We had a lot of rain overnight but we woke up to fifty degrees and sunshine. We headed out on the road around 9:15 am. We rode along on the Greybull Highway which is a two lane highway surrounded by completely open range. Greybull (wy.) had small windswept hills that brownish green and some were red swirled. For a while our altitude was 4359 ft which was pretty low.
We went through a town called Shell that had a population of 50.
It started raining again. The road turned into a scenic byway and then went into the Bighorn Nationsl Forest. So far, we think this has been the most beautiful of the forests we've ridden through. It had huge boulders sculpted by the wind and water, canyons, pine trees, and falls that topped the ones we saw in Yelowstone. We also saw quite a few hummingbirds which made us think of Wading Pines.
The oddest thing was seeing cows walking along the side of the highway in the forest at 8000 feet.
Then we thought we were in the clouds at 8760 feet and before we knew it, we were going over granite pass at 9033 feet. I'm pretty sure that's the highest we've gone so far! On our way down, a herd of elk ran past was on a hill. Our altitude dropped to 3926 feet.
Twenty miles outside of Buffalo,Wyoming, and the terrain changed again to green, grassy mountains.
We got to Buffalo around 1:30 so we stopped for lunch in town and walked around through the shops. Trust me.....there weren't many! On the side of a building, someone painted a mural of horses and wrote: buffalo, it's more than a one horse town! What were they thinking? It was exactly that! We had ice cream at the local sweet shop. Nick had huckleberry and I had vanilla. This olace served Blue Bunny and it was actually good. The best part were the homemade waffle cones that were made when we ordered. The best part of town was The Occidental Hotel which was founded in 1880. It lies on the former Bozeman Trail and was visited by many famous people as they traveled west along the trail. The list includes Teddy Roosevelt, Tom Horn, Buffalo Bill Cody, and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. In 1880 the hotel was located in a log cabin, But as time past it was rebuilt and made into am grand hotel which stands today. The Occidental still operates as a hotel today. I got a peek into two rooms. They were stunning!
When we were done, we went back to the RV to relax. Dinner was late and we had our first campfire. We roasted a few marshmallows, enjoyed the night sky and fire and hit the hay early. Tomorrow is another long ride.
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