To Yellowstone

After sitting talking about places and things all afternoon they took us to their favorite Mexican restaurant for dinner. That dream came true TWICE this week.

Our 2 weeks in Rapid City have been great, we’ve met lots of new RV’ing friends and explored the area, yet it still left us with a desire to come back for more. And we got in some valuable darts practice for when we get to Casa Grande in December!

On the way to Yellowstone we stopped at the Walmarts in Sheriden (I wonder if it’s named after Mrs Bucket’s Sheriden?) and Cody.

WY14 from Sheriden is a super twisty road that climbs 5000 feet in 1 shot. We were down to 25 mph in places but luckily we didn’t have a long line of traffic behind, probably due to being mid-week and September. The Shell Falls were a welcome break.

If you’re in Cody then THE thing there is the Buffalo Bill Cody center. We found its layout confusing but the exhibits were diverse and appealing. We looked at an art exhibit put on for the benefit of the museum. All extremely high quality work and it will be auctioned off at the end of the show. They say last year they raise $1,000,000 and I can believe it. I liked their firearms gallery too which had guns from ancient to modern.

The Buffalo Bill exhibit itself to me was a little phony. The exhibits were genuine but the man was mainly an invention of “Penny Westerns” and circus performances.

We drove to and through Yellowstone to get to Ashland Idaho. Some of the people we met in Rapid City told us it was great, in an Aspen grove and with the Teton’s as a view.

They didn’t mention it was right in the middle of nowhere!

Middle of nowhere can be pleasant though, we’ve been relaxing. I did some more sketching inspired by the view of the Grand Tetons from just over the brow of the hill from our campsite. 

The lady in the office recommended driving about 20 miles to the Mesa Falls and Lower Mesa Falls. I’m glad she did they are really beautiful in a deep gorge. The main falls are like a miniature American Falls if you’ve ever been to Niagara.

This campground is about 90 miles from the heart of Yellowstone so we’ve decided to move to another place about 20 miles from the park and spend a couple of days deep in the Yellowstone experience then drive south through Grand Teton NP and stop somewhere around Jackson.

It feels strange to be thinking of where we want to go next. Up till now we’ve been going to Rapid City or here. Now we have until the end of October to get to Austin and we can go any direction we want.

Barbara suggested I might want to try fishing as Henry’s Fork of the Snake River is a famous trout fishery and I took the trouble to dig out my dusty fishing gear. 

A sign of just how long it’s been since I did any was the Maryland fishing regulation book in the bottom off my tackle box dated 1998!!! 

The local fly fishing supply store provided a license and some likely fishing spots. Turns out that there is some prime fishing just down river from the Mesa Falls.

It soon became really obvious that it had indeed been 17 years since my last angling experience! At the river road there were lots of drift boats being put into the water with guides at the oars and paying guests doing the fishing. I idly asked the price of a day out. $500!! 

I spent a pleasant morning practicing fly casting and throwing knots in my line in mid air. Novice fly fishermen will know the feeling of frustration.

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