July 3 - Thermopolis, WY to Billings, MT - 400 miles

Today was a Triple Header, in terms of special things we did and saw!  First, we stopped at the Buffalo Bill Cody Historical Museum in Cody, WY.  This is a wonderful museum, actually containing four museums, the memorabilia of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, a Plains Indian museum, an Art Museum of painters and sculptors capturing the West in the late 1800's, and a Firearms Museum.  With Norm's and my interest in museums, we had to pull each other away to get on with our trip.  We found a good Buffalo Bill statue, so we had to take our picture with him.

Then on our way out of Cody, we rode the "Chief Joseph Highway", which is an absolutely beautiful mountainous road, and which does indeed go over the 8,000 ft pass where Chief Joseph eluded the US Cavalry with a daring march of his people.  What a spectacular view!  A mountain shower coming as we were on very curvy parts of the highway up added some slippery interest to that ride.

As the frosting on the cake, we then rode over the Beartooth Highway, going up to 10,400 feet at the border of Wyoming and Montana.  It was a little scary riding on some of the curves, and mighty cold on top, with snow patches all around on the mountain ranges for many miles.  This ride and scenery rivals any that can be found in Colorado, and is really spectacular.  The above explanation doesn't do justice to this fabulous part of the journey, but the photo shows views on top of the pass.

In Billings, the Gold Wingers were Everywhere!  I estimate there will be 13,000 or so here in the next few days, for the big rally, Wing Ding.

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