Bikes loaded, we checked out of our cabin at the Blue Bell Lodge as husband and wife and made our way to the Sylvan Lake Lodge around 7am, to pick up some friends who would be accompanying us to our next stop, Buffalo Bill State Park, in Cody, Wyoming. It was a chilly ride through the wilderness, me again in full leathers. We saw five separate buffalo along the way, munching grass on the side of the road between our lodge and Sylvan, and we slowed and passed each one cautiously. If you’ve never been near one, these things are absolutely huge.
After breakfast at Perkin’s in Gilette, Wyoming, we continued down I-90 West into Cody, Wyoming for our next stop at the Buffalo Bill State Park. Stopping at a rest area, I notice our friends have a flat rear tire on the passenger side. 🙁 Unable to find the key to remove the wheel, my new husband, whom I refer to as my McGyver, produces a tire plug kit that was packed away in his bike. I should not have been surprised, with what he’s been able to fix at the side of a desolate road. We are back on the road after stopping to re-inflate the tire to capacity.
Soon we reached the Grand Tetons and like I’ll mention throughout most of this trip, I can’t describe the beauty and magnitude of what we were seeing. It was absolutely incredible. And cold. We reached the top and I punched it to get alongside Bill to ask him to stop so I could put a jacket on as the temps had dropped into the 50s, in spite of the bright sun. We stopped for a few pictures and were on our way.
After setting up camp at Buffalo Bill State Park, we rode back into Cody for dinner, a found a cool little diner called Granny’s, just past Irma’s Buffalo Bill Hotel.
We returned to the campsite with libations (the store was called Libations, seriously!) and began our search for firewood, as we anticipated a cool night. Bill and I walked from fire ring to fire ring in search of leftovers, and we hit the jackpot on the other side of the loop, a pile of driftwood, some pieces were three feet in length. We carried it back to the campsite over several trips and a fire was soon blazing. I don’t know what kind of wood we found, but it smelled like juniper incense.
Bill had brought along some glow sticks (how can those NOT remind you of the movie Skin Deep?) and they worked out very well. I sat on a piece of firewood near the fire writing in my journal via the light of a glowstick while everyone else picked out constellations in the night sky, making jokes about UFOs, Yogi Bear and BooBoo. (I absolutely lost it after the “Booboo would be piloting the UFO” comment.) Bill saw a falling star, and the Big Dipper and also the Milky Way were in full view on this gorgeous summer evening.