I haven’t had time to prepare a post for a while.  since the last we have been in Waterton Lakes NP (Canada) Glacier National Park and Yellowstone National Park. I have posts and photos from all and they will be published soon.

In the mean time we picked up US 20 in Yellowstone and having driven the western end in Newport, OR and the eastern end in Boston, MA we have decided that this will be our route to Rochester.  It is as good a conceit as we could determine given that we have focused on specific route since leaving Los Angeles.  Pacific Coast Highway, Ice Field Highway, Alaska Highway, Klondike, Top of the World, Taylor Highways.  You get the point.

We have always preferred 5 and 20 for crossing NY when time permits.  William Least Heat Moon gave it homage in “Blue Highways.”  So  find ourselves having stopped in Cody, WY where we attended our first western rodeo.  It started off rough when the first cowboy out of the chute on a bare back bronco was thrown and had to be carried off on a stretcher.  We stayed on and saw some interesting rides and events that we have heard of but not seen live, for rodeo buffs it probably was a mediocre performance but we saw all the usual events in the home of Westeren Rodeo.  In the morning we went to the Buffalo Bill Historic Museum and tore ourselves away after 4 hours without even looking into the Museum of the Plains Indian and the Museum of Weapons. The Draper Art Gallery has a wonderful collection of Western Art and i t includes a reconstruction of Frederic Remington’s studio.  If you think you might be near Cody, which is the eastern gateway to Yellowstone, plan at least a full day in the museum, the entrance price includes two days, just to give you an idea.

We moved on at 1:30 and followed US 20 to Greybull and then on to Thermopolis.  there is a direct road to Thermopolis, but we are following 20 to see where it takes us.  Thermopolis looks like a great place to spend some time.  It is near a center of dinosaur fossil beds and it has a major hot spring which we chose to avoid as it appears to be quite commercial.  We stopped for the night in Wind River Canyon at Boysen State Park right on the river.  Nice park although it is jammed between the highway and the river with a rail line on the other side of the river.  We also had as bad a mosquito experience as any we had in Alaska.

Saturday morning finds us traveling east on 20 to stop in Caspar, WY and then on to Lusk or wherever we decide to stop for the night, maybe even over the border into Nebraska.