Truckin' North to Flaming Gorge, Lander WY and Cody WY

 Day 38 - April 30

Finally the Rambler gets to start heading north!  Our destination today is a beautiful forestry service campground, Cedar Springs, in Dutch John, UT located on the shore of the Flaming Gorge. We had site 7 and you can see a little bit of the lake, and the wind has laid, which is nice!

Flaming Gorge is the largest reservoir in Wyoming. It straddles the Utah and Wyoming border. Construction began in 1958 and was completed in 1964. The primary inflow and outflow is the Green River. The canyon is beautiful with the red sandstone. It's a beautiful area and we really enjoyed the quiet and peace at our campsite. 

That's always a beautiful site!

Flaming Gorge Marina

Osprey Island

No osprey, but Canadian geese

Flaming Gorge Dam

Such beautiful red!

I had a reservation for Day 39, May 1, at Gros Ventres Campground at Teton National Park. But got to looking at weather and checking highways, so we moved to Plan B. The Rambler headed down highway 191, then highway 28 and wound up at Lander, Wyoming at Mountain Range RV Park - very nice and quiet and very clean. And we have electric which means we can run our space heater when it freezes tonight lol.  Lander is a cool town and we will explore it tomorrow. It's the county seat for Fremont County and is located along the Middle Fork of the Popo Agie River. It's very windy.

We visited the Fremont County Pioneer Museum. Highly recommend!  We spent a couple of hours here. Then I wanted to go visit the Sacajawea Cemetery, 14 miles down the road at Ft. Washakie, WY. If her name doesn't ring a bell with you, she is a Native American who guided Lewis and Clark as they made their way across America.  She is believed to be buried here on the Wind River Reservation. There is a bronze statue of her at the top of the cemetery.

Poor Harvey!  He greeted us first thing in the museum. He was attacked and killed by a band of Sioux in 1870. That's a wagon hammer driven through his skull!

Beautiful painted Indian hide

It's a nice write up about Sacajawea

A very different cemetery. Reminds me of Terlingua Cemetery

There's her life size bronze statue

Day 41 - May 3

Well, well. We opened the window shades and it was white everywhere and still snowing!  Hmmmm I guess you can't hear snow on your RV roof! We pointed the Rambler north on Highway 20 after checking highway conditions.  

Between Riverton and Cody it's a beautiful drive!  We followed the Bighorn River that winds through the Wind River Canyon.  The canyon is 2500' deep and is a feast for the eyes! There were quite a few fishermen in boats getting their fish on.  

We arrived in Cody WY where we are staying at Buffalo Bill State Park for the next 2 nights.  It is located on the shores of Buffalo Bill Lake Reservoir. We stopped to visit the Buffalo Bill Dam and Visitor Center where they informed us they just opened up Hwy. 20 to the East Entrance of Yellowstone this morning. Yay for us!!!  But you can't get into the Tetons.  Getting back to the Dam here. Wow. That's some tough folks that built this dam, which at one time was the tallest. They could only build it when it was frigid wintertime. They had to avoid the spring runoff.

Bighorn River

Beautiful drive

Buffalo Bill Reservoir above the dam

The Shoshone River on the other side of the dam

View from our campsite

Had to put a wind block up

View across the lake

The next day we spent most of our time at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. You get to tour 4 museums for the ticket price of 1, and they are all located together.  We learned everything about Buffalo Bill Cody.  Will Cody first visited the area in 1870 with a Yale Geologist, Prof. Marsh, in search of fossils.  Cody returned later and established the town of Cody.  He was a pony express rider, a bison hunter, an entertainer and a conservationist.

Pretty cool

This mosaic map on the floor has 27,000 tiles in 2 dozen colors.

The Cody Firearms Museum has more than 7,000 firearms.

We thought the Draper Natural History Museum was the best.  The displays really immerse you into the greater Yellowstone ecology and natural history. Heck when we walked through the section devoted to forest fires, you could smell the smoke!

We took a break for a burger and beer at Legacy Butcher and Burger. It was good and filling!  It's been a good weather day at last! But it's supposed to get nasty and cold in a day or two.

Cheers!

This is the Buffalo Bill Blue Cheese Burger with Buffalo Sauce. Whew!

Next up join us on our spring time drive through Yellowstone National Park!