I left Idaho Falls this morning headed East on US 20 toward West Yellowstone, MT and Yellowstone National Park.
The first stop of the day was in Rexburg, Idaho at the "Legacy Flight Museum". (You might have noticed that I like airplane and car museums.) The museum was at the local airport, of course, and was run by volunteers. They had a nice selection of aircraft, all in perfect condition and all of which they fly from time to time. This is a pretty good shot of the inside of the museum, with one of their three P-51 Mustang fighters:
I thought the most interesting plane was this one below. It's a Grumman TBM Avenger, a carrier-based bomber and torpedo bomber. This is the type of plane that former President George HW Bush (41) was shot down in during WWII and rescued by a submarine. What's interesting about this particular plane is that it is one serial number higher than the plane that George Bush was shot down in:
The museum was very well-equipped and the planes were immaculate. After spending an hour or so there, I headed back up US20 to West Yellowstone, MT and the West Entrance to Yellowstone Park. Pat and I had last been to Yellowstone some 30 years ago when we lived in Denver, and we have been there at least three times. But, it is always a beautiful experience.
Here are some noteworthy pictures of the park:
This is Gibbon Falls, located between the Madison and Norris junctions in the western side of the park:
The falls are 84 feet tall, located on the Gibbon River, and named, of course, for Ewell Gibbons of Grape-Nut fame.
I thought this was pretty. It's called the Fountain Paint Pot. The water is hot and acidic and as you can see, it is a very striking aqua-marine in color. Just downstream are colonies of acidic bacteria that have turned the water many different shades of reds and browns:
If you've never been to Yellowstone, then what I think is the most striking building in the Park is the Old Faithful Inn, which is built entirely of old-growth rough-hewn pine logs. The Inn was built in 1904 and is about five stories high. This is the Inn from the outside:
And this should give you an idea of what the inside of the Inn looks like. This shot was taken looking straight up toward the roof:
After leaving the Old Faithful Inn, I rode on around Yellowstone Lake and out the Eastern Entrance of the Park toward Cody, WY. The lake is huge, but this should give you some appreciation for it:
This was taken from the North end of the Lake at Pelican Creek and I thought it was particularly striking:
One thing that did strike me was the amount of damage done by a huge fire that occurred in the Park in 1988. The fire burned almost 800,000 acres of the park, 36% of the total area of the Park. What struck me was the further East you went in the park, the more damage you could see, almost a quarter-century after the fire. Look closely at this picture taken from the Northeast end of Yellowstone Lake and you'll see whole mountainsides of standing, burned, dead timber:
After leaving Yellowstone, I headed East on US20 toward Cody, WY. The scenery between the East Entrance to Yellowstone and Cody was pretty impressive:
And this was taken at the Buffalo Bill Reservoir, about 20 miles west of Cody:
Greybull is about 50 miles east of Cody on US20, and I arrived here around 7:30 or so. I'm staying at the Historic Greybull Hotel:
I think "Historic" means it may have been frequented by Buffalo Bill and Calamity Jane on a few occasions. Anyways, tomorrow it's on to Devil's Tower and then Rapid City, SD for the night. One side note...I turned over 70,000 miles on the bike today!
Miles today: 328. Total: 5,115.
