Big Sky Country

We made our way north to Greybull, WY through the Wind River Canyon near Thermopolis, WY, quite a scenic drive especially through the 3 tunnels carved in the rock.  It follows the beautiful Wind River as it curves through the canyon.

One of the 3 tunnels with the one for the railroad to the left

Quite beautiful

Majestic place

We only spent 2 nights in Greybull at the KOA, one of the nicest ones we've been to.  The owners used to full time so they understand what is important in a campground and what's not.  They recommended that we drive up north to see Devil's Canyon Overlook, actually a bit into Montana, a 1000' shear cliff face eroded out by the Bighorn River.  It was something to see, at least Jan got a good look, I couldn't bring myself to go to the edge.

Long way down

It's quite a surprise to walk over and see this!

We continued on a loop that took us up into the Bighorns, and I do mean up.  We started at about 3500' and we ended up at about 10,000' and it rises quickly to say the least up onto an alpine plateau with softer rolling hills.  We took a dirt road about 22 miles that wound up and down and around the meadows, quite beautiful especially with a few storms moving in.

The hills are alive...

Even a bit of snow remaining

Now since we were up that high we obviously had to come down, and down we came through a gorgeous cut in the mountains.

Down, down we go.

And as we wound our way down it started to pour down rain.  We came around a bend, and poof we were eye to eye with a moose that was eating something along the road, maybe salt from the winter?

It looks a little blurry, but it's really the pouring rain, and of course
the Moose Drool:-)

Cute, huh?

We had an interesting day that ended up with the rain really coming down and the wind howling for a few hours.

The next morning we headed north into Montana.  It was a pretty short drive, only about 175 miles.  We rolled into an interesting campground, Spring Creek, just south of Big Timber where we stopped to repair a rock chip that we experienced on the way:(  We were able to find a glass repair shop, talk to and arrange the insurance and the appointment, and have it fixed all in about 2 hours, lucky.  That was chip number 2 on this windshield so far.

The campground had said they were putting us in a bit of an unusual spot, but we gave it no mind until they told us we had to maneuver down this very narrow grassy, gravel road between a bank and several RV's, then just park behind another and run our hookups under and out the wrong side of the coach, and we'd be fine!  Wow, a bit narrow getting in, missed a trailer by inches, but we are in our spot, with nice grass and view.  Getting out today might be interesting:-)  

Pretty pleasant once we got in

Anyway the campground sits right on the Boulder River, one of the rivers we wanted to fish, but here in the campground it is way too fast to try wading!  So off to the local fly shop to get our Montana licenses and find out where to fish.  We were given a map showing access on the Boulder and Yellowstone Rivers.  It's funny and Jan and I are having a hard time with this but the rivers both flow north.  So especially with the Yellowstone we are way, way downstream from its origins in the park, so the river is big, and still pretty fast with the spring melt, yes it's just starting to ebb.

We also, in our few days here, have found out that there isn't as much public land here in Montana and rightfully so, the Montanans are very protective of their land and waters.  Translated, there are very few places to fish that aren't posted!  We did fish for a couple days on the Boulder, but only had a little luck.  It's very fast and difficult to wade, it's not named Boulder River for its sandy bottom:-)

But it is beautiful

We drove over to one of two access points on the Yellowstone, and as I said it is big water, but we did find a spot where we were able to fish for several hours.  No fish though.

It's rolling along!

We fished along here

The only thing Jan caught was this inquisitive fox!

So this morning we are moving to another campground, a big 60 miles away, that sits directly on the Yellowstone, and their info says there is a mile of wadable water, sure hope so!