Day 4: Out of nature, into... Wyoming

Incidentally, we are terrible food bloggers.  About 80% of the time, we are about 5 bites in when one of us says "Crap, we should have taken a picture of that meal".  But enough of that...

Yesterday evening, we cruised through the Black Hills of South Dakota,

Black Hills

Hole carved into Black Hills

A storm coming over the mountains

until we arrived at South Dakota's Custer State Park.  As you can imagine, we were thrilled to hear, as we paid our entrance fee, 'Wildlife Alert!!! The herd of buffalos has been spotted at about mile post 4!'  Thank goodness our hotel was at mile post 3.

Mile 890: State Game Lodge

I caught a small fish on the stocked stream, but the real highlight of the Game Lodge was revenge on the buffaloes.

Bison Short Rib appetizer

Unfortunately, we didn't have the last laugh...

Leaving the State Game Lodge

We saw some more more wildlife on the way out of the park, including this tiny deer (or fawn) cross the road in front of us 

Mile 936:  Finally, a new state

OMG South Dakota lasted forever....

Not much else happened until I got excited thinking we were seeing the Rocky Mountains.

Mile 1067:  Mountains loom

NOT the Rockies

Turns out this was the Bighorn Range.  Ever heard of that?  Me neither.  But they are way underrated. The Bighorn National Forest was the most spectacular scenery we have seen so far.

Bighorn Range

Shell Falls

Shell Creek at the top of one of the Bighorn Mountains

Mile 1202: Town of Shell, Wyoming, pop. 50 (the sign says 83--don't believe it)

After Shell Falls, Shell Creek runs into Shell.  Here we stopped because we saw this place

The aptly named Antler Inn

After a beer with the proprietor, a hunting outfitter and guide whose trophies from his various exploits lined the walls and were for sale out front, we moved on.

Again, not much happened for the next 70 miles or so.

Mile 1267: Cody, WY, The town that Buffalo Bill built.

Cody was built, basically from nothing, by the promotion and effort of Buffalo Bill Cody.  When we arrived at our hotel, The Cody, at which point Kate finally exhaled, having returned to some semblance of civilization.  The Cody is indeed nice.

Dinner was at The Irma, in a (different) hotel, founded by Buffalo Bill himself.

Yeah, I know it's not a food picture.  It's the best we can do.

The bar was a gift from Queen somebody of England to Bill

Dinner was good--turns out Wyoming steak is good, but it can't touch the Tornado Room.  We ended the day with sunset on the balcony of our room at the Cody, accompanied by the soothing sound of the huge rodeo next door.

Note the rodeo arena in the foreground

Tomorrow: Trouts and Toes