I Traveled to Wyoming! (Part 3)

If you haven't read part I of this short series, click HERE!  There's also a part II and you can find that HERE.

Day 5: Cody, WY!

Our reason for coming to Cody, WY of all places has a little bit of a story behind it.  Not only was it relatively close to Yellowstone, but Jenna's mother had lived and worked there before she started her family.  The day before, we had said our goodbyes to Yellowstone and decided that we would spend the day in Cody. 

First thing we did was go and visit the animal hospital where Jenna's mother used to work.  It was a little awkward because we only had the name of the lead veterinarian (as opposed to the vet techs) and no one was expecting us.  But Jenna knew that if we backed out and didn't at least try to say hello or see what the place was like for her mom, she would regret it.  So in we went.  The place wasn't busy, but we were the only two people in the building with no pets and therefore no discernable reason for being in the animal hospital.  But one of the vet techs was so nice and when we told her why were there, she happily showed us around and let us take pictures and told us about how the place had changed since Jenna's mom worked there.  It was really cool.  I've brought my cats to the vet before, but they put us in a room and that's where they (and I) generally stay.  But we got to see everything from the kennels to the place where they perform surgeries.  It was really cool to see!  We left Jenna's mom's number in case the veterinarian wanted to call and say hello and then went about the rest of our day in Cody.

But we didn't really know the first thing about what to do in Cody, so we stopped at the visitor's center first.  There was an older gentleman there who reminded me a lot of the classic cowboy you can find in movies (but then, he wasn't alone... Cody is kind of a cowboy town).  Anyway, he was very knowledgeable about Cody and Wyoming in general, so he was great to talk to!  He gave us a few recommendations of places to visit in our full day in Cody and thinking back, we did most of them! 

The first thing we did was go to the Buffalo Bill Center.  It was described to us as the Smithsonian of the West.  And it was.  It was absolutely enormous.  Within one building, there were maybe five sections that we could visit.  I know we didn't see all of them, but we saw quite a bit.  We saw the natural history part, the part specifically about Buffalo Bill, and the art section.  We stayed long enough to see a raptor show through the natural history part of the museum and we learned about William F. Cody's life (aka
Buffalo Bill, which was his stage name through his Wild West show). 


After spending time at the museum, we were pretty tired, so wanted to go back to our hotel cabin for a little while and have some quiet time.  But before we did that, we needed coffee.  So we went to this really cute coffeeshop called The Beta Coffeehouse, which is on the main street in Cody.  We just thought it was a whatever coffeehouse, but we were wrong.  The people in there were so nice and their coffee tasted so good.  It was so good that we went back the next day too before leaving Cody.  They had a small table near one of the couches where people had signed their names, left messages, and drawn pictures.  We made sure to leave our mark too, however small.  We had been planning this trip for years before we actually did something about it.  And we were having such an incredible time.  It deserved to be memorialized in some small way in a yummy coffeehouse in Cody, Wyoming.  Who knows if it's still visible all of these months later.

After getting some rest and time away from other people, we went and got dinner at a place called Zapatas where we shared some more really yummy food and then we were off to the Rodeo!  Every evening in the summer, there is a Rodeo in Cody, and this is what they are known for.  From what I understood, there are some local colleges in Wyoming that have rodeo teams, so a number of students were participating in the rodeo.  I assume these students were on break though. 

I was surprised by the number of ages represented at the rodeo.  There were some older men, which was to be expected, but there were also young kids who were out there competing.  Some had to lasso a bull from a horse and tie it up the fastest, some were riding the bulls, and some were racing horses around hurdles.  Seeing young kinds on the bulls especially made me nervous.  Those bulls were fast and unforgiving...

You could tell that Jenna and I had never been to a rodeo before.  I think we were two of the loudest people there.  But the whole spectacle is so exciting!  It's kind of a rush and I can see why people would go to the rodeo every night if they could.  I'm glad this is just a part of the world that I can casually pass by though.  I don't think this is a life for me, nor one I can watch over and over again. 

 The night drew to a close and then we drove home in the dark.  What an incredible last night in Cody and in Wyoming as a whole.  You may have noticed that I'm writing about this trip months and months after we've come home.  This trip has stuck with me like no other.  It was my first trip with a friend, as opposed to a trip with family, my husband, or by myself.  There was a little bit of a learning curve as Jenna and I figured out what the other person needed and how we best travel together, but I wouldn't have chosen to go on this adventure with anyone else.  But there is still more adventure to be had.  We still needed to get home. 

Day 6: Traveling to SD!

Today, we packed up Louise (my car... I don't know if I ever told you her name) and we hit the road.  There were still a couple places we wanted to stop before leaving Wyoming, but our destination was South Dakota.  Minnesota is just too far away to drive all night.  We originally planned to drive to the black hills and camp and maybe even stop and see Mount Rushmore, but ultimately, we were ready to come home and decided to get a little closer to Minnesota before stopping for the night.

We first stopped at the Buffalo Bill Dam which is on the Shoshone river (which we drove parallel to almost every day we were in Wyoming).  We had passed in when going into Cody but didn't have time to stop, since there was more that we wanted to see while we were actually in Cody.  So we decided to go and see it the next day.  I think there's a small museum, but we just wanted to see the dam.  We parked in the parking lot and interestingly, they were driving people over to the dam in golf carts.  I thought that was interesting because it wasn't a very far walk. 

There are a series of locks and dams in Minneapolis and I had see one or two of them before, but these dams didn't compare to this one.  It was huge and unlike anything I anticipated.  I was weird to be on that bridge and see something totally different on either side.  I turn left, and there is a long drop to the bottom and water is shooting out from the dam as water is funneled through to continue the river on the other side.  I turn to the right and there is practically a lake where the Shoshone river has pooled and is waiting to be funneled through to the other side of the dam.  It's just incredible.


We had one more adventure up our sleeves.  We were told that if we drive towards Graybull away from Cody, there is a possibility that we could see wild horses.  We figured it would be worth a try to see them.  When we got to the turn-off (you had to look carefully, because it's not clearly marked), we saw there was a gravel road and decided that we would drive the path for a while.  No sign of horses, but soon we drove into what was actually someone's pasture and their cows were all over the road.  This was not a problem we anticipated having.  But we didn't know what to do, so we just kept moving forward.  But soon, we got to a point where these cows were sitting in the middle of the road.  We didn't want to hurt them or scare them, so we decided to wait and just watch them.  Except one of the cows looked like it had a skull mask for a face (pictured left) and that was a little bit creepy.  There was no one ahead of us or behind us, car-wise, so we waited a bit longer, thinking these cows might be inspired to get up on their own and leave.  But they didn't.  So I drove really slowly a little bit closer to them and then they decided to move to one side of the road.  We were able to pass safely. 

We kept driving, still partially looking for wild horses, but our hopes were not up that this would be a likely occurrence.  At this point, we just wanted to get out of this giant field and back on the road. 

And that's when we ran into the canyon.

No, we didn't literally go into the canyon, but we definitely weren't expecting any formations a la the Badlands to be in the middle of this freaking field, if we could even call it that anymore.  We decided that as soon as we could do so safely, we would turn around, especially because it was getting muddier on the roads from the semi-recent rains.  Our biggest fear was that we would get stuck and wouldn't be able to get help.  Luckily, we were able to find a safe turn-around point and headed out of the field and got back on the road, our hearts still pounding from that unexpected adventure.  Goodbye, canyon and very strange field.  I don't think it's likely that we will return to you again.  Enjoy your wild horses. 

Our next big obstacle was the rain as we left Wyoming and entered South Dakota.  All during this trip, we had fought against the rain in some way shape or form and we were feeling very washed out and sick of rain.  It was scary to drive in it in the dark and up until and including this point, it made it hard for us to camp.  Because of the rain, we weren't able to cook like we wanted to and we worried about what things would be like when we finally did reach camp.  We got frustrated that we stopped in, I believe, Rush City and decided to eat and regroup a little bit at iHop.  Crepes can make a world of difference when it comes to problem-solving.  It was still raining when we got on the road, but we were much more focused and patient with ourselves.  We drove slow and eventually, the rain stopped.  We were able to drive in a clear night the remainder of the way.  When we got to our campsite, everything was dry and it was super quick to put up our tent and crawl into bed. 

Even though it was a pain in the butt, I'm glad that we drove a little bit further this day so we could just go home and not have as much driving the next day. 

Day 7: Arriving Home!

In a shocking turn of events, we did some driving today!  Kidding of course about the driving being shocking...

This day was uneventful, which after the day before was quite welcome.  There really wasn't any bad weather to speak of and when we got home, Jenna practically fell out of the car, we were both so happy to not have to drive anymore for a while. 

I just wanted to share some things that I wrote in my journal shortly after coming home...

"As someone with not a lot of friends, it feels great to have someone I can be close with and not be bound by blood or law.  That's very special.  

I think we both learned to balance with each other pretty well and made a good team as we figured things out.  Again, this is really cool to experience with someone who doesn't have to like you or hang out with you.  Sure, there were times when we got frustrated in different situations, but we didn't let those things drive us apart.  We just took them in stride... 

We saw so many beautiful places and now have so many great memories together.  That's so special.  To have that with a friend I met in high school and then to grow that relationship through a life-changing experience.  That's irreplaceable.  I'm so happy we did this."

This trip is over, but I will write about my honeymoon in England and the Netherlands in the new year.  If nothing else, it'll be something for me to look back on.

Thank you very much for reading! 

--Jude

I Traveled to Wyoming! (Part 2)

If you missed part one of my Wyoming posts, please click HERE!

Day 3: Yellowstone Round One!

We entered Yellowstone for the first time ever on this day!  At this point, we were experiencing so many emotions.  Jenna and I had been talking about taking this trip for years and it was just incredible that we were finally here in Yellowstone and everything we were seeing was just incredible and we were barely in the park!

The part that blew my mind the most I think was just seeing how varied the landscape in Yellowstone is.  One moment we needed to carefully creep down a mountain and around sharp turns and the next moment were cruising through open prairie land and have to stop for bison.  Not to mention all of the thermal activity here.  This place is... I need a couple more synonyms for incredible, but that just seems to be the word that fits.

My favorite part about Yellowstone overall was all of the thermal activity.  Before this trip, I had never seen a hot spring, a geyser, or anything like that.  We decided to follow the lower loop on this day thinking we would do the upper loop the next (spoiler: we never actually made it to the upper loop on this trip), and hot springs were the first thing we saw.

As you drive on the road, you can look across the lake and see giant clouds of steam indicating where hot springs are (and further into the drive, geysers too).  We pulled off to the side of the road because we saw a hot spring that no one was gathered around.  We quickly figured out that this was because it was blocked off with a fence.  You couldn't get too close.  I think we had found a relatively new spring and the land around it was kind of unstable.

But, us being us, we wanted to be rebels.  We stepped over the fence but didn't venture too far knowing that the earth's crust was weak in this area.  But there was a vent that we were curious about (see the video I sent to my husband on the left).  I don't recall having an experience quite like this one anywhere else in Yellowstone where we got close-ish to a vent.  It's like having a conversation with the earth... sharing its secrets.

We continued down the road just a little ways because there were other hot springs in an area called West Thumb that we were actually allowed to get close to because there were border walks all around.  These were different from the first hot springs we saw because these pools came in so many colors and they were the clearest pools I have ever seen.  And they were much deeper than I anticipated.  You would not want to walk through here without knowing that these pools were there.  We'd never see you again.  One strange thing we saw in this area that has nothing to do with the actual landscape was a woman walking around in high heels.  I can't even imagine.  I wonder if she understood what Yellowstone was... eh, maybe I'm being hyper-critical.

After getting lunch, we decided to drive over to see Old Faithful.  This was one of the big things that we (and pretty much every visitor to Yellowstone) were really looking forward to.  We ran over, got a front-row seat and waited, not catching on that there was a chart inside that gave a prediction of when the next eruption would be.  What I remember reading about Old Faithful is that it's not the biggest geyser and it's not the most consistent geyser, but it's the most consistent of the big geysers.  So they're able to predict within 10 minutes (I believe) of the next eruption.  There's an equation you can do, but you can look that up yourself if you're interested. 

Because we didn't know about the predictor within the visitor's center, we stayed on the benches for 1-1.5 hours or so.  And actually, that was kind of nice.  It was time spent out of the car, so Jenna took a rest and it was good people watching.  And it's just interesting to listen and watch for the signs of possible eruption.  Once it did go off, I was surprised by how quiet it was.  Yes, it's water being pushed up out of the earth, but I expected there to be a bang of some kind or that I would feel a shaking deep in the earth.  But that never happened.  It was very peaceful, like listening to a waterfall. 

After Old Faithful, we hopped back in the car for another few miles and went to go see Grand Prismatic Spring.  This was something neither of us had really heard of, but with a description like "prismatic," I was intrigued.  And Jenna ended up really liking it and wanted to go back later on after we left!

There were three enormous thermal pools there and the Grand Prismatic Spring is just one of them!  Because of all the thermal activity, there are so many colors that are activated in the area.  You can see cracks and ripples in the land, oranges, browns, and a most shocking blue in the pools.  What kind of blew my mind was that there were geysers in one of the pools.  I didn't know geysers could be underwater!  Nature is so cool. 

As we headed home, we completed the lower loop, but got stopped by an entire herd of bison on the way.  I really wanted to see a bison (because it had been years since I'd seen one in person) and luckily in Yellowstone, practically everywhere you look there are bison.  I had heard that they like to walk in the roads sometimes, but I didn't expected to see an entire herd stopping traffic going both ways!  If there is a traffic jam in Yellowstone, likely it's because of a bison.  I felt really lucky though because after the herd of bison moved off the road (back onto the same side they had come from, I got to see a mama and a baby up close.  Not so close where I could reach out and pet one (not that I would, but I wanted to), but probably about ten feet away.  And while I know that bison can charge and you need to stay something like fifty feet away from all wildlife, the bison was there by choice and didn't seem to mind being so near to cars.  So I was happy to see them so up close!

Day 4: Grand Tetons and Yellowstone Round Two!

If I remember correctly, Grand Tetons wasn't a place we initially expected to visit on this trip.  But when we saw pictures of how beautiful of a place it was and just how close to Yellowstone it actually is, we couldn't resist.  There was a lot of driving on this day, but the drive itself wasn't too bad.  I think we had just spent so much time in the car by this time that the trip felt longer because we wanted to be out.

We weren't that far into Grand Tetons National Park when we were hit over the head with just how beautiful this place was in person.  I'll put some pictures below of course, but seriously, it's like living in a postcard.  It almost didn't feel real.

I think the Grand Tetons is one of the most peaceful places I've ever been.  It took being just a handful of miles into the park to feel something melt away from me that I didn't realize I'd been carrying.  It's almost like when you look up at the stars on a perfectly dark and clear night and you can feel how small of a being you are compared to the rest of the universe.  I felt that same smallness near these mountains not just because of their size, but because of how beautiful they are.  I felt almost removed from what I was seeing.  I'm just a mere visitor in this place and how lucky am I that I get to see them in person.

This was more than just a nice drive though.  We actually got out and took a walk around a bit, since this was where we were planning to spend most of our day.  So we drove past the view of the mountains that are pictured above and went into the next town that we got to.  It's a resort town, so there were touristy things to see and do, but there were also nice smallish hikes that you can take nearby.  In one of the giftshops, I asked one of the women who worked there where we could potentially see bears.  She got really excited and told me where she and her friend were when they went to go hammock out on the point and saw (if I remember correctly) a mama bear and her cub.  Jenna and I decided to head out there too and take a look around.  We met up with a small group from New Jersey who had bear spray in their backpack and we hiked together for a while until we got back to town.  It was nice to talk to them for a while and we didn't see any bears.  We did see signs that a bear had been in the area recently, like scratches on trees still wet with sap.  Even just that was cool to find. 

We got back in the car and started heading back to Yellowstone, knowing that our drive was going to take a while and there were still things that we wanted to see in Yellowstone, especially because we knew that it would be our last day in the park on this trip.  Even though we had driven the entire lower loop, there were things that we had missed the day before. 

The first place we stopped was an overlook called Artists' Point.  The math teacher at my school has been to Yellowstone before and recommended to me that I visit the upper and lower falls that the point overlooks.  I refused to hike down to the falls, but was happy to be at Artists' Point. 

From there, there was more thermal activity to be seen, so we went on our way!  There were mud volcanoes that we had driven by the day before and I was super interested.  Especially because also the day before, I found out that there are different levels of acidity to the various types of thermal activity in Yellowstone.  Sometimes it's just hot water, but it can also be as acidic as battery acid.  Usually the mud volcanoes are that acidic.  There was a strong smell of sulphur in the air that we could pick up not just when we were standing outside, but also when we were just sitting in the car.  The smell was that strong. 

There were pools of mud bubbling because they were so hot and there was a cave where water moved in waves and blasted clouds of steam and made growling sounds like a dragon (ergo the name Dragon's Mouth Cave, or something similar to that). 

I was just in this constant state of awe at how cool this planet it.  I think Jenna and I still are, we keep talking about this trip so much.


We did more driving than we expected to do, but I think that's because our expectations were a little out of sync with reality.  I don't think I personally understood just how big Yellowstone National Park is despite the number of digital and paper maps I poured over leading up to this moment in our trip.  The park is enormous and you almost need a car in order to get around properly.  It would be really interesting to experience some of the hiking trails and maybe even biking through the park sometime though.  Guess that means I'll have to go back someday :)

I'll have one more post about this trip, but this was the last day we spent in the park.  The rest of our trip was spent in Cody, WY and making our way back home.

Thanks for Reading!

--Jude