geysers, hot springs, fumaroles and mudpots. The area is in constant change as new springs are forming all the time. The air is misty with the smell of hydrogen sulfide (rotten eggs)and the acidic water is boiling hot. People are warned to stay on boardwalks as a slip of the foot could be very serious. The park abounds with all sorts of wildlife:elk, bison, bear, moose,deer, coyote and much, much more.







We left the park from the east entrance passing a Yellowstone Lake which makes up most of the southeastern portion of the park. We drove through the 8530 foot elevation of Sylvan Pass and descended through the west slope of the Absaroka Range, named for the Crow Indian Tribe.

After spending that night in Cody, Wyoming named after Buffalo Bill Cody,

we drove east on US Route 14 though the awesome Big Horn National Park to Sheridan Wyoming and had lunch.









Be sure to double click these photos.





Beyond Sheridan was a long ride though high rolling desert, still green from a lot of rain, to Devils Tower National Monument. This place played an important part in the movie "Close Encounters of The Third Kind" a 1977 movie staring Richard Dreyfus. Anyway, about 50 million years ago molten magma was forced through sedimentary rocks above it and cooled underground. As it cooled it contracted and fractured into columns. Over millions of years, erosion of the sedimentary rock exposed Devils Tower. It rises 867 feet from its base.



It was late in the afternoon when we left the tower so we decided to drive a couple of extra hours into Rapid City, SD. Then we could get an early start before the crowds at Mt. Rushmore.

At this time we now have traveled 7,609 miles on this vacation trip.

Be ready for the next blog which not only covers Mt. Rushmore but a world famous retail store and a monument to maize, but a meat museum and a lot of wind.