Day Twelve

Our plan to reach Spearfish came up a little short, but it was a very good day. We left West Yellowstone around 10am local time and drove thru the park (its the only way to go) headed for Spearfish. S;peed limits in through the park are 30 and 45 mph, so it took a little while to drive the 100 miles to the other side. Add to that a gas stop and a stop at one of the beautiful waterfalls and it was about 3.5 houors just to go that 100 miles.

Once thru the park, we took US14/16/20 thru Wyoming towards I-90. We drove thru Cody, WY where we stopped for a quick lunch.Again, we were slowed down by speed limits and scenery. The road winds...and I mean winds....thru Big Horn National Forest. At the highest point we reach a little over 9000 feetl The day was overcast (but thankfully no rain). At the highest point the temperature was only in the low forties. We had on everything we had to stay warm. With no sun coming thru the clouds it just never wamed up. Even when we got back down to lower elevations it was very cool. The views in the forest were spectacular. It wasn't mountains like before, but huge rock formations and rolling mountains. There was a lot of deer along the way. To top it all off they are doing a lot of construction and thru a large section we could only drive about 30mph (on gravel roads). Even on the "good" section of the roads we were slowed because of the twists and turns.

After coming down out of the mountains, we jumped on I-90 and made it to Buffalo, WY before it became dark and the temps started to fall. With the number of deer in the area and the cold temps we decided to call it a night. After grabbing a sub at Subway for dinner, it was 11 pm locally and we hit the beds. So once again I am short on time to post pictures.

Tomorrow we plan to make it back to Mitchell, SD where we stopped on the way out. We will stop by Sturgis and get a T-shirt and maybe go to Deadwood for lunch before getting back on I-90 and making our way to Mitchell. It is all interstate, so hopefully we will meet our goal. If so, we will be back on schedule and will have made up the day we lost with the tire.