Not This Trip

Yellowstone, we have decided warrants a trip of it own.  This morning after eating breakfast in a dinner, like the one I worked in the summer of 1976 and 77 , we turned South,  instead of heading father West to Yellowstone. We just did not have enough time to do Yellowstone justice. Yes, Homer did have Chicken Fried Steak…again, he rated it number two of four, I think. I had the corn beef hash, in honor of the old man, deferring on the polish sausage for Homers benefit. 

So the mission of the day was to head south to the Bighorn River Canyon and work our way back to Cheyenne where we had a hotel reservation.  We never made it to Cheyenne, instead we were distracted by the austere beauty of the Bighorn River Canyon, the Hot Springs and Dinosaurs of Thermopolis, Wyoming, and Homers quest to photographic every vista and oddity along the way.

I must have pulled the reins of the Cadillac a billion times so Homer could take a picture of this or that.  Surely, he will have been deprived of his place in photographic history as I failed to halt out progress while crossing the bridge  leaving Billings, missing the shot of the river with the snow covered mountains in the back round! So make sure you check out his blog. But I did get a good shot.

But it was all worth it, as the Big Horn River Canyon is beyond description.  We headed the advice of the lady ranger and took the detour back in to the Canyon instead of driving across the base of the canyon.  The water is very high, which makes it an ugly muddy brown. We knew this as the ladies at the City Coffee shop, just outside of Billings, where I purchased six shots of decaf espresso for $2.35!!!, told me that the weather had been extremely wet. In addition, we had been warned of flood watches by the weather underground on Homers laptop.

We drove the few miles into the Canyon and marveled at it beauty.  I was able to get this close to a Big Horn Sheep and capture a picture of one of the raptures that lives in the cliffs above the river.  Neither of us could stop marveling over the landscape or the vistas that just seemed to never end.

Never the less we do have a flight out of Denver on Wednesday morning so we pushed south.  I had seen a story about the Dinosaur’s at Thermopolis, Wyoming and wanted to check it out.  What we learned is that Thermopolis is the home of the largest hot water spring in the world.  The treaty with the Indians provides for free use: which the municipality abides by, Thank you Thermopolis.  We did not accept the offer of the twenty minute soak in the mineral water, instead electing to check out the Dinosaur exhibit.

So Now, I have another minute from the Weekly Reader, Yes that thin paper did include articles about the Dinosaurs in Wyoming.  Candidly, my memory of the articles was better than the exhibit, but perhaps that is because in the interim I have visited the museums of Natural History in more than one country.  We did, however take a few minutes to stretch our legs and support the local endeavor. 

From Thermopolis, it was a two hour drive to Casper where we decided to spend the night. After finding lodgings we had enjoyed a steak dinner, a couple of drinks, a bottle of wine and a after dinner drink before writing this blog, as Homer would not give me the night off.  As he says, Journalism is a tough business!