The Long Slog Home

One of the best things about a long road trip is the wonderful time spent thinking about things; allowing your mind to wander and dream.  Sometimes the radio is a great companion and other times, just background noise.  I travel with a set of about 20 CDs of my favorite music, mostly live Springsteen concerts.  The thirst for adventure heightens the sense of anticipation when you are starting out on such a trip.  The down side, even for me, is the feeling of dread of having to go back home.  Not because I don't love my family and enjoy time at home . . . it's knowing that it will take two full days to make the 1,400 mile return to them.

That said, I also remember my last trip home from Yellowstone. I spent a pretty full day in the park and then headed out the East Entrance around 3pm.  Over-nighting in Buffalo, WY, I made that trip over two days, arriving home by midnight the second day.  So seemingly, getting up and heading out bright and early Friday morning would make the trip home a proverbial piece of cake.  And it was!

It was another cold morning as I awoke in my sleeping bag at 5:30am.  When I pulled out of the campground the thermometer in the van said 34F.  With the rain the night before, the air seemed damp and heavy.  The fog was noticeable in the low areas and along the Yellowstone River.  It made for an eerie drive through Hayden Valley, requiring slower speeds because you couldn't see very far beyond the front bumper of your car.

Exiting Yellowstone National Park via the East Entrance, I was fortunate to catch the reflection of the mountains in Sylvan Lake.  It's one of the places in the park that many visitors do not get to see because of the remoteness from the central part of the park.  Unless you are entering or exiting through any one of the five entrance gates, people generally don't make the effort to see what's there.  I've been fortunate to do all of them, although it's been over 20 years since my first and only trip through the West Entrance at W. Yellowstone, Montana.  That will soon be rectified later this summer!

I continued on towards Cody, WY when I came upon a lone bison bull, just taking his time walking down the center of the road.  I stopped to allow him to continue at his own pace.  Being shortly after 7am, there were no other cars on the road, so it was just him and me.














As I approached Cody, I was getting hungry and got to thinking about a good hot cowboy-style breakfast.  I knew I'd have a long day ahead of me and would be eating out of the cooler for lunch and probably supper, so I used TOOTS to help me find a cafe in town.  She didn't disappoint in finding Granny's Cafe right on the main street through town.

The rest of my drive through Wyoming was pretty much uneventful, with only one stop before the state line at South Dakota.  On my drive to Yellowstone, I remembered passing a Wyoming Historic Site . . . Wyoming Historic Site #207 to be precise.

Near the small town of Shell was the Lower Shell School House.  Built in 1903, it was one of the first non-log community buildings in the Big Horn Basin region.  It served as a school until the 1950's and continued on as a community meeting hall into the 70's.  Today it has been fully restored and is an art gallery, bookstore and visitor center . . . although it was not open to the public when I stopped.

As I think of places I'd like to retire to, living off the grid, I thought this would be a pretty cool place to call home!

I reached the Wyoming Visitor Center around lunchtime.  Not really hungry for lunch, I used their bathroom facilities and free WiFi; and grabbed a few Vanilla Wafers and the end of my milk.  A midday snack was just enough to get me through until supper that evening.  Back on the road, I would be able to push my way through to Sioux Falls, SD which is very near the state line with Minnesota along I90.

I had called into David and said I would be planning to find a campground around Sioux Falls for the night, leaving me about nine hours for my final drive home.  The clouds were looking menacing as I traveled further east. I thought about my storm chaser friend Jennifer who had left Milwaukee about a week prior for a three week chase across America's plains in search of the ultimate weather patterns, including tornadoes.  Having followed her storm chasing travels for several years, I recognized what a "tornado warned storm system" looked like . . . and this one was right before my very eyes!

Ironically, when I posted a photo from the storm on my Facebook page that night from the KOA, she almost immediately responded with a message and nearly the same image from her vantage point somewhere near Sioux Falls.  Fortunately (or unfortunately as your perspective may vary) . . . there were no tornadoes produced by this beautiful cloud structure.

When I pulled into the Sioux Falls KOA at 9:45pm, I was lucky to get the very last campsite in the park!  But at $43/night I nearly passed on it, in hopes of finding less expensive digs.  Even the Super 8 in town was nearly $100.  So the KOA would be my crash pad for the night.

I had make great time and put a significant part of the road behind me with 850 miles covered in about 17 hours (including all stops).