Pop and Meemee on the road: July 2014

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Chief Joseph Highway & Beartooth Pass #2

Snow Plow in front of On Top Of the World Store. The area receives so much snowfall, the road is normally open only 5 months per year. The mosquitoes were very bad while we were there.

Beautiful Wildflowers

Pat displaying Wyoming State Flag

Taken with Tele-Photo lens. These kids were playing on some of the residual store in the area. You can tell how thick the snow is by looking at the area that has separated.

The scenery was more dramatic on the Wyoming side of park.

Can you tell these chipmunks are used to being fed!

Chief Joseph Highway & Beartooth #1

Today is the day I've looked forward to for a long time, for today we are traveling the Chief Joseph highway, and on to the Beartooth Pass and from there to Red Lodge, Mt. There have been many reviews written, and I have personally talked to many people who have experienced this trip, and without exception, all have talked in superlatives of the experience. Well, we have made the trip, and can confirm all the comments are indeed true. This is without a doubt, some of the most spectacular scenery we have ever experienced. I've included quite a few pictures of the Chief Joseph Highway trip, and about twice as many of the Bear Tooth Pass leg of the trip. The photographs pretty much speak for themselves, but don't do justice to the beauty and magnitude of this beautiful area. There are so many pictures, I've decided to post them in two separate blogs. One disappointment of the trip is that we didn't have time to explore Red Lodge due to spending so much time on the scenic part of the trip. Guess we'll just have to come back! The trip we made today was about 200 miles and lasted most of the day.

Remember to click on the pictures to enlarge them for full effect.

Al & Pat at one of the scenic overlooks

Crickett and I at the same overlook. Check out my Shelby, NC T-Shirt!

One of my favorite shots

Very Deep Canyon with river

Bridge over Canyon with cliff wall.

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Buffalo, Wy to Cody, Wy

Hello from Cody, Wyoming! We arrived here yesterday and are staying at Absaroka Bay RV Park until Friday. We left Custer, SD on Sunday and traveled to Buffalo, Wy on Highway 16 which had several miles of road construction where all the asphalt had been removed and had to drive on dirt which wasn't too much fun, particularly pulling 15,000 pounds behind us. What made it worse, the road construction was in a mountainous section. After passing the construction, the road was fine. We overnighted at Deer Park Camp Ground in Buffalo. While there, we drove through a section of the Big Horn National Forest on the Crazy Woman Canyon road, which was very scenic with some nice wildlife and do have several pictures to share with you. Monday morning we hit the highway headed for Cody on Highway 16, with this stretch of highway designated as The Cloud Peak Skyway Scenic Byway. This section of highway is drop dead gorgeous but does have some some fairly steep 7% grades going both up and down for quite a few miles. Thank goodness for exhaust brakes! After we crossed the mountain section of the highway, we started getting into rolling hills that gradually changed into flat plains. It was in this section of highway, that I was awestruck by the vastness, majesty and openness of this beautiful land. It's difficult for me to put in words, but the beauty and uniqueness is like no other place I've seen. Wyoming is indeed a diverse, beautiful state. Tomorrow, we're traveling up the Chief Joseph Highway to Bear Tooth Pass and on to to Red Lodge, Mt. This is supposed to be one of the most scenic drives in this part of the country, and we hope to have many pictures to share with you.