Cody was founded by Buffalo Bill Cody. We visited the Buffalo Bill Historical Center . It was a neat place, but I thought the admission price was a little steep - eight dollars each.

Bighorn - Bighorn Mountains, Bighorn Canyon, Bighorn Lake. We drove past the lake,and up through the mountains, on a wonderfully scenic highway - wish I could remember the route number. Funny - the overlooks were fenced - I suppose for safety's sake, but it was a challenge to take pictures through the mesh. Didn't see any bighorn sheep, but we did find quite a few free range cattle. At the highest point, near the Medicine Wheel we were almost 11,000 feet up, and we even found a snowbank to play in.

Click pic to enlarge

Jackson Wyoming - I'd heard a lot about this classic western ski town, and it lived up to its billing. Wooden sidewalks, lots of little shops and entrance arches made from elk horns. It was also the most expensive place we visited - paid $15.00 for a medium pizza (where's Domino's when you need it!).

Things I didn't see

The Grand Tetons - well, we almost saw them. Unfortunately, the day we drove through was misty and grey, so all we got was a few peeks at the tops through the clouds. But, that just gives me a reason to go back and try again.

Montana

Billings - this is the largest city in Montana. It's got a ridge of rocks about 150 ft high all the way around it, and the first thought that came to my mind is that it's in a crater. Just south of town are thePictograph Caves - there's some indian drawings on the walls, but they're very faded. There's a graveyard in town called Boot Hill, so we went to look for clever tombstone sayings, but all we found were little stone crosses. Billings is also close to Pompey's Pillar, where Clark carved his name during his expedition.

Red Lodge - another ski town, and the entrance to the Beartooth Hwy. I liked this town a lot - we had a great breakfast at one of the local restaurants, and the shopping was good with reasonable prices. One thing about ski resorts out west - the town starts right at the base of the ski mountain, Back in the east, you usually have a few hotels/condominiums at the slopes, but the town is a few miles away.

Beartooth Hwy - an incredible drive through the mountains. At the end, we reached Cooke City which is the northeastern gateway to Yellowstone.

West Yellowstone - this was my favorite town - just outside the western entrance to Yellowstone, it's a real down-home place full of friendly people. It's got a nice main street about 10 blocks long, lined with shops and restaurants. We wandered around for a while and ended up in a really neat bar - the Grizzly, I think, where we had a couple brews and watched the locals play "Indian" at the bar for a while.

UTAH

The Great Salt Lake - again, it was a cloudy, rainy kind of day, so I don't have pictures. It was ok, but nothing special to me - I guess I was expecting beaches and seagulls. We did see a vehicle stuck in the mud flats - I started to take pictures, but then realized that the car was full of people (probably very embarrassed people).

The Kennicott Copper Mine - this is the biggest open pit copper mine in the world - and let me tell you, it was bigggggg. I believe it's about 2 1/2 miles across and more than a mile deep. We could see tiny little trucks driving at the bottom - imagine my surprise when I discovered those tiny trucks had 12 ft high tires, and that the scoop was big enough to drive a Chevy Suburban into it.

Salt Lake City - nice town, but had a very "Stepford Wife" feel to it. Those of you who know the movie will understand - for others, it was very clean-cut, white bread, happy people, with religious programming playing in about half the stores we visited. There's some odd liquor laws, and they only serve 3.2% alcohol beer, so I don't think I could visit for very long. Salt Lake City is surrounded by mountains, so there are some really nice views, and I understand the skiing is fantastic.