Ghost Town Trail, Montana

July 28, 2014 Hot day, overcast 92, 65 night
It's another hot day in the West.

Nevada City

If you head south from Butte and follow the roads around Tobacco Root Mountains you will find a concentration of old Ghost Towns.    You will pass through the long lost towns of Pony, Laurin, Alder, Nevada City and Virginia City.   Along the way you will see signs of different named Gulches.   Do you know what a Gulch is?  We were thinking is it a canyon, or ravine where they found gold??? 

Hangman's Barn - diorama of a real hanging of 5 by the Vigilante

 Starting in 1863 the Alder Gulch diggings were the richest gold placer deposits ever discovered, and in three years $30,000,000 was taken from them.  In 1863 that is unbelievable wealth. Within 3 months of the strike, the pioneer gold camp swelled to over 10,000 people.  Years later it dried up and the railway line never came to Virginia City so the total population in this day and age is 132.  Many of the buildings have been refurbished and preserved to the era.  It's a great stop to imagine and dream up stories in your mind of the wild, wild west :)

Fancy dress of the ladies of the west in 1863

Nevada and Virginia have buildings and tours you can take or just take the time to walk around and look into the ones that are free, that's what we did. 

Billy walking the back road in Nevada City

Back on the bike we headed to a quaint little town along the loop called Ennis.   So many fellows in town with the fly fishing gear on.  Stores and even the towns statue enveloping the hobby into their livelihood.   The town is near the Madison River which is renowned for Blue Ribbon Fly Fishing - the best in the USA!   We keep stumbling upon these things we never knew.

check out the huge Fly bait on the top of the store

Fly Fishing statue greeting visitors into town

Butte, Montana

July 27/2014  Weather still hot up to 90, but overcast all day to ride, night 63
After our week in Cody we moved west to the KOA in Butte, Montana for a couple of nights.  It was the Evel Knievel Days.  The lady camping next to us was from the town and just back to visit.  She went to school with Evil.  She told us the story of his name was true. Bobby was quite a terror growing up and in the local jail enough.  One time he was in there after a motorcycle crash for reckless driving and the fellow in the next cell was a familiar fellow known as Awful Knofel.  That night the jailer dubbed him his nick name.  Said he had "Awful Knofel and Evil Knievel".  Bobby kept it but spelled it Evel not wanting to be know as evil! 

Historic District Downtown

Butte is an old mining town, in fact much of the town is built on the side of the Berkeley Pit which is an open copper mine.

Mine Shaft in the middle of town

 Another interesting landmark is Our Lady of the Rockies, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary and all mothers.  A man in the town promised to make a statue after his wife lived through a terrible cancer illness.  It started out as a 5 foot endeavour and ended up in reality a 90 foot statue.  It is the 2nd tallest statue in the USA behind the Statue of Liberty.   You can see it for miles sitting on top of the Continental Divide and it lights up at night!

Our Lady of the Rockies

Yellowstone National Park - Worlds First National Park

July 24/2014  Weather was 90+ at Cody and 72 in Yellowstone (due to the elevation it is much cooler than the basin).

We left Cody on the motorcycle at 7:30 am knowing it would be an endeavour to ride the Grand Loop around the entire park, the loop is 150 miles + 54 miles from the East entrance return+ return from Cody is 104 = a super long day, back at 7:30 pm at 308 miles.  We stopped a dozen times and had a great lunch at the lodge in Mammoth.  Every mile is beautiful and different.

Grand Loop around or Crazy Eight

1930's Touring buses back in YNP after refurbishment

Fact Sheet: It has mountains, valleys, meadows, grasslands, forests, lakes, rivers, creeks, geysers, an active volcano, the worlds largest caldera(collapse of land following a volcanic eruption), wildlife, campgrounds, lodges, flora and the list goes on.

Grizzly Bear a few hundred yards from the road

Yellowstones Grand Canyon - bright yellow

Old Faithful Geyser

Firehole 

Firehole Spring

Mammoth Hot Spring

It is one of those places that you dream about since a child.
We are lucky to have spent the whole day and it makes you want to come back as soon as you leave.  Once again the camera was maxed out as we returned to camp.  Overwhelmed by the VASTNESS and glad it felt as good now as if we were kids!

The Bear & The Chief

July 23/2014  Hot at base camp 95, Mountains low 60's (all our leathers on)

"Warning this is NOT for Motorhomes." 

It is known as one of the most scenic rides in America - Bear Tooth Highway.
Located in Wyoming & Montana it runs across Absaroka and Bear Tooth Mountain ranges.  It takes you on a 68 mile ride with over 20 peaks above 12,000 feet in elevation.  We have never traversed the Alps but imagine it might feel like this.   Incredibly the 47 mile ride connecting you to Bear Tooth hwy is Chief Joseph Scenic Byway.

only 19 more peaks to go ...... ahhh

another peak on Bear Tooth

Top of the World

Serious Snow Removal

In itself is one of the most beautiful trips and has a heart wrenching story for it's namesake.  The Nez Perce Indian tribe fled through Yellowstone and on this mountain trail after a battle in Idaho.  They were being forced into reservations and to give up their lands for US ranchers.   After 6 days they surrendered to the US Calvary only 30 miles short of the Canadian border, a 1800 mile trek.  While riding the majestic peaks you can't help imagine what a tragedy that must have been. 

Nez Perce Creek

riding Chief Joseph

on top of Chief Joseph - that is our road down there

Buffalo Bill Dam

July 22/2014  Hot 95, Night 65

the concrete arch dam

Just west of town is the Buffalo Bill Dam, previously known as the Shoshone Dam that was built for farmland irrigation in the Big Horn Basin.   The humidity is extremely low here, most days not over 15%.   The crops would fry without it.

Interestingly this concrete arch gravity dam was the pre-model for the Hoover Dam (1930's era) on the Colorado River.  At the time this was the tallest dam in the world (325 ft) when finished after 6 years of construction in 1910.  What we found fascinating was the engineer who was not an engineer at all; but only had grade 12 education and 21 years of practical experience surveying and basic construction principles.  At the time he was put in charge of a project that was the highest concrete arch gravity dam in the world!  Of course Billy found this remarkable, being an retired surveyor.  Talk about job stress!!!!

releasing water into the Shoshone Canyon

the reservoir

job stress

Cody, Wyoming

July 20 - 21/2014  Weather is 90 to 95 everyday. Dry - No humidity 15%.  Night 60
If you look at the map of potential roads from Ranchester/Sheridan/Buffalo Wyoming there are several "scenic" byways you can take to get to Cody........   Nope we only take the motorcycle on those.   So I know, even the Trucker's Atlas says you can safely take Hwy 14, Cloud Peak Skyway and hook up to some principal roads to come to Cody.  Nope.   We went back to Interstate 90 around and through Billings then dropped down on a principal road Hwy 310 to A14.  No elevations to worry about, no run offs, no drop offs the side of mountains.  A nice easy ride in the motorhome, with an extra hour or so that we are happy to take!
A great location to make base camp is at Cody Ponderosa Campground for a week of scenic riding and visiting nearby Yellowstone National Park.

Poster of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show

Cody is all about Buffalo Bill Cody.   A young pony express rider then soldier, hunter and eventual showman.  He was made famous by a novelist who used him as the heroic wild west character...  which was turned into a live show that went on the road to Europe and North America and movies.   The town and everything around here is named for him.   

Firearms at BB Center of the West

Excellent museum of Buffalo Bill Center of the West, the Indians, the wild west wildlife and Firearms!!!!   GUNS - 10,000 of them.  It is an unbelievable collection second to only the Smithsonian in Washington. They have so many that only half are on display.   As Canadians we have little knowledge about firearms so it was an overwhelming display of the last 100 years.

South Fork Road

We were chased back to Cody by a Thunderstorm

Beautiful ride on hwy 291 the South Fork  around the Buffalo Bill Reservoir  into the Shoshone National Forest.  There are many Dude ranches, this area is also the wintering ground for one of the largest herds of bighorn sheep in America. 

entrance to Dude ranch

Big Horn & Medicine Wheel Passage Scenic Byways

July 19, 2014  Ranchester temps hitting 100 degrees at 4:30 pm.  Hot.   In the mountains it was about 70. 
Our loop was Ranchester - west to Burgess Junction, Big Horn Byway Hwy 14 to Greybull, north to Lovell on 310 then west on Medicine Wheel Passage Byway 14a back to Ranchester.

Today was 196 miles of heaven.   Just beautiful scenery one mile after another.  Not for RV's.... we think.   At times it felt like we were driving off the edge of the mountain and at others we were climbing and climbing and climbing while zigzagging to the peak.   So much diverse landscape - from lush grasslands to alpine meadows, from crystal-clear lakes to glacially-carved valleys, from rolling hills to sheer mountain walls.   Elevation starts at about 3700 feet and the up to 10,042 on Bald Mountain. My camera was filled!!!    

Wild Flowers in South Dakota & Wyoming

July 18/2014 Cookin' today high of 94. The West is in a Heat Wave for the next week.   It's amazing how it drops almost 30 degrees at night, low of 58. 
We had an easy 50 mile day just down the road from Buffalo to Ranchester, Wyoming.  Staying at Lazy R Campground at the base of the Big Horn Mountain Range to ride two of the scenic byways.  It's a tiny little campground with maybe two pull thru's but that's ok one is ours and we only needed a couple nights.

Bull Thistle

In South Dakota and Wyoming one thing surprised us was all the wildflowers.   At 4,000 ft elevation or 8,000 ft.  The wide open alpine meadows abound with flowers.

lupines

daisies

Mountain Dandelion blooms at sunrise - My Mom has one!

Buffalo, Wyoming & Cloud Peak Scenic Byway

July 15 - 17, 2014  Weather all over the place.  1st day nice 82, 2nd day T Storm all day and cold 58, 3rd day Hot 88.  

that's us at Powder River Pass 9,666 ft.... highest point  - 30 degrees colder up here

We are staying at Indian Campground which is within walking distance to downtown, something we don't have too often.  And the people and sites are great.

Big Horn Mountain Range view in the distance - Snow capped

Buffalo is small a quaint western town with lots of Indian and Ranch battlefields.   Billy particularly likes the one called Crazy Woman, also named a creek and water and a canyon and so on.  http://www.crazywomanwater.com/legend.html
There are several versions of the legend which I put up the link for,,, all very interesting.

Crazy Woman Cafe in Ten Sleep (yes that's me - Crazy Woman!

Downtown Buffalo has a couple of unique things to see like the Jim Gatchell Museum of Western Artifacts  and the historic Occidental Hotel which dates back 131 years with famous stays by Calamity Jane, Teddy Roosevelt and Butch Cassidy. 

Known to have the first High Noon Shootout in front of the Virginian restaurant/Occidental Hotel

Occidental Saloon

From Buffalo you want to take a drive on Hwy 16 (motorcycle or toad - not your motorhome although we saw many doing it??? i guess they like sweating and replacing brakes) west to a little 1890 town called Ten Sleep.  The Indians measured distance by the number of sleeps it took them to get some where, this was the number to their main winter camps.  It was the halfway point.  Funny whenever we are going away I always said "only 3 more sleeps or 5 more sleeps".   This 67 mile route is known as the Cloud Peak Scenic Byway and takes you over the southern most route of the Big Horn Mountain Range.

Cloud Peak Scenic Byway

Cloud Peak Scenic Byway

Wildflowers are everywhere at 8000 feet