Cody, WY to Yellowstone National Park (Fri. July 9)

First thing this morning we got up and headed to downtown Cody to take a look around before we hit the road. I had promised Conor if he would get up early without too much pushing (he and Pedro hate getting up in the morning!!) we would go out to breakfast. Though we didn't get out quite as quickly as I had hoped we did head to town and stopped at the Irma Hotel for their buffet breakfast. This hotel is very old having been built in 1902. We found it to be a really cool hotel. You could tell it was built in cowboy country in the old days as every wall was covered with the heads of deer and other animals which had been hunted down. After breakfast we walked around town to check out some of the stores picking up a few souvenirs and then headed west to Yellowstone.

We entered Yellowstone at the east gate. We had noticed all the way from Cody to the entrance that there was still several areas of snow on the mountains. Shortly inside the east gate we found a good pile of snow. The boys stopped and made a miniature snow man and had a snow ball fight. Eventually their hands were frozen and they headed back to the car. On their way back they found a sign lying on the side of the road at the bottom of the snow pile. Hopefully it was a misplaced sign from another location in the park!!!!!

If you have never been to Yellowstone you can't even imagine how big this park is. To get from one place to another in the park you might have to drive over 50 miles. At a 45 mph limit in most of the park you don't get anywhere fast. But you don't really want to rush as there are so many beautiful and interesting things to see. The parks has altitudes from 5,200 feet to 8,000 feet so we again dealt with many temperature changes during the day.

While in the park we saw many bison, a pelican, a brown bear and a ton of deer. We stopped at the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone where there is a really nice waterfall. If you drive along the south rim there is a hike you can take to get a really good view. This hike brings you down 328 stairs. It is a very easy hike down, it is not until you come up that your realize how tough this hike is. But it is worth the effort as the view is spectacular. We also managed to see some geysers, hot springs and fumaroles. Tomorrow we will go back and see a few more sites including Old Faithful before heading off on the road again. For now we are just trying to keep warm as the evening temperature again is dropping quickly.