Denver- Steamboat Springs 18th May- 1st June 2012

After our 'family' holiday in Mexico, we flew from Puerto Vallarta to Denver via Phoenix which took most of the day as we had to wait in Phoenix for about 4 hours.  We were wearing vests, ’t’ shirts and flip flops which was typical clothing for a hot country but not the right clothing you need for wet cold and foggy weather with snow on the ground.  The weather got worse during the day so we looked silly wearing shorts and flip flops.

We collected a hire car ready to start our 2000 mile trip in order to visit some of the sights in Colorado.  We aimed to cover roughly a geographical square above Denver that would take you to Mount Rushmore in South Dakota in the North East then across to the Little Big Horn in Montana at the North West. Our next plan was then to go down to the Rocky Mountains in Yellowstone, then back to Denver via Steamboat Springs.

Near Cook City- winter wonderland again

Next day out of the shorts and back into sweat shirts and jeans again. Our ski jackets would have been handy but we left them behind while we have been on our trip. Not a good idea! 

We knew we were amongst the Rocky Mountains but could not see them due to the fog and snowey conditions.  What can we expect when Denver is one mile high above sea level. This was obviously one of the reasons for the changeable weather conditions.

During our journey we saw the rolling hills of Wyoming appear leaving the flat, parched grassland of Colorado behind. Our first trip was in Guernsey, a small town famous for being on the Oregon Trail where in the 1850’s over 350,000 settlers past through to the West Coast , they had been offered cheap land. The town was a little run down with just hotels and  nobody in them.  The first hotel we called in we were met by two twin brothers about 17 years old who were holding rifles  we were a bit wearey about them ,  we would just call  it intuition as they seemed a liitte strange !  So we decided not to stay there and stayed in bunk house up the road..  The best thing about this place it was next to ‘Mad Tony’s’ here we had a meal and met up with some of the locals most of these were from the USA Army base and were off duty USMC (United States Marine Corps) the base was near by.

The second aim of this trip was achieved today by visiting Little Big Horn, very reveling when all things were considered. A great museum with loads of easily accessible information. We spent time on Last Stand Hill and saw the inevitable here where Custer and his 200 troops came to an end. The controversial question was though was it all Custer’s fault?. The debate will never end on this one.

Custers grave- Black text on it.

We headed North into Wyoming after spending the morning in  Fort Laramie made famous in many westerns. It was impressive with its layout next to a river and we both enjoyed going back in time looking at how people lived during those turbulent times 170 years ago. We drove Northwood through Lusk where the film Raw Hide had been made, this is  where we heard the true story about the young man who got skinned alive.  ooch!

 As we entered South Dakota the Black Hills came into view. We stopped in mid afternoon at Hot Springs and dropped in the Mammoth Museum, this was a fantastic like  mini 'Terracotta Army' experience ast he findings were an archeological dig unearthing 65 Columbian mammoths and many more to discover too.  (Well worth a visit). That night we stayed at Hot Springs in Americas Best Value Inn. opposite the river.  The whole place had  lovely sandstone structured buildings. We were  lucky and found ourselves in a great location, this was yet another place where we could have spent more time as there were many attractions.

Mammoth Museum -South Dakota

Mammoth Museum -South Dakota, thigh bone of one of the mammoths

The car ride in the Black Hills was glorious and we stopped off in Keystone for lunch, it was a typical Western town in appearance with board walks, and great scenerey.  It was the perfect stopping point before or after people visited Mount Rushmore as it was only ten minutes up the hill from the town itself.  Mount Rushmore was very dramatic with the four statues each on their own merit, and collectively amazing. (once again well worth a visit).


Mount Rushmore



Mount Rushmore



Mount Rushmore

However with 400 miles west to aim for, our next destination we had to keep moving.  This day drew to a close in Sheridan where we stayed.  Sheridan is famous for hosting Buffalo Bills old hotel, by the railway and bar which of course we had to visit ,it was quaint by Americas standards and had some great photos of the man himself.

Steve had the best fish and chips in months  (now missing England!)

Buffalo Bills bar


Steve eating Fish and Chips

Whilst in Montana we headed for Yellow Stone National Park where we saw a magnificent site of approximatley 50 wild horses it was a fantastic sight to see.



Wild horses in a field- Montana

This weather was so changebale on our travels , a variation of  80 degrees + for four days  but as we climbed higher into the Rocky’s  it declined to  32 degree Fahrenheit, (freezing)  in Cook C ity.  This was quite shocking as we did not appreciate the fact that  the car safety light came on saying DANGER ICE,   it does not help when  you are driving with flip flops wearing t' shirts etc! what can we say!!!
Our other surprise was  Cook City had a  population of only 100 people.  City what is that all about ???

Cook City sits at 7,608 feet at altitude, higher than a lot of ski slopes in Europe. We managed to find a nice place called 'The Alpine Inn'  basic but cozy and warm. The next day the car was covered in snow and ice, there had been a good storm during the evening surprise surprise !! The thought of driving without snow chains  the following day was quite scary.

The next day we entered Yellow Stone National Park,  where we discovered  a Moose next to the road! we found that exciting, however  the day got better as  we saw a real live grizzly bear only 25 yards away (Yogi), It was busy digging up roots so it ignored everyone else around it. (Thank goodness as a couple of tourists were killed by one last year by not following the park rules).

Moose

Yogi Bear

Grizzly Bear (Yogi)

We then had a snow storm in Mammoth Springs, the roads were blocked we saw two more bears and a wolf before we retreated to West Yellowstone to wait until the storms passed.

Views- Black Hills

View Yellowstone Park

Views- Yellowstone park

Buffalo

The aim was to get to Yellowstone and avoid the bad weather we failed but we saw herds of Buffalo run past the car, we also saw Elks we passed a frozen lake (Lewis) and ended up in Dubois and stayed there another night due to snow falling.

Stampede of Buffalo's

Elk- Yellowstone National Park

Elk- Yellowstone National Park

Deer crossing the road

The weather worsened as you can see from the picture below, it was like being back in winter wonderland, very pretty but cold!

Yellowstone Park- Lake Lewis

Yellowstone Park- Lake Lewis

On the way we drove through a place called Muddy Gap, which was quite well signposted but when we got there the town consited of one shop.  When we saw this van outside the shop it made us laugh.

We drove to steamboat springs and had a lovely journey down which was in Colorado and descended to 7,000 feet where we stayed at the Legacy Vacation Club Hilltop.  We were ready for a rest after driving 1500 miles in 6 days through many different weather conditions and landscapes.

At Steamboat Springs we stayed in a studio flat, so it was great to get back into a kitchen and cook our own food. We played tennis most days and ventured out on a couple of fairly long uphill trails.  The trails had magnificent views, but were fairly hard on our lungs it must have been the altitude of being so high, but they were well worth it.  Steamboat Springs is a famous ski resort with many other outdoor activities do during the summer such as walks, mountain biking, canoeing, Kayaking etc. We were both impressed with the place and it had nice temperatures around 70 degrees Fahrenheit, so it felt comfortable. 

 Fish Stone Creek trail

 We stayed for five nights and it should have been six but the flights were really expensive to Houston at the weekends. We changed our plan instead of flying to Houston we managed to find a fairly cheap flight to Dallas where we stayed one night. Our new intention was to drive  to Houston from Dallas as we were meeting our friends from Darlington.  The journey was supposed to be a four hour  drive but turned into seven hours,  this journey was a total nightmare from start to finish as the highways were just so busy with no respite from the traffic.   We finally arrived and were now looking forward to the next part of our trip.

The next road trip 'Bailey Tours' in Texas!