Sturgis Or Die, Day Ten

Been looking forward to this leg of the trip since Vince showed me the itinerary way back in December. Today will have us head west on highway 16 along the Shoshone River, enter Yellowstone National Park through the East Gate, ride through the park, then exit at the south gate for the final push south to Jackson Hole Wyoming The scenery and roads promise to be nothing short of spectacular. But first things first.

Main Street action in Cody, we're gonna miss this town

Today’s ride distance is only around 180 miles, so we can relax and take our time saying goodbye to Cody. Vince, Mark and I stroll over to the Laundromat to pick up our clothes (yes.....I've managed yet again to avoid washing clothes!), we pay by the pound (dry of course). The stuff weighed more than you'd think, but totally reasonable. It's back to the rooms to finish packing up, we've gotten into the habit of filling up with gas when we roll into town, that way we have one less thing to do when we're trying to jet.

The youngsters are still trying to recover from their little Hardin adventure, so we let them sleep a while longer. We've got some shopping to do! Oh, and we might sneak in some doughnuts too.....it's the one food group we haven't had the pleasure of consuming this trip. That would change today.

Since we started this trip Vince and I had wanted to pick up something to commemorate the trip, something lasting and meaningful. The tattoo thing was out, at least for a while, we needed to come up with a design that we both liked and then agree on an artist. I already have about seven tat's, but Vince has none, and he was apprehensive to just "dive into" a shop in Sturgis and have a go. Nate and I kept pushing, the old peer pressure thing, but no dice. We're thinking of using the Street & Steel Deadman's Hand skull design and having Nate at DV-8 (he's done all my stuff and is really talented) do the ink.........stay tuned.

OK, what else might signify our trip?? Matching knives, that might be good. Yeah, assuming you can agree on a style!  Cody has a number of great stores, we cruise around town stopping into the Custom Cowboy Shop, a store that Vince had spotted the night before. I'm leaning toward a Case straight blade beauty, but there's just one rub, the stock scabbard doesn't fit quite right. No worries, in the basement is one Gary Ray, master saddle maker, and he will craft a handmade scabbard custom fit to my knife. Sold! How cool is that? A local Cody Wyoming craftsman will be working up a one of a kind piece for my knife, I'm more excited about the darn scabbard than the blade........almost. But what about Vince? Still nothing, yet!

He ambles back to a sporting goods store we had checked out when we blew into town the prior afternoon. He had already spotted a likely candidate, but needed to make sure it was truly "Sturgis worthy". It was, purchase made. So we got our special souvenirs, each the same, and yet totally different...........kinda like us. We're stoked.

It's about noon now and we meet the boys at the Buffalo Bill Museum to finish the tour that we had started yesterday. It's really five museums in one, and all are extremely well done.......especially the firearms, Buffalo Bill and Plains Indians exhibits. If you find yourself in Cody, it's a must see attraction. Trust us on this.

East Gate, Yellowstone National Park

We hustle through the last of the firearms displays (I know some guys at work that could spend days just checking out the overstock guns in the basement) because we want to get on the road............this promises to be the last "easy" day of the trip, and probably the most visually stunning. We saddle up and head west out of town on highway 16 on our way to the East Gate of Yellowstone Park, just forty miles away. Right from the start we treated to amazing vistas, sheer rock canyon walls, climbing to dizzying heights on our right and left. Massive evergreens, sprout from impossible perches thousands of feet up the slate grey rock. Along the valley floor the Shoshone river marks the roads progress, occasionally changing sides, just to keep us guessing. Up ahead, lakes, ponds and waterfalls seem to appear at every turn……incredible.

The sky is a patchwork of white, blue and cigarette yellow. Oh yes, there are fires here too. As a matter of fact when we got up in the morning we were greeted with the acrid stench of smoke.....fires burning north of the highway, near the East Gate, but the road was open. And as the morning wore on the sky gradually cleared, so we thought the smoke eaters had done their jobs and the fires were well out. We were wrong.

To the north we see plumes of smoke, still comfortably in the distance, but close enough for concern. The road twists and dips, and turns back on itself...........it's simply one of the best stretches of asphalt I've ever had the pleasure to traverse. It's sensory overload, do I gaze at each more progressively stunning landscape , or stay focused on the task at hand, riding the machine, and avoiding disaster? Honestly, I kinda split the difference......it's that good! The smoke continued to rise, and we see the first of the firefighting helo's that are sucking water straight from the river to our left and dropping the smothering liquid on the flames to our right. It's an amazing sight.

Yellowstone Buffalo, yes they're that big, and yes we were that close

As we continue we see plenty of evidence of recent fires, some still visibly smoldering. There are camps with firefighters right off the road........Yellowstone is burning, and we are witnessing it. Pressing on, thankfully the smoke is blowing away from us, we make it to the East Gate. Twenty bucks later and we're in the countries very first national park. The road snakes east toward Yellowstone Lake, along ridge lines with views that I'm simply not capable of describing.........

We stop at a gas station and souvenir store near Yellowstone Lake, a quick soda and look see for goodies. It was at this point that Nate asks if I saw the Buffalo? The what I?! Apparently there was  herd of Buffalo just north of the road about ten miles back (Nate has a knack for spotting critters/points on interest at amazing distances.....he'd make a great sniper spotter). Crap, I missed it. Guess I was paying more attention to the road after all.

We saddle up, and head out.........and I'm bummed. That is until we turn south on highway 191 and to our immediate left is a......herd of Buffalo!! These guys are enormous, and only about a 100 feet off the road.......and there's no fence, nothing between us and 2,000 pounds of potentially pissed off, unpredictable creatures. So we stop and walk towards........it was an incredible moment, trust me. Photos snapped and a stampede successfully avoided we continue on our way.

More  mind numbingly beautiful sights; sun dappled green forests, scorched tree trunks on barren rock strewn ridges, sheer cliffs give way to bottomless sun starved canyons, pungent sulfur ponds, and a geyser. Yup, we saw a geyser in full "go" mode. Not quite what I expected (although I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting really), imagine a fire hose underground pointing straight up, that's it......but warmer!

A quick note on spectacularly amazing sights...people lose their flippin' minds! They screech to a stop in the middle of the road, dive off to the shoulder, shove their way back, and just generally forget that they are not the only folks in the universe. Unfortunately motorcyclists aren't immune to the behavior. We keep our heads on the proverbial swivel.

The Grand Tetons in backlit glory

Any moose you ask? As a matter of fact we did see some moose some distance from the road playing in a pond.........you can imagine the traffic jam that caused! Regaining our composure and pace we head to the South Gate, or 70 plus mile tour of Yellowstone has come to an end. No worries, we're no sooner out of the park than we enter the Grand Teton's National Park............Mother Nature worked overtime in this corner of globe.

To the east and west of us rain threatened, we still hadn't experienced any "real" rain on the trip, so we're feeling lucky. Rounding a ridge, the Teton's come fully into view, and grand they truly are. Other than perhaps the Austrian Alps, I've never seen anything quite like them. Mountain peaks of jagged shards of rock so massive and so sharp they threaten to gut the sky. Simply amazing. We stop for photos, we can't do them justice, but we try anyway. As we ready for the final few miles JP's ride won't start.....again. Even with the new battery, it won't turn over, we think it's a short. maybe the starter. A quick push, and it fires to life and we're down the road. But a little concerned......we don't need a "mechanical" at this point in the trip.

Vince, Mark, Nate, and Hank on the outskirts of Jackson

We avoid the rain, maybe a drop here, or a drop there, as we roll into the upscale winter playground of Jackson Wyoming.  Very cool place, wish we had more time to explore. we dump our gear at the motel and set out for some chow. A Mexican restaurant a block or so away will do the trick. The foods pretty good, but then again, we hadn't eaten since morning, and that's not our style.

We walk around the town, it's alive with folks checking out the shops and bars, rain is falling now, and lightning flashes in the distance. After some ice creams, dished up by a couple of the many eastern European students we found working at their summer exchange jobs..........guess there's American kids slinging stew in the Czech Republic as this is written?! We're tired, and I have to sort photos and blog.........tomorrow is a big mileage day, so no beers and it's off to bed.........