Travel Day #6: Road to Yellowstone

That was a lot of miles. We started perfectly time: rolling out of the campground by 7am. We had taken “conservationist” showers the night before, because we were at a place with no plumbing hookups, if you recall.  To do a “conservationist” shower, we start the water, get wet, flip a switch on the nozzle which blocks the water, soap up, and then flip the switch to rinse. It uses very little water.  The 6 gallon gas or electric heated hot water tank is perfect: enough hot water for each shower, as long as you give it about 5 minutes in between.

I was glad to be in line at Jewel Cave waiting for them to open the ticket window, because we were able to get into the first tour, again.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t until 9:20, so it would throw us off the schedule. On the positive side, it gave us time to fire up the generator in the parking lot and run the microwave and toaster so Mom and the boys could have a hot breakfast (fresh fruit for me).

In Jewel Cave, calcite crystallized as water evaporated away, covering 90% of the surfaces several inches thick. Disappointingly, the crystals are never sparkling, as they are covered in a layer of dust or whatever. Oh well.

We left Jewel Cave a little bit later than my schedule called for. In addition, the location for Devil’s Tower that I had based everything on was totally incorrect. We still took our time with it, though. After a nice conversation with the policeman who was overseeing the parking, we departed to visit the gift shop Sean had spotted just outside the park. Thankfully, he was quick to find his Davy Crockett hat, because while I was in the parking lot, I reviewed our plans and noticed that we were 1.5 hours behind schedule PLUS at least a half hour away from where our schedule was based on. The problem: Ponderosa RV park in Cody, WY closes at 8pm, and the rodeo down the street from there starts at 8pm. Since the rodeo happens EVERY night in the summer, I imagined it could be very long.  I didn’t want the kids to miss it. That was the whole point of staying in Cody.  We’d have to Fort Phil Kearney Historic Site and make a SCUD run to Cody….

We had 4 hours to go ~250 miles, but I was low on gas. Filling a 50-gallon tank takes a while, too. I’m glad I’m not worrying about gas mileage; prices are lower than what I figured they’d be, so lower fuel efficiency isn’t going to break the bank. Averaging just under 60mph for 4 hours didn’t seem like a problem at all. We made great time on the open interstate before and after the gas stop. I chose to ignore the GPS across the shorter Route 14 and follow the highway signs across Route 16 since it they declared it was the fastest and lowest grade route to Yellowstone. But when I saw the “lower grade” part, I realized both routes through the Bighorn Mountains had us going up over the top! I configured the GPS to show altitude, and it turns out we nearly hit 10,000 feet!  For a chuckle, I also configured it to show our vehicle as a race car.

The race car worked. We arrived at the campground as they were turning out the lights in the office (literally) and over to the rodeo grounds just as they were finishing the opening ceremony. Mom & the boys were rather road weary, and not looking forward to anything other than going to bed, but I dragged them to the stands, and it didn’t take long before they were really enjoying it. There were only 3-5 competitors per event, and the MCs told jokes between competitors, so it stayed interesting. We also watched some interesting weather blow by the stadium, too.  So we had fun at the rodeo… a lot of fun, really!