Day 11:
This was the suppose to be easy ride into West Yellowstone, MT; that turned into the 510 mile trek (590 miles actually) from Boise, ID to Cody, WY. With a lot of cursing and awe of the scenery in the process. I would go through 40 miles on I-84 to Mountain Home, back up I-84 to Boise, back to Mountain Home on I-84 before I finally started to enjoy US 20 all the way to Cody.
Let's start off with Boise. I left the first time and got to Mountain Home when I realized I never put my camera around my neck. I laid it on the tank, but never secured it to anything. I called the hotel and some person found it in the parking lot and turned it in. All my pics of the previous days were on that memory card, whoever turned it in is a SAINT, A F'IN SAINT!!! I love that person. I rode the 40 miles back cussing up a storm at myself and then back to Mountain Home still cussing at my stupidity.
Finally I got on US 20 which turned out to be a nice ride. I got to see a lot of nice scenery and eventually got to see the very well named Craters of the Moon National Monument.
I rode 20 all the way into West Yellowstone. I made it with surprisingly good time and it was only about 2:00pm local time. It was a nice sunny day in the 70s. I looked at the weather for the next day and it said snow/showers/thunderstorms with a high of 44... So I said screw staying in West Yellowstone and decided to hit Yellowstone National Park in the nice 70 degree sunny weather.
I was planning on doing the Beartooth Highway to exit Yellowstone, from everything I read prior to my trip, the expected opening date was June 3rd this year and I was there almost a week after that. Unfortunately, when I got to the Yellowstone gate, they had signs up saying it was closed. I was pissed, first no Tioga Pass, now no Beartooth.... ARGH!!!!
It was a nice afternoon though and got to see the southern part of the grand loop. Yellowstone without the Beartooth was nice, but it was no Grand Canyon or Yosemite to me. I liked it, but I would of been just as happy in fly fishing in my Great Smoky Mountains. I really wished I had brought my fly fishing gear thoroughly on this day though. I saw a lot of bad casting and poor approaches to get some fish, probably a lot of tourists with rented gear... Having never fished these waters, I am told the fish out west are a lot less spooky than the fish in the GSM. You have to be a ninja to catch wild trout in the GSM.
I did make a stop at Old Faithful and watched an eruption. Even that didn't live up to the expectations. The geysers and thermal stuff just wasn't a huge thing for me for some reason...
The ride around Yellowstone Lake was pretty neat though. I stopped for a couple photos and some guy yelled at me to get away from a hill because had been spotted there a few hours before. There was a large group of people stopped at another point looking at a bear that was a long ways away. You could barely see anything more than a blob, see below.
After Yellowstone, I kept on 20 and went through cool little canyons and into Bill Cody State Park/Reservoir. It was pretty neat through hear and had a bunch of awesome rock formations.
I ended up in Cody for the night and ate at the Wyoming Rib and Chop House. The owner was from my home state of Louisiana and had a nice little restaurant. It was quite tasty. Cody was a pretty cool little town and I watched a cowboy show just down the street from my hotel before retiring for the night.
All in all another great day to be on the GS.
US 20 in Idaho:
Craters of the Moon:
Arco, ID Seniors marking their graduation:
More of US 20:
The guy in the red truck was a douche, he pulled in front of me and then got out of his truck and proceeded to stand in front of me when I was trying to take a pic of the sign. So I started the bike up and went right for him, he jumped out of the way. I took my pic, gave him some choice words and a fun hand signal and took off:
Jellystone:
I guess the park didn't want the big welcome sign:
