Day Six: Deadwood to Cody

We left Deadwood and drove for awhile on Interstate 90 unitl we headed into the mountains on Route 14.  Getting out of the valley and into the mountains was an enormous climb.  Hats off to my frineds Terry and Lolly who did it with a big ole motor home pulling a car!  We climbed and climbed until we reached the top at 8,400 feet and guess what?  There was snow!  It looked like they had gotten about an inch overnight but while it was cold, the sun was melting everything it touched.  We drove on until we reached Shell Falls.  My friend Gina, who was born and raised in the Cody area, told me not to miss Shell Falls.  I expected a little waterfall off the side of the road with possibly a small hike.  Bur nope, it is a BIG watertfall in a huge canyon and there is a nice little visitor center.  It was a great break in the hair-raising snakey drive up and down the mountains!  Once we got back to the plains, we encountered another thunder storm.  Storms and even the clouds are diferent here.  I actually understand that they really are the same but out here you can see so far unimpeeded that it all seems bigger.  We saw rain coming from huge black clouds miles away but it was hard to imagine that it wasn't right down the road.  Lightning is huge and beautiful.  It all missed us.

Once we arrived in Cody, we had lunch at the Irma Hotel, named for Buffalo Bill's daughter.  Then we went to the Buffalo Bill Museum and spent the afternoon there.  In five hours we barely scratched the surface!  I had to drag Dean out of the gun rooms.  To me all of the thousands of pistols and rifles looked the same.  I took a nap.  Returning to the Irma, we watched another hokey but fun gun fight in the street, checked into our room, changed into warmer clothes, and went to the Cody Night Rodeo.  We were very lucky - it was the last one of the 2010 season!  It was Dean's first rodeo and I think he enjoyed it.  It was nice to see all the events that out neighbors compete in.  We ate rodeo food, but that was fine, since we had a great lunch earlier.  To bed now.  I almost forgot!  We came to the airport with the plane graveyard that Lolly told me about.  Dean drove thruogh gates labeled "private" and drove right out on the runway to get to the planes way out.  I had to yell at him - he didn't believe it was a runway!  Sometimes I wonder about him!  And BTW, we never did go to those planes wat out there!  Whew!!!