Travels with Cece, Eric and Sarah: All Yellowstone, All the Time

We left Jackson and headed for the south entrance of Yellowstone by way of Moose, Wyoming (I just had to mail letters from the Moose post office for the fun of it). As we arrived at Yellowstone, it started to hail, not too badly only about the size of gumballs as compared to the hail the size of golf balls that fell out of the sky for about an hour once when I was driving through Indiana. When you say “hail the size of fill in the bank,” you have to say it like Gilbert Gottfried – it’s a rule with hail. Off we went to see Old Faithful, Lewis Canyon and Kepler Cascade. The drive wasn’t too bad from a Cece on the brink of a nervous breakdown perspective. She was not too happy about the canyon and just refused to exit the car at the cascades. But the fun really began when we headed out of the park via the eastern access road for Cody, Wyoming, our next stop. Our guide in Jackson had told us that he loves the East Entrance Road (which is also the east exit road) at Yellowstone because it has great views. Apparently, when someone tells you that in connection with western Wyoming, it means the roads are narrow, twisty, have crazy elevation changes and may or may not have guardrails. It’s a really beautiful drive with fantastic views, but to paraphrase Jay-Z, I should have slipped Cece an Ambien. We met up with a motorcycle gang on East Entrance Road; I was a little concerned about them at first because they all had their faces fully covered except for their eyes which makes me think robbery, but then one of them turned around and I saw that the “gang’s” logo was “Cycling for Jesus” so really how scared can you be of that? And they had just left Cody and gave me some tips for things to do there (I told you about the nice people and the motorcycle gangs). I did not drive us off the road and off we went through the Shoshone National Forest, following Route 16 and the Shoshone River to Cody. By the way, it was in the Shoshone River that we saw our first two mooses. Something about that last word does not seem right.

In Cody, we stayed at the Cody Legacy Inn and Suites. It’s a cute little place but it is a motel as in you park your car outside of your room. But, it is super cute but not luxurious and the furniture looks like it was hand hewn by a decent but not great woodworker, but it is the “greatest hotel ever.” Before Cody, we had stayed in SLC at the Grand America – five star, European style luxury hotel with spa. Our room was a huge suite because of an upgrade with an air tub, kitchen with laundry, marble everywhere, etc. I mean this is a hotel where the house band played a jazz version of ”Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” just because Eric asked for it during Sunday brunch. Then in Jackson, we stayed for couple of days at the Teton Mountain Lodge, which has the western lodge approach to luxury going on – suite with kitchen, fireplace, whirlpool tub, spa, steps from the lift to the slopes, etc. So, we get to the Cody Legacy Inn, go to our room and are looking around and it is nice and we open the curtains and Eric looks out the window and says with great emphasis: “This is the best hotel ever!” Why? The hotel has a full on view of McDonalds. And every day in Cody, he would fling the curtains open and show us the McDonalds and remind us that “this is the best hotel ever.” And, of course, ask for a Happy Meal for lunch or dinner.

We used Cody as our base for exploring the eastern side of Yellowstone and saw the Yellowstone River and Lake, the Upper and Lower Yellowstone Falls, the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, the mud volcanoes and Lamar Valley. We saw so many bison that the children stopped looking up when we said bison and together with Cece wrote a song called “Don’t Call Me Buffalo” that sounds a little bit like the “don’t call it s comeback” line from “Momma Said Knock You Out.” We saw just about every animal (moose, elk, bison, big horn sheep, deer, wolf) that is in the park except for bears and we just missed seeing a mother bear and some cubs and some grizzlies one day. But that could have been all for the best. After all, the coffee ladies (the really nice ladies who wear big turquoise jewelry and run the drive through coffee hut across from the “best hotel ever”) told us one morning as we were discussing the wind gusts of 60 mph that were blowing through town (I told you – crazy weather) that a bear had killed and partially eaten a guy near Cody. I did not believe them. I thought that they were pulling my leg, but I played along to be polite. I should have known better. I am not sure about the eating part. Check out http://www.cody-wyoming-network.com/2010/06/areas-of-shoshone-national-forest-closed-due-to-grizzly-mauling/ if you do not believe me. I did learn an important tip from the ladies for dealing with bears and this is a direct quote: “Always carry your bear spray . . . and a sawed off shot gun.” Those are words to live by, pretty much anywhere you go -- hope for the best but plan for the worst. By the way, you can get a pretty good espresso in Cody. There is more than one place but I like the hut run by the ladies and it is conveniently located across from the “best hotel ever” in the parking lot with McDonalds.

We also went up, down and around Yellowstone’s highest peak. I am pretty sure that by the time that we completed the return trip on that peak, Cece thought that nothing could be more stressful. I know that I was worried about her and my sanity. Hers because she was starting to sympathy drive and read all the warning signs out loud because I had yelled at her a couple of times about telling me how to drive. Rather than tell me to slow down she would say out loud to herself “Hmm, I think that sign said slow down to 25 mph because the road curves.” And my sanity, because she is a passenger seat driver who is admittedly afraid of heights and that puts a lot of stress on the real driver. But, I did not know stress until we crossed the Big Horn Mountains on our way out to South Dakota by way of Montana. Next trip – Ambien for one of us for sure.

Next post, will finally get us out of Wyoming by way of Greybull (population around 900 including one really nice cowboy and a very busy taxidermist), Emblem (population 10), Shell (population 50), Ranchester (population around 750) and Sheridan (population around 18,000), a pit stop in Montana and on to the next one, South Dakota.