The Bighorn Mountains WY

We departed the Badlands National Park about 9:00 am. Not exactly the crack of dawn, but, for us, a fairly early start. Our destination was Cody WY, about 470 miles away. This was a fairly long day, even for us. Our itinerary for this trip is a bit convoluted. We are attending three consecutive motor home rallies in the next two weeks. The first is in Cody WY on June 10, the second in Gillette WY on June 18 and the third in Rapid City SD on June 24. If you look on a map, you will see that these run from west to east.. The problem is that we are headed from east to west. Furthermore, after the Rapid City event we are headed back to western Wyoming to visit some national parks. Not the most efficient itinerary. During the last three weeks of June we will be making a series of ZZZs across Wyoming.

Bighorn National Forest

Instead of I-90 we chose to take the scenic route to Rapid City, through Scenic SD on SR 44. The distance was no further, the road was good and the drive was much more, well, scenic. At Rapid City we stopped for some groceries at Sam's Club and Walmart. We also bought a cooked pizza at Sam's for lunch. We got back on I-90 westbound and skirted the north edge of the Black Hills National Forest. We didn't stop at any Black Hills destinations, because we knew we would be back in a week or so. We crossed into Wyoming and stopped at a visitor center, primarily to ask about the best route across the Bighorn mountains. The Big Horn mountains are big and steep. There are basically three routes to traverse them. US 16 is the most southerly route, and it is the flattest route. It is for wimps. US 14 and and US 14A are much steeper. Both feature long, steep grades; US 14 has an 8% grade for about 15 miles, while US 14A has a 10% grade for about 12 miles. Neither route is for the faint of heart. Dorcas did not make me take US 16, but she also would not let me take US 14A. We compromised with US 14. I didn't fight her, because I knew I would have another chance when we came back across next week. The drive was gorgeous. The approach was steep, as expected, but once on top there was a bit of a rolling plateau, until we dropped off the other side. At each overlook we could see thousands of feet below, and look back on the road we had just driven up.

After we dropped off the western edge of the mountain I turned on the Jake brake, shifted down to third gear and coasted smoothly down the hill at about 30 mph.  Near the bottom we stopped at Shell Falls. Dorcas has been recording the TV series North America on the Discovery channel. We wouldn't get to Cody before the show aired, so she made me stop and put up the satellite dish to record the show. We made dinner with the remainder of our lunch pizza and toured the falls while the show recorded. The best part of the falls was the “BigBelly” automatic solar trash compactor at the visitor kiosk. I put our soiled pizza box in the BigBelly, and it started to compact, but then apparently jammed. Oh well, it seemed like a good idea. We got back onto the road after Dorcas' show recorded and were rewarded with a fantastic sunset.

"Big Belly" solar compactor

Shell Falls

We arrived in Cody well after dark and proceeded to the Walmart Supercenter on the west side of town. This is a familiar stop for us. We stayed here for two nights in May 2011 on our way to Alaska, while waiting for the National Park Service to clear the avalanche on Sylvan Pass. As usual, we called ahead to ask for permission to park and where in the lot we should park. The folks at Walmart are always very gracious, so we don't hesitate to spend our money there.