Thanksgiving Weekend

With the Thanksgiving public holiday on Thursday we were able to add Friday and have a four day weekend to go exploring. We decided to go over the Big horn Mountains to Cody on the edge of Yellowstone National Park and then come back across a different route over the Big Horns.
It was a great trip, the only downside was that there wasn't quite enough snow to be able to hire snow mobiles. There were plenty of people riding there own but the lodges weren't hiring yet. It's snowing today and more is expected this week so it wont be long until we will be able to give it a go.

The first place we stayed was called Bear Lodge and it is in the northern part of the Big Horns at a place called Burgess Junction. Very friendly place with a great atmosphere, looks like it would really go off on New Years eve.




After spending Thursday night there we headed east to Cody, a town built by 'Buffalo Bill' Cody.

On the road between Burgess Junction and Cody we came across an interesting little store, I had to take a photo for you Annie.




We stayed in a B&B there that had been converted from an old church. Buffalo Bill built the Irma Hotel in Cody, named after his daughter and in it is an old Redwood Bar that is evidently the most photographed thing in Cody. Gae and I had lunch there, they have some interesting stuff on the menu. I couldn't bring myself to try the oysters.
Cody also has the Buffalo Bill museum which is a great place to visit. There are 5 sections to it, one is all about Buffalo Bill, another about the history of the indians, a third is a natural history museum, forth is an art gallery and the fifth is a history of guns in the US. It's the largest collection of US made guns in the world, there are about 3000 of them.






They also have a real desire to shoot things and stick their heads on a wall over here. We took some photos of a few examples.






After leaving Cody we drove to a town called Ten Sleeps on the southern end of the Big Horns and stayed in a place called Meadowlark Lake Resort. Very pretty place to stay but would find it hard to rate much above 1/2 a star. The rooms were pretty basic but the staff were friendly and we ended up having a pretty good time in the bar.
Meadowlark lake is frozen now and we walked out on it to take a few photo's. You can see the ski runs in the background across the lake. One of the young guys that works at the place took us four wheel driving in his "monster truck", a tricked up F350 and that was pretty good.

Devils Tower and Spearfish Canyon

After a quiet Saturday to get over our trip home from Salt Lake it was time to hit the road again and this time we decided to stay in the north east corner of Wyoming. Today we went to visit 'Devils Tower', Wyomings state icon and the first national icon in the US. This was also the place where Steven Speilberg filmed "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". Spooky hey !! If you look hard enough I think there's an extra-terrestrial in the second photo.





As you enter the park that surrounds the tower you come to a flat paddock with lots of mounds spread all over it. These are the homes of Prairie Dogs. Cute little fellas that are relatives of the squirrel.





After walking around the base, about 45 minutes, we decided to head off to a town called Spearfish. Named for the fact the it has been a trout hatchery for about 100 years. We drove along Spearfish Canyon, lots of lovely scenery, mountains, frozen lakes and a great place to go back snow mobiling once there is enough snow. Hopefully that will be by Christmas.






That's all for this week, unfortunately work is going to get in the way of our travels. It's Thanksgiving this weekend so it's a four day weekend. We are planning a trip up into the Big Horn mountains and across to the town that Buffalo Bill Cody built. Hopefully we'll have some good photos to share with everyone.

Salt Lake was Great

Hi again everyone,

It's about time I updated this as we seem to have been pretty busy over the last week and there are quite a few pictures to post. I've also added a link, over on the left, to a map so that you can 'See Where We've Been'. I'll try and keep that up to date as well.

Last Saturday (11th) we set off for our first look at Salt Lake City. It was about a 9 - 10 hour drive diagonally across Wyoming but unfortunately the car the people we were travelling with broke down along the way and that added about 2hrs to the trip.

Salt Lake was a great place and we wish the project was based here. The whole city is surrounded by huge snow capped mountains and some of the best ski fields in the world are only 10 minutes away. There are about a million people in the city, it was really easy to get around and it was great to have a wander about and do a bit of sightseeing.
While we were in Salt Lake we went and caught up with one of my mates from Brisbane (Justin) who is over here working on the Kennecott Copper project. He lives at the base of one of the mountains and his wife was able to take Gae on a two day shopping spree around the city. We needed a bigger car just to get the stuff home.




First stop on everyone's first visit to SLC, and we were no different, is the Mormon Temple so there are a couple of photo's below. Those of you from Brisbane might recognise the gold statue at the top, very similar to the one on top of the Kangaroo Point cliffs




Salt Lake City was where they held the 2002 winter olympics so on our way out of the city to come home we called into the olympic town, called Park City. It's at the top of the pass leading east and is now a really popular place to stay and shop. Lot's of expensive places to spend your money and you can be having a beer in one of the restaurants or bars and walk across the street to a chair lift that will take you to the olympic ski runs.
In one of the photo's below you can see a lot of runs at the top of the mountains. That photo was taken coming into Park City. The other photos are of the main street, one of the chair lifts and a few of the houses in the surounding hills.








After leaving SLC we decided to take a different road back up through central Wyoming and it was amazing how much the countryside changed as we went through it. There are a couple of photos in almost desert conditions just outside Green River in the South West of the state.
In one of the landscape pictures (blow it up to full size) you can just make out the I80 freeway cutting across the centre of the photo. This freeway connects San Francisco with New York and we have never seen so many semi-trailers in the one spot at the one time. All doing 80mph and you just have to keep out of their way.
There is also a photo of some wild horses taken on our way home.







Next weekend is a four day weekend for Thanksgiving so we are off across the Big Horn mountains to Cody, a town built by Buffalo Bill. Hopefully we'll get some skiing and snow mobiling in while we are away.

Another snowy morning

Hi Everyone,

As you can see it snowed again last night. This time we had somewhere between 6 and 12 inches which is considered to be quite a bit in one go for Gillette. Also, there has been no wind so it has all stayed in the trees
It all looks very nice.

We're off to Salt Lake City tomorrow, about an 8 hour drive. We hope there hasn't been so much snow the highway is closed.

Morning Snow

Just thought I'd do a quick post of what it was like when we woke up this morning. A beautiful layer of snow everywhere and not that cold. I've already been out and cleared it all off the car ready to go to work.

Guess where Gae is???

Visit to Denver

On Thursday afternoon we flew down to Denver to do our defensive driving course. We stayed at The Courtyard Marriot in Stapylton, a commercial suburb between Denver Airport and the city. Not a bad place to stay if you're there on business but nothing to do in the area after 5:00 o'clock.

We decided to catch a cab into the city for dinner and to have a bit of a look around.
We thought Denver was pretty good, it has a great mall that goes for about 10 blocks with a free shuttle bus running up and back all day and night. Plenty of shops, restaurants and bars to poke around in, not at all like Gillette. We may need to fly to Denver once every six weeks or so just to knock the dust off. The first picture was taken by some people from the Gold Coast. We stepped outside our restaurant to find these two couples taking photo's of each other and we offered to take one for them. Turned out they were from the Gold Coast and were over in the states for about 10 days.

We spent most of our time in and around the 16th street mall. Really liked a bar called Marlowes and managed to have a few drinks and a meal in there.

Found a street with a very popular name so had to take a photo of that.












We were going to go to a ski and snowboard expo at the convention centre but unfortunately ran out of time. At the convention centre I managed to snap off a quick photo of Gae and a friendly bear.










Found some other really nice shops in a couple of the trendy streets. We'll certainly be spending more time in Denver over the next year.

Around Gillette

Hi

This is my first try at posting a blog - I think that's what you say!!!??? We'll see how I go.

Here are some photos of what it's like around Gillette. We drove to Rapid City which is heading east and there really isn't a lot to see at all. It's rolling hills but not very green, I guess because it's so cold. Apparently any trees that are in town have been planted and looked after by people - once you get out of town there is nothing until you get closer to Rapid City and then you start getting into the Black Hills - that's where Mt Rushmore is. We'll be going there one day soon.

In the other direction towards Sheridan you come across the Big Horn Mountains which is very pretty. Lots of snow at the moment, so very cold. We will cross the Big Horns when we go to Yellowstone National Park so will get more photos later. We were going to go over there for the Thanksgiving long weekend, but apparently the park is mostly closed and reopens in Winter, so will wait till then.

It snowed in Gillette on Tues morning and was -6 but felt like -16 (the weather report always gives the temp and then says what it feels like with the wind). It was very, very cold. We bought jackets in Rapid City but I don't know if they'll be warm enough. I think I'll need a ski jacket. Thankfully, it's warm inside where ever you go.

Hope you all enjoy these photos - I'm sure they'll get more interesting when we start to get out and about a bit more. I've been trying to upload a photo of the front yard with snow on it, but it won't work. Sorry. I'll have to get John to have a look.

Bye for now, Gae