Bill Cody Museum

Beaver on the Yellowstone

Sat, 7/12/08

Yellowstone NP, WY: It got really cold last night. Even with the quilt on the bed it was hard to stay warm. Once we got up and got going, we went back to the clinic at the Lake Hotel since Mike is still not getting much better. They gave him more meds and told him he should be at a lower altitude and in a warmer climate. Plus we’ve had really low humidity which isn’t helping matters any. Oh well… And we needed to go back to Cody to pick up some meds they didn’t have at the clinic. So we drove back to Cody. I wanted to go by myself but he wanted to go also. We left at noon and our first stop was the Comfort Inn parking lot to make use of their wi-fi. Then we got something to eat and decided to go to the Bill Cody museum, which is a great place. It’s actually 5 museums in one. They had a special exhibit there about the Thorofare Ranger Station which is located in the remote southeast corner of Yellowstone. The cabin that stands there now was rebuilt in l955. And to get supplies (for initial building and now resupplying), they were brought by boat to the remote south arm of the lake and landed at Trail Creek. From there they went by pack train over the Thorofare Trail 16 miles to the cabin. They loaded up these horses and mules with all kinds of supplies and headed out in a long line. And one part the trail was just a ledge against the side of a mountain. It is still manned today and they use the same trail for supplying the cabin. It’s a cute little log cabin with a split rail fence around it out in the middle of absolutely nowhere. But absolutely beautiful nowhere. We gave ourselves 3 hours in the museum which wasn’t nearly enough time, but I was driving back and I didn’t want to go back in the dark because of all the critters that could be near the road at that time. We stopped for dinner at the Yellowstone Valley Inn where we camped the night before we went into Yellowstone and left there around 8:00 for the drive back. The sun was just going down behind the mountains when I hit Sylvan Pass, and wouldn’t you know the sun was right in my eyes as I came up over the pass and I literally couldn’t see a thing. Scared the crap out of me. But we made it back well before dark. Saw a herd of elk, a herd of deer, and a bison mogging down the road. People are always getting banged up or gored by the bison. When we were in the clinic the first time they said a kid was brought in because the mother posed them in front of a bison and he butted this little kid pretty badly. Another absolutely spectacular day. Probably low 80s in Cody and low 70s in the park. Supposed to be cold again tonight. Wonder if we’ll hear the wolves again? I thought there were about 11 packs of wolves in the park. There are actually 52 packs—about 460 wolves.