Little Bighorn & Rocky Mtn NP

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Chief Joseph Scenic Highway

Day 35 – August 13

To get to Little Bighorn from the northeast side of Yellowstone we took a route toward Cody, Wyoming that included the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway. This was a spectacularly scenic and winding desert road that ascended to 8,000 feet. The desert and mountain landscape and vistas on this sometimes intimidating road were some of the best we had seen.  We passed a few remote ranches, many pronghorn, and one fire being fought with air drops.  Teddy Roosevelt called this stretch between Yellowstone and Cody some of the most beautiful territory he had seen, and we agree.

We got to Cody and had a fried chicken dinner at Granny’s restaurant. This was one of the more local restaurants in an otherwise touristy, but large town. A decent home cooked meal. Drove through the town a bit, and then out toward Little Bighorn. Stayed the night at an Extended Stay motel in Billings, Montana. Did laundry at the motel. We have come to regret not spending more time in Cody.  Hopefully we will get back to this neat little touristy town.

Little Bighorn National Monument

Day 36 – August 14

We arrived at Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument late morning. It was a busy parking lot, and a rather small site (not including the battlefield). Once parked, we explored it all. We toured the battlefield, Last Stand Hill (where Custer and most of his men died during the battle), the monument to the Lakotas, and the museum at the Visitors Center. This was very interesting and more emotionally moving than we were expecting. Viewing the grave-like marker noting where Custer fell was quite a somber moment. We stayed a couple of hours and learned a lot about the details of the battle and those involved. The battlefield trail, called Deep Ravine Trail was dotted with markers where soldiers and Lakotas had fallen. There were also rattlesnake warnings which we weren’t sure were legit or just their way of keeping people on the marked trail.  Regardless, it worked, we stayed on the marked trail. There isn’t much to say, really, about this National Monument other than it is a stop we highly recommend for anybody interested in American history and our cultural icons.  It was well done.

When done, we headed off toward Colorado to meet up with daughter Suzannah to help her move in to her apartment at Colorado University, Boulder.

The drive down through northern Wyoming was starkly beautiful and entirely remote.  We kept noting to each other that there is a lot of open land and pronghorn in Wyoming.   We made a stop at Ranchester, Wyoming, a very small town for lunch. We found a quaint, no-frills café called Hootin Owl Café in the middle of nowhere with awesome homemade donuts! Apparently, they sell out of their donuts most days as people travel from as far as Colorado every day to get them. We had a great lunch here and good conversation with the young couple who owned it before heading back on the road toward Boulder. (As of this writing, this restaurant is no longer in business…a tragedy as far as we’re concerned).

While looking for a place to stay the night we discovered, with the help of the Offbeat Attractions app, the small town of Guernsey, Wyoming. We took a small detour there to see an Oregon Trail historic site that included actual preserved sandstone trail road…called the “Oregon Trail Ruts“. We got here just past dusk so we didn’t stay long because the artifacts were hard to appreciate in the dark. We took our hiking headlamps with us so we could make our way up a very short walk from the parking lot on the edge of town. It was pretty cool to stand in the ruts preserved in sandstone and see name and date etchings in the stone from pioneers who rode the trail in the 1800’s. (We actually returned here the following year to spend more time exploring…click here to see more on the Oregon Trail Ruts from our “USA Road Trip 2017” in this blog).

We spent the night at an excellent Super 8 motel in Wheatland, Wyoming, which is about 20 miles from Guernsey. This is perhaps the best cheaper motel we ever stayed at.

On to Colorado via Cheyenne.

Rocky Mountain National Park

Day 37 – August 15

Drove 480 miles

Woke up, had continental breakfast at the Super 8 motel and continued heading to Boulder.

We stopped in Chugwater, Wyoming for shakes at the Chugwater Soda Fountain that we discovered via the Offbeat Attractions app. This was a very small and desolate desert town, but the famous shakes at Wyoming’s oldest, and still operating soda fountain did not disappoint. We chatted with the 3 women who worked there while downing awesome shakes and perusing the cheap classic Americana relics for sale. (Shakes so good, we returned here the next year. See “Road Trip 2017”)

We stopped in Cheyenne to see the State Capitol. This was disappointing because it was closed for repairs, and covered in scaffolding. We did walk around downtown, however. We went to Depot Plaza, and took pictures with the famous 8 feet tall painted cowboy boot statues and did a quick tour of their beautiful Union Pacific train depot. That was about all there was to see and do (since we weren’t in the market for cowboy boots). We stayed in Cheyenne for about an hour, and then got back on the road. Not too impressed with Cheyenne but then again we hadn’t visited Dodge City yet (that disappointment came the following year’s road trip).

We had not planned on going to Rocky Mountain National Park but we found that we had time to spend an afternoon there. (We spent a few days camping and hiking there the following year, though, see “Road Trip 2017”). In the park for just a few hours we decided to drive the Trail Ridge Road from Fall River Visitor Center in Estes Park to the Alpine Visitors Center, 23 miles one way. Trail Ridge Road was quite scary in some points since it truly is a road on a ridgeline in several spots…but as always, it provided highly rewarding vistas.  After driving the Going to the Sun Road in Glacier NP, this was actually tame.  On the drive and at pull-offs we were fortunate and saw lots of wildlife to go with the spectacular scenery: a family of big horn sheep on rocks just above the road, a few elk with huge racks, a very, very large pack of female elk milling around just off the road, marmots, and picas. We saw more wildlife per hour spent here than anywhere on the whole trip! We hiked the deceptively challenging Alpine Ridge trail on what we learned is the only tundra found in the lower 48 states. Though only .5 miles round trip this proved to be very difficult due to the fact that we were at 12,000 feet elevation at the end of the trail. We then hiked the .6 mile Tundra Communities trail. I stopped halfway due to altitude induced light headedness. Em continued on.

This was an excellent introduction to Rocky Mountain National Park.

We then headed to the Airbnb we reserved in Boulder. It was about an hour drive, and so we got there around 8:00 pm. This Airbnb was more like a hostel or rooming house. Guests (all under 25 besides us) slept on couches in the living room and in sheet partitioned rooms. We did have a private room, though. Chatted with host Lynn. We drove just a few minutes to the always lively Pearl Street area for dinner. We ate at the excellent, trendy Centro Mexican Kitchen on Pearl Street. It was a beautiful, balmy night, and ate at a sidewalk table. We walked off dinner along the Pearl Street Mall then back to the Airbnb.

In bed around 11:30 p.m.

Boulder to Nebraska to Iowa to Michigan

Days 38-40   August 16-18

We spent a couple of days in Boulder with our daughter.  Then we headed back to Michigan.  We stopped off at the Nebraska State Capitol in downtown Lincoln. Lincoln was an unimpressive city but the Capitol building was very impressive. We went to the top observation floor and got good views. Back on the road we made a stop in Avoca, Iowa to see a Volkswagen Beetle spider that we found via the Offbeat Attractions app. We found it right next to a corn field, it was a real VW Beetle sitting atop metal spider legs about 8 feet high, and we met one of the guys who constructed it. He basically said a bunch of guys were kind of drunk one night and looking for something to do, so….pretty cool.

Then we stopped in Des Moines to visit the Iowa State Capitol. This Capitol and the surrounding grounds full of statues and memorials was one of the nicest Capitol buildings and grounds we had seen. The Capitol was ornate like others, but this one has a classy design unlike the others, hard to explain. It was the only Capitol building that required us to go through security in order to enter. Well worth the trip here….just magnificent.

Then we finally rolled in to South Haven, Michigan around 10:30 p.m.