We're in the Wild West, yeeha cowboy! After most of the last week being spent in Yellowstone, which is beautiful but very expensive and rather like a big safari park, it's quite sad but in a way reassuring to be back on our Subway lunches and breakfasts in Walmart car parks!
Yellowstone is probably the US's premier national park, being the first ever one in the world (established in 1872) and it certainly felt like an important place. Impressive aspects were things such as the excellent ranger talks held nightly at each campsite on a whole range of topics to do with wildlife, conservation and history of the park, all given by very knowledgeable and enthusiastic rangers. It's obviously a privilege being located at Yellowstone and they all take huge pride in their jobs. It did however feel rather tame, despite it having lots of grizzlies! As I said, it's just a big Safari park, people drive round in their huge RVs and SUVs, stopping to take pictures everywhere with little kids all saying, "Mom, it's so cute, can we get one?", about a big grizzly bear or 1 ton bison! The park is also heavily designed around driving, and is also very expensive, which although a shame, is to be expected. All the main "sites" are layed out in the same way, with a limited and pricey shop for food nearby, obviously most people just bulk buy at a supermarket before entering the park, unfortunaty our bikes didn't allow that. Overall as a park, very pretty but lacking in charm compared to British parks with their country pubs and distinctive villages.
We have been having a few experiences with the sense of humour over here. I've always heard how Americans don't take to sarcasm as we do back home, and I have to say, it's true. On our rest day in Yellowstone we hired a rowing boat out on the lake, all very serene to begin with, but after we'd gone several miles away, we noticed the huge storm clouds approaching. Sure enough the storm was massive, chucking hailstones at us almost an inch in size. Meanwhile all the cars on the adjacent road ducked under trees for cover and were signalling to the two stupid English guys (us) in the middle of the lake to check we were OK, we responded by holding our beer up. We braved it out, got back to the hire place and when the guy asked if we we'd been OK in the monsoon, to which we replied we'd been holding our "help" sign up that they gave us for 2 hours and were shocked nobody had come. It flew completely over his head and he probably feared for his job for a few moments before he saw the empty beer cans all over the boat.
So, as I started off by saying, we're in the wild west! It's just like all the Clint Eastwood films, no shooting upto now however. The weather definitely lives upto the wild name, the other day we were fortunate to outrun a storm by being breezed along by a 25mph tailwind that it was generating. Today, we basically had the opposite, so a very easy 83 miles yesterday and a very arduous 71 today. These storms are something else however, it's like Independence Day meeting Armageddon, it all goes black as hell and we've seen some incredible lightning strikes.
In Cody, Rodeo Capital of the World, we decided to go to a...rodeo! Very entertaining. We also discovered why there are big groups of bikers everywhere on Harley Davidsons, they're all heading for the Sturgis Festival in South Dakota. A million people are expected this year, which should make camping interesting. Looks an incredible way to travel though and they all look the same with their bandanas, leathers, tatoos, shades and handlebar moustaches, and as we've become used to, very friendly! We've got a few offers from bikers to stay with them when we pass through their town or city further down the line, couldn't ask for more at all.
So we'll be leaving Wyoming tomorrow and heading to near all the bikers and Mt. Rushmore (mountain with the Presidents heads engraved into it) It'll be incredinbly busy so we could end up camping in a park like we did a few days ago. We woke up and realised that we'd pitched our tent next to a tramp, after having to move it at 3am due to it being on top of a sprinkler that came on for nighttime watering. We think we'll then stay north ad opposed to going south through the corn belt, it could get a bit boring we think, so we may even end up going to Canada for a few days. Hopefully I'll use a library computer to upload some pics too over the next few days!
Hello David. So glad you made your weekly bog post and update, although 1 day late... just kidding. I was a little worried about you and Andy. Peter Voss (St. Ives) was worried too. But not nearly as much as I was. What can you expect? He's a Brit. We too attended a Rodeo at Cody as we have NEVER been to one before. It was alot of fun. I was particularly impressed with the amount of women involved and riding int he Rodeo. So glad to see that. We both felt the humor was carried on way too much. A little bit here and there would have been more than enough. Otherwise, at times it interfered with the bull riding etc. We only spent 1 & 1/2 days in Yellowstone - which we felt was enough for us. We did make it down to Arches and Canyonlands in Utah. Boy were they just gorgeous!! Want to go back to these two parks.
ReplyDeleteWe arrived home, back in the Bay Area, today Wed Aug 11th. I suspect our diets will have alot less ice cream, milk shakes, diet codes, pancakes, hamburgers and instead a little more fruits, vegies...I can hardly wait!!!
Safe travels to you both.