USA Tour Day 18

Day 18 Deadwood to Cody August 2 2010

359 Miles 578 Km

A continental breakfast on the terrace overlooking the river and after a shower of rain the night before, the air is crisp and clean. We meet Alan at the car where he dons his new safety hat and puts +50 sun cream on and we move out at 7-25am.

We have highway riding today leaving the Black Hills of Dakota we head back through Wyoming. The roads are just great and the scenery is again different to what we have seen. There are oil pumps near the road.

I see a herd of deer in a paddock and the rolling hills are just beautiful.

We pass towns which have familiar names like Gillette, Buffalo and Wild Mustang, and even Crazy Woman Creek, then turn off the highway and up a wonderful pass with 30 mph continuous corners, only to be held up by three riders on their bikes which were obviously too big and heavy for them to handle also with road works being in progress and thick wet gravel had just been laid, it was quite comical watching these guys trying to manoeuvrer these big bikes laden with camping equipment. 

We stop at Bear lodge and have lunch, and Alan tells us about an animal which is called a Jackalope (like a jackrabbit with antlers) which is indigenous to Wyoming. At first we don’t know whether he is pulling our leg ....but a cowboy at the lodge showed us one that had been stuffed. Most unusual animal.

We were shown a picture of the Medicine Wheel Historic landmark which is a sacred site nearby, it was a three mile hike to see it so we so we settled for the picture. This dates back to 1200-1700AD and a very sacred site to the Indians.

Moving on from lunch the road twists and turns and we reach 9452 feet above sea level on a pass over the Bighorn Mountains, the scenery coming down on the other side is just breathtaking and the colours in the distance with pastel shades of yellow, orange and greys really beautiful. Vic is really enjoying himself as the sweepers are just magic. We stop at the bottom to admire the Big Horn Lake and have a break.

The road again straightens out and we arrive in Cody.. Alan and I did a little shopping at WALMART (quickly so not to have our photo taken).. yeah.. we head out to the Buffalo Bill Dam which is a few miles out of town and in the Yellowstone Valley. Further on we pass a hunting lodge that Buffalo Bill used.

Alan drove us to a restaurant called Cassie’s where we had an excellent meal of Rib Steak, Vic reckons it is the best he has ever had. Started talking to a man on the next table who heard we were Australian and said he recently rode from Airlie Beach to Perth on dirt roads, including the  Simpson Desert which took him sixteen days to cross and where he broke 5 ribs. He also did the central deserts and the Gun Barrel Highway, one of his mates was air lifted out. We wondered why?