Day 4

Another early morning....bags out and waiting by our door at 7:00AM, bus pulled out at 8:00AM.  One neat thing about our bus tour group is the wide range of nationalities and countries represented.  I think we are one of the few Americans on our bus.  Many from Scotland, United Kingdom and Australia.  They are a very nice group to travel with and we love listening to their accents. 

Today was mainly a travel day.  We left Deadwood, South Dakota at 8:00AM and arrived Cody, Wyoming at 4:45PM.  That was a total of about 358 miles.  The highlights of today's journey was traveling through the Bighorn Mountains.  The Bighorn Mountains are a sister range of the Rocky Mountains.  These are located about halfway between Mt. Rushmore and Yellowstone National Park.  This was a slow and steady climb up to an elevation of about 8347 feet above sea level.  Along the way we spotted a moose with her baby calf.  Our tour guide was so excited about this great "find."  As we descended down the mountain we stopped at a lookout point called Shell Falls.  This was all within Bighorn National Forest in the Bighorn Mountain area.  Here the canyons and waterfalls were breath taking. There is such a wide range of landforms along this journey.  We noticed today that even going through Bighorn Mountains, one side was green, full of vegetation, peaks and valleys and LOTS of trees while the other side, as we descended, was more like the desert--dry, brown and patches of vegetation.  The diversity of landscape is hard to describe because it was so different throughout the day's travel.  We saw thick grasslands, open meadows, lakes, glacially-carved valleys, rushing waterfalls, rolling hills and steep mountain walls.   The pictures in today's blog will give you a little idea of the beautiful scenery we saw today.  Although it was about 74 degrees, there was still patches of snow throughout the journey at higher elevations. 

Once we were through the Bighorn Mountains, we ended our days travel in Buffalo Bill's frontier town of Cody, Wyoming. 

As I (Stacey) sit here typing the blog for the day, John and Benjamin are off on another adventure. They are off on a scenic white-water float trip down the Shoshone River.  Due to the nature of this trip---some rapids and the high possibility of getting a little wet (Ben is hoping to get soaked), they did not take cameras or phones.  Therefore, pictures are not a possibility.  However, they will have their mental pictures of this special time together for the rest of their lives.   Due to a stress fracture in my left foot, I did not think this adventure was a good one for me to try. Therefore, I am sitting outside under a shade tree listening to the sound of birds chirping and watching a very brave bunny who is frolicking very close to me.  Now this is what I call RELAXING!

 

My new furry friend

Our cabin for the night.  Lots of room!