CapeBuild's Cross Country Travel Log

[Capebuild]

Thursday Sept 29

Started the day off hiking up a trail named Saddle Pass. It was not necessarily a lengthy trail but very steep (labeled "strenuous"). Provided a new vantage point rather than seeing it all from the car.

IMG_7922 Medium.jpeg (128.55 KiB) Viewed 1372 times

We then drove the Sage Creek Rim Road which is a loop of sorts from one portion of the park and connecting back. It's a dirt gravel road filled with tons of ridges which made for a really bumpy ride for 20 miles. I tried going fast, going slow, riding on the sides, in the middle.....my shocks were not happy. We saw bison (from a distance) quite a large population of prairie dogs and bighorn sheep... We saw this guy on a motorcycle rounding up a small herd of cattle.






We then came upon this town named Scenic......well it was more like a town that was and is now not. A ghost town. There was no one there except for maybe 1 or 2 houses and there was a post office. Certainly not a tourist attraction. Was very fascinating.





We leave here tomorrow and head into Wyoming to stay for a night near Buffalo at a free camp site.

John

[Ottsville]

Going down into the command center at Minuteman Nat Monument is pretty cool. My father-in-law was a missile officer in the airborne command center (Operation Looking Glass). When we called from there he said "tell (my son) that I got to launch one of those missiles." My wife asked him what he was talking about. He said he got to launch a missile they were decomissioning in the 70's. Found the certificate from his participation in the operation when I was cleaning out his house.

If you're still in the area John, go see the lighting of Mount Rushmore at night. It's a moving event, especially when they invite vets up for lowering the flag.

Is Devil's Tower on your list John?

[Capebuild]

Sunday, Oct 2
We decided to pass on Devil’s Tower and Rushmore. Next time around.

Catch up time, now. Internet connection has been next to none here in Yellowstone.

Friday morning we left Badlands and headed up Interstate 90 toward Buffalo Wyoming. Passed through Wall, Rapid City, Sturgis (motorcycle rally city), Sundance and on into Buffalo Wyoming.

We had lunch at the Occidental Hotel and Saloon in Buffalo.. The establishment has maintained its original character over the years. Great old bar, lots of taxidermy’d game all over the place with walls full photos containing lots of history. We had lunch there, walked around the town a bit.




We then headed off 13 miles toward a “dispersed campsite” I had found on freecampsites.net located within the Bighorn National Forest. This was down a rough and very sparse dirt road. It was getting dark and rain was starting to fall. There was no one around. A new kind of camping experience for us. We found an open small clearing off one of the spars and just backed in and hopped into the trailer. Luckily we were still full from the late lunch so we just read for an hour and fell asleep. It rained all night and sleeping was a bit uncomfortable due to the trailer being on quite a slant. When we woke we discovered we were right on a small stream amongst the aspens. It was icy cold and wet and quite a bit of snow caps visible on the neighboring mountains. We were 10,000 feet up. Beautiful out, and quiet. Very different from the heat of the Badlands.




We did a few morning things and then continued our journey toward our next stop, Yellowstone. We traveled route 14 and it seemed like it just went up and up and up through the Big Horn National Forest. We drove into the clouds and traveling through them was a very surreal experience. Fog lights on. We then seemed to have gone down and the landscape opened up. We could see for ….like forever. It’s mind boggling how much open land there is. Just incredible. There were large masses of land in the distance that just seemed to rise up out from the plains like gigantic walls. We went through small towns like Ten Sleep and a not so small town called Graybull; where we had breakfast and picked up some local meats.

Cody was our next stop. The Irma Hotel and Saloon is a great piece of history. Much like the Occidental but on a much grander scale. Incredible bar, taxidermy, photos, wonderful old dining area, etc.. We also toured the Cody Museum. We didn’t see the entire museum, as it’s quite large. But they have a really great art collection, much of it themed with old west subject matter by well known artists. There’s a great Native American history section and of course a large section on William Cody. I got the feeling he was the Kanye West of his time. Sort of. Quite a personality larger than life.





We traveled on and arrived at Fishing Bridge RV campground. Will continue in the next post.
Have traveled 3,400 miles so far. I’ve learned when the gas gauge reads half full, it’s time to filler 'er up.

John

[twisted lines]

I’ve learned when the gas gauge reads half full, it’s time to filler 'er up.
John

Yep that's good advise where your heading
At least keep up on the how far 2
& how far can

[tony.latham]

There was no one around.

:thumbs-up:

That's what camping should be like.

Tony

[Capebuild]

That's what camping should be like.

For sure certainly a lot different than where we are now.

Was out for a walk this morning, came around the corner and almost butted heads with this big boy! WHOAHHH!! I backed away slowly. Unfortunately didn't have my phone to snap a pix but when I returned to the trailer Jean showed me Mr. Bison had just nonchalantly walked right by our trailer and she was able to grab a pix.

[Capebuild]

Following up from previous post attached are a couple of short videos (2 subject of bison) and some pics

[KCStudly]

Awesome trip. Great trip report. Really nice pics.

[RJ Howell]

You are in it now! Everything previous was just a warmup. At least how I saw it the time out that way.. I loved Yellowstone and spend several days there hiking into back country geysers. I do believe it was there the smile really started and just didn't leave for the balance of the time out there!

Safe Travels!

[Capebuild]

Awesome trip. Great trip report. Really nice pics.

this trip is so great! Thanks, KC!

You are in it now! Everything previous was just a warmup.

For sure!! The trip from the start was awesome! Once we got into South Dakota, ASOMERRRR!!



Tuesday, October 4

We arrived in Yellowstone on Saturday and found Fishing Bridge RV Park where we had a reservation for 3 nights. The campground facility is large with a number of loops where campers and travel trailers of all varieties are sited. Everyone’s packed in here, one on top of one another. Each campground we’ve visited is very different in the way the spots are configured. Fishing Bridge is not one of my favorites due to the “sardine in a can" layout. And no tent campers due to bears. There’s a few other teardrops (haven’t seen any homemade ones) but mostly big rigs and motor homes.

Aside from the camping layout…..Yellowstone is amazing. We’ve been here once before but only passed through on our way to the Tetons. The theme of this entire trip, without a doubt, is the overall beauty of the land and how astonishing it all is. Breathtaking. The land, the wildlife, the inhabitant’s history, the natural history all come together. We’ve encountered a bunch of wildlife (as can be expected in Yellowstone) and we got absorbed with all the various types prismatic springs, geysers, mud pots, fissures, fumaroles (steam vents) and hot springs. I’ll let some of the pix and videos speak for us.

29 degrees this morning. We leave today for Craters of the Moon, Idaho where I see the temps and weather should be a bit more palatable.

John

[Capebuild]

Here's some additional photos. I'll add more later. the internet is non existent. for this I just climbed a mountain trail where, for some reason, I'm getting 3 bars

[Capebuild]

Wednesday October 5

Just catching up from yesterday’s travels to Craters of the Moon in Idaho. Absolutely no internet here so I’ll post this when able.

The day’s travels would make for a great story full of wrong way travels, supernatural occurrences, misfortune (fortunately not ours) and great off road adventure. I wish I was a better writer, but; here goes.

We departed Yellowstone around 9am and exited via the West gateway. We traveled through a very small corner of Montana on route 20 and in short time entered Idaho. We had planned to take 20 all the way to Craters of the Moon, at least that’s the route I had plotted on Google Maps. For those of you that use Siri on Apple, you probably know she can sometimes be a bit adventurous and independent altering your route of intended travel without first discussing it with you. At some point we were saying how great it is to be taking the less busy roads and how you see so much more local flavor taking these back roads through small towns. We were traveling 45 mph and without warning the nice black top road changed to this extreme gravelly, dusty and very, very bumpy dirt road….similar to the bumpy Sage Rim Road at Badlands, only a lot worse! I had to slam on the breaks as I thought the car and teardrop were going to explode and fall apart. Our fault not checking the map but we forged on, taking our travel speed down to 15 mph. It hadn’t occurred to us to look at the road on the map (no longer on 20) but we were now on A-2 Clark County Road. Aside from our travel daze the surroundings were beautiful. Lots of grazing cattle on huge open prairie lands. We passed by what looked like a very prosperous Sheridan Ranch. It was at this point, maybe 15 miles on this road, we began to question “where the hell are we!” We had lost our internet connection which didn’t help. We always travel with paper maps as well as an old Garmin (which I updated before we left). With me driving and Jean trying to determine where we were ….and both of us getting a little testy with each other, we figured if we stayed on this interesting county road for a while we’d “eventually” reach Rte. 15 and, from there, catch 20; somewhere. At that point we felt better and commented about this small, square, white building next to the road with a huge radio tower shooting off it’s side….. kind of like the old radio studio located out in the middle of nowhere in the Cohen Brother’s movie Oh Brother Where art Thou. All of a sudden, and unexpectedly, our radio popped on without any prompting from either of us, very loudly, playing Laurie Lewis “Singing the Blues”. It was one of those great moments!! We traveled on.

After about another half hour of of travel, now racing along at 25 mph and both of us singing along to the music playing, we saw in the distance what looked like a large “something” in the middle of the road. As we got closer we could see a large 16 wheel big rig with it’s trailer at 90 degrees to the road, stretching from roadside to roadside embankments…..completely blocking all travel from either direction. No other cars were around. I pulled up to it and got out to investigate along with the curious horses that had gathered on the side of their grazing area. I could see the cab was at 90 degrees to the trailer and the driver was trying to move the rig but his wheels were just spinning in the dirt and smoking like crazy. As I got closer I could also see his cab’s front right wheel draped over the embankment hanging in the air. His front middle bumper section was perched on top of the embankment. Bad situation. I offered him a shovel which was absolutely no help. By this time another big rig had pulled up traveling the opposite direction from us (so on the other side of this behemoth blocking the road). That driver got out from his cab and said he just called a tow truck but who knew how long that would take to arrive on the scene. Evidently the stuck driver, realizing he too took a wrong turn somewhere in his travels, was trying to do a U-turn and wound up in his current predicament.

By now, a pick up truck with government plates pulling a trailer loaded with an ATV, pulled up behind us. The driver got out and after my bringing him up to date on the situation, and him doing a bit of his own evaluation, said he was going back to a previous road to cut over. He asked where we were going. We said southwest looking to get onto 20. He suggested we follow him. We did. After about 8 miles of trying to keep up with him (he was doing 70 mph) we came to Red Road which traveled to the town of Rexberg. At the turnoff he stopped and got out of his truck to further explain how to travel to 20. We thanked him for his welcome help. He sped off at 70mph and we took off at 45. Traveling Red Road after about an hour from all this mess we landed in Parker and made our way to Saint Anthony where we loaded up on gas, got some snacks and found Route 20.

Around 5:30 pm we arrived at Craters of the Moon. Being “first come first serve” we found a great site. Such a different situation from the Yellowstone experience. Really great campground in the middle of what is/was a volcanic area with black pumice type rock all over the place. The sites are very well spaced out and sited nicely. It’s warm and clear, also a welcome change from the previous rainy cold.

John

[Onajourney]

"We thanked him for his welcome help. He sped off at 70mph and we took off at 45. "

That's true road magic. What a trip.

[tony.latham]

It hadn’t occurred to us to look at the road on the map (no longer on 20) but we were now on A-2 Clark County Road.

The funny thing is that I woulda suggested that route. The aspen colors had to be great in Shotgun Valley. When I was a kid growing up in that country, the Sheridan Ranch was owned by Averell Harriman. My parents were friends of his ranch manager so we had the run of the place and the Railroad Ranch in Island Park. It's now owned by the guy that owns Melaleuca.

Glad you made it to the Craters. Yellowstone? We really like it in February or May and that's it.

Tony

[western traveler]

John,
Funny I was off hunting in Wyoming and probably passing through Buffalo at the same time. Spent a week outside Casper. The first time not just blowing by on the way to somewhere else. It is really different than I expected. Canyons, the Platt River, and lakes. Beautiful. We got the rain too.
Glad you got to see the Erma and the historical center. I think the Plains Indian exhibit is the best. I always get emotional walking through it.
Love the Big Horn mountains. I camped 3 times in the same year (totaled 5 weeks) there several years ago around Meadowlark Lake and Sitting Bull campground. Great fly fishing for brook trout. Saw lots of moose. It is a rock climbing destination. You may have seen many vehicles parked on the long grade down into 10 Sleep. Ten Sleep got its name because it was an Indian rest stop, so called because it was 10 days travel, or “10 sleeps,” from Fort Laramie (southeast), Yellowstone Park (west-northwest), and the Indian Agency at Stillwater, Montana (northwest).
C.J. Box wrote a large series of books calling it 12 Sleep in them.
When not towing, 45 mph and up smooths out those dirt roads a bit, The trick is not hitting a heavy washboard section on a negative curve and getting walked into a ditch. I’m a 45/50 mph guy. My rancher friends are the 70 mph type.
Tony is full of surprises being familiar with the area, not so much but access to the ranch? Awesome.
Great travel journal!