Cody, Wyoming

Cody, Wyoming

by Ravi Raman on August 16, 2007

Day 4 featured less mileage, about 500 miles for the day. Putting our grand total at 2400 or so. If we chose to drive a striaght route to LA, we would almost be there by now! We are having much more fun doing it this way. :)

Even though our mileage for the day was only 500, it took us quite a long time, since much of this was along canyon roads with a lower speeed limit.

We got a late start from Wall, South Dakota, and hit up the self-proclaimed World Famous Wall Drug store. It was pretty crazy. Part theme town, part store.

Outside of Rapid City, we came across another oddity (there are many in this part of the country), The Reptile Garden. It’s the largest collection of reptiles in the world (again, self-proclaimed). I was impressed. Tons and tons of rare and venomous snakes. An 18 foot crocodile and some other creepy, crawly things.

We continued on, making a stop in Keystone, South Dakota to see Mt. Rushmore. It is much more incredible to see in person than in photos. The National Park Service did a very nice job creating a few trails to get closer to the mountain, museum and vistors center.

After a couple hours at Mt. Rushmore, we pushed on to Cody, Wyoming, making our way through Big Horn National Park. I wasn’t expecting anything special in this park, but was in for a surprise. There is a massive Canyon in this park (probably a mile wide, mile deep and 10 miles long) with it’s wall formed from sheer faces of granite (I think it’s granite). The rocks in this part of the park are over 3 billion years old (pre-cambrian).

The park is huge, and we drove about 65 miles through the narrow part of it. Along the way, the scenery was amazing and we passed a dozen deer grazing right alongside the road, include a massive 10 point buck! I took a pic on my camera phone and it will post it soon (my camera battery died!).

After exiting Big Horn Park, we hit flat lands again….really flat lands. The flatest soo far. We way about 1 car every 20 miles….and could see the cars approaching from about 10 miles away! Every 20 miles or so, we’d pass through small town, the smalled of which had a population of 10 people! Most were in the <1000 person range.

We ended up in Cody, Wyoming which is one of the main tourist depots for those making the trek into Yellowstone. The east entrance to Yellowstone is about 45 miles away. We venture into the park tomorrow.

Wall Drug in Wall, South Dakota