Dennis Dixon is heading West!: Day Seventeen: Jackson Hole, WY - Yellowstone National Park - Whitney Gallery of Western Art, Cody, WY

Once again, I had to grab myself by the scruff of the neck and tell myself to "Slow Down - Relax!!". I had a 7-hour drive planned for today, plus an hour at the gallery, which means that to meet Willard at Arrowhead Lodge in the Bighorn Mountains at 4 PM, I had to leave Jackson, WY at 8 AM. I went to sleep last night thinking that if I could leave at 6 I could fit in the 5-mile round trip hike to Hidden Falls. I tossed and turned all night, excited about my adventures, and then just said "STOP". Unlike New England, it is pitch black at 6 AM out here - it is still dark at 7 AM! There is no way I'm going hiking in the cold (37 degrees, light snow flurries, but forecast "to warm up") and dark. So now I have 3 things on my "next trip" list:

1. hike to see the Mount of the Holy Cross in Colorado
2. drive/explore the eastern-half of the Going-To-The-Sun Road in Glacier National Park
3. hike to see "Hidden Falls" in Grand Teton National Park

I saw a herd of bison leaving Jackson

well, I was leaving Jackson, not them

and it is always nice to see horses

Yellowstone is much larger than Grand Teton - 3,468 versus 485 square miles. This means it has much more room to "spread around", and it gives me a greater sense of wildness (not necessarily "wilderness")

Lewis Falls is visible from the highway

and Lewis Lake is a beautiful lake in the south part of the Park

I almost hit a red-tailed hawk when it flew slowly in front of my car, and then I saw another red-tail hawk fly off from a tree in Yellowstone. A car in Yellowstone was so slow that I was able to stop, get out, take pictures of Lewis Falls, and then catch up!

Once again I am crossing the Continental Divide - it seems like I have crossed it as many times as I have crossed the Snake River. But I guess both of them are now behind me, at least for the rest of this trip.

This view of the shore of Yellowstone Lake shows, not early-morning fog, but steam from the ground, and the smell of rotten eggs (sulpher). Maybe I have seen too many movies, but it certainly does not have the sense of "stable geology" (this thing is going to blow up any minute!!)

It was VERY WINDY (blowing from the west, so I have a tail-wind) on Yellowstone Lake, which is a Huge lake

More beautiful meadows, with streams running through them

and there was a herd of (what seemed to me) free-roaming bison - it was nice to see animals 'not behind barbed wire".
Just east of Yellowstone are some spectacular canyons and cliffs

and here is my artsy shot going through the Buffalo Bill Reservoir tunnel

My experience of the Whitney Museum of Western Art in Cody, Wyoming was a disappointment. Almost all the works of artists I had hope to view (Albert Bierstadt, John Kensett, Alfred Jacob Miller, N.C. Wyeth) were gone - removed just this past week for traveling exhibits at the Booth Western Art Museum in Cartersville, Georgia (Today’s West! - Contemporary Art from the Buffalo Bill Center of the West - October 24, 2013 – April 13, 2014) and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia (Go West! - Art of the American Frontier from the Buffalo Bill Center of the West - November 3, 2013-April 13, 2014).

Ah well, back on the road again with some LOUD MUSIC. The sky is blue, the tank is full, and the road stretches out ahead of me - I wonder what's next?

50 miles east of Cody, when I was coming down the road I saw some weird planes in the distance.

and are those military??

I had a nice chat with an old guy tinkering on a plane, with his wife in a nearby chair catching some rays. This is all the old "Hawkins & Powers stuff" (link to a story). It was good to chat, but time to hit the road, Jack.

A typical entrance to a ranch

and the pretty stream next to it

Going up 14E into the Bighorn Mountains, you go into Shell Canyon Forest Service link. This road runs through a steep canyon with a beautiful river running next to it wow wow (another of my "new favorite roads")

Got to Arrowhead Lodge at 4:10 (only 10 minutes late - not bad at all)

Willard drove to a fresh water spring

and then over to his cabin

steak, salad, and ice cream back at the Arrowhead marks a good end to the day.

Wendy/Deede news:

Today started so great, up at 6am, on the way by 7, singing in the dark walking by headlamp. Fifty cheerful minutes into our walk, a car slowly came up behind us and rolled down the window. "Camino?", they asked. "Si, si" we replied. Turns out we'd walked 50 minutes in the wrong direction thanks to a confusing sign right at the beginning of our journey! Since the day was already going to be the longest day yet, this news came as a big discouragement for me. Thank heavens the man stopped and told us to turn around. Otherwise who knows what would have happened. It took me about an hour to "walk it off". After that I remembered the very hopeful phrase I use all the time which is "begin again". I decided to take a very relaxed position about the day, stopping frequently at cafes and so on. Driving rain and gale force wind made even that plan tricky to pull off though. After pulling from deep within me my 27th wind, we arrived in Burgos. We did do an alternate route along a very pretty river which was quite nice. Otherwise we would have had to walk three hours through industrial areas and on city streets. The day was crazy long and finally by 6 o'clock at night we were in our destination. We ran into people from the trip! They said there was an inexpensive but nice hotel nearby. So tonight we are indulging. Tomorrow we will take an extra day in Burgos to recover and stay in a hostel near the cathedral. My body survived this really long and grueling day. So that is a new high watermark for me. Maybe tomorrow I will wake up stiff and owie but for now I have had a very long hot bath and am feeling pretty well.

Time to crash on the deluxe beds that we have in the room and then find a place for dinner. Wanted you to know where we were and how it's going. Overall the trip is going very well. This just happened to be a really hard day. Lots of love to all of you. It is not often we get to do email so I am glad I can send you so much information.

Saturday, Sept. 28
Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming
1 hour -- Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
3 hours -- Whitney Gallery of Western Art, Cody, Wyoming
3 hours -- Arrowhead Lodge, Bighorn Mountains, Wyoming
(Willard's cabin is only 1/2 mile up behind the Lodge)

here is today's playlist:

Afro Celt Sound System - Anatomic

Neil Young - Rust Never Sleeps (there is a line in the song "Thrashers":
And I was just getting up, hit the road before it's light
Trying to catch an hour on the sun