Cody Wyoming

Long hard day.  We left Victor Idaho this morning.  We got up at our usual time and were ready to go at about 8 am.  But it started to pour.  Bob was unhooking the sewer and came in the rv and waited for it to stop.  When we pulled the car onto the tow dolly, the dolly was stuck sideways.  Bob tried to move it and could not.  He bought some grease yesterday because he had noticed it was happening, but the altitude made him so tired that he did not want to try.  I think he may also still have some of my flu.  Anyway, he started to leave with the car not completely on the dolly.  I told him I thought it was unsafe.  He came out and looked and agreed.  But he felt so bad from lack of oxygen and maybe flu that he could not think of what to do (maybe the first time I am aware of that happening).  Just then a car drove up and the driver asked if we needed help.  I told him what was wrong and he knew immediately what to do.  He got a long piece of wood and pried open the pieces of the dolly that were stuck together.  It took 3 minutes.  I thank the rain, because if we had not waited, the helper would not have been there.  Everything happens for a reason.

Victor is a very nice touristy town. Driggs Idaho is about 8 miles down the road.  It is a little bigger and has lots of hotels and restaurants and bars.  Almost nothing else.  It is a cute nice town and would be a nice place to stay if you drove here in a car and wanted to stay in a hotel to visit the Tetons. 

We then took back country roads, heading for Yellowstone.  Eastern Idaho is much prettier than western Idaho.  We drove along a high plain.  It was about 6200 feet.  It was flat and very green- I think grass, alfalfa, or hay.  It was green for miles - up to the edge of the mountains. 

We had been to Yellowstone before.  It is still beautiful, but not so much for the mountains.  There are amazing cliffs and rock formations, beautiful lakes, herds of buffalo, sulphur springs, and hot springs.  However, there were lots of tourists and many of them were really stupid.  They would park their car (or worse their rented rv) along the side of the road, but not completely off.  It would slow down traffic for miles.  We actually did not stop anywhere, until after we actually got out of the park.  These pictures are from the road between the park and Cody.  (The buffalo was right in the middle of the road and all traffic stopped and waited for him to slowly saunter off the road.) 

Coming out of Yellowstone on the east end, the road climbs pretty high - to about 8650 feet.  By now Bob was really having a hard time breathing.  We went down over 1500 feet in about 10-15 miles (my eyes were shut so I am not sure how far it was.)  And to make it worse, we got behind a trailer and the driver was riding his brakes the whole way down.  When our brakes started to grab, we pulled off the road and just waited for a while.  Once we were not behind him any longer, it was easier. 

We are now in the Cody Walmart.  We had a great dinner of chili that Bob made before we left.  The altitude is only about 5200 feet and Bob is breathing better - not great, but better.  Tomorrow we head for Gillette.