Yellowstone to Cody WY

We have a bit of a problem getting out of our very small camp site this morning and after a bit of to’ing and fro’ing decide we best back out, to keep the integrity of the paint work intact.  We might have to substitute our paint detail from ‘Desert Pin Striping’ to ‘Yellowstone Pin Striping’.

Love these cute little chipmunks!

The road west around the bottom of the lake is closed due to a massive forest fire and is likely to be closed for some weeks. We learn there are about six separate forest fires right now in WY!   So we drive around the lake from West Thumb back to Lake Village at the northern end, to join highway 14/20 west towards Cody which we remember from our bike trip.  We see Bison though, they were waiting to cross the road!

Mr Bison, you have the right of way!

The Yellowstone roads are very narrow, not very forgiving for a motorhome of our size, and we have come away feeling a little bit disappointed in our stay – didn’t even see a bear!!  The camps don’t seem to be very ‘big RV’ friendly.

We can see the results of previous fires though, the trees look like pick-up-sticks!

Anyway we drive out of Yellowstone into Buffalo Bill country and immediately the roads open out a  bit and there are some overtaking lane etc.  The landscape opens out into a valley, with high rugged buttes and huge rocks which have fallen onto or near the roadway, hope that was more than just recent!!

Just a dozen or so miles before we hit Cody decide to check out the North Shore Bay of Buffalo Bill State Park, hoping for a powered site, so we can vacuum and do laundry etc.  They have just sold the last powered site but the generator quiet times are from 10pm to 8am so we have plenty of scope for noise and therefore we can do any choresl   Plus there is cell coverage!  It’s back to summertime, yay, a lovely warm 28C with a breeze off the lake which weirdly smells like the sea?? 

We use some of our tank water to wash the coach and then have a lovely relax in our recliners, with our Kindles, soaking up the summer sun.  Life is better than good! 

A German family ensconce themselves in the tent site just towards the lake from us, but three hours later, as the wind comes up a little, they debunk.  So we have the view to ourselves.   But not for long, another two card with large families invade the two tent sites!  Oh well, it gives us something to look at apart from the sunset.