Cody, WY

Cody is a little town (5000 or so souls) that is the last stop on the way to Yellowstone, 50 miles away. It has a Super Walmart, a plethora of hotels, and all the fast food you could ever want. (It doesn't, unfortunately, have a truck stop, so that to get Bertha's sending unit repaired I have to wait until tomorrow afternoon--since I wasn't able to do it myself).

We had a most delightful 380-mile journey here today from Hill City, SD. We opted not to go back through Rapid City to I-90, but to take US 16--and are glad we did. We would through the Black Hills through Custer and onto the plains of eastern Wyoming. Iowa and Minnesota, at the time, seemed sparse--you traveled on plains with here and there a bunch of trees that indicated a farm. South Dakota was even more sparse--at times you could only see a handful of farms across all the prairie grass. But Wyoming is another matter altogether. You look across whole valleys, and there is nothing--no indication of human habitation except the road and the fences along it.

And then we got to the mountains. We went over a 9,000-foot-high pass (and Bertha did not blow her top--thanks to advice from Jim Miller!). Spectacular--and snow-covered. On the way down we passed through a canyon--with large walls of rock on each side.

Tomorrow, Lord-willing, we carry on to Yellowstone. It is raining here in Cody; the highs in Yellowstone this week are in the 40's, with the lows in the low 30's. We will see...