Go East, Young Man!

We had a lot of ground to cover today, so we loaded up and got ready to head out of the park after having breakfast at the diner. Our traveling buddies and her brother (our DC host last fall flew out for a few days to visit Yellowstone as well) were going to hike to the brink of the falls, before heading off on their own separate ways. We took the easier way and drove back to Artist Point to view the Lower Falls with the morning sun behind us.

We saved the stinkiest stops for last...

Sulphur Cauldron

Mud Volcano, a lot drier and not as bubbly, but still as smelly as I remember.
I guess a lot can change in 33 years!

Dragon's Mouth Spring

We hit the Fishing Bridge area for the last of our Yellowstone passport cancellations and smushed pennies, then filled up the tank for our drive east.

The bighorn sheep turned out to say goodbye to us as we left Yellowstone...

We reached Cody, WY by lunchtime. After a quick bite at Arby's (it's good mood food!), we stopped to visit the Buffalo Bill Historical Center.

There are 5 separate museums inside. Guess which one the boys headed to first...

I have never seen so many guns on display in my life! I imagine there are quite a few of you out there who would have appreciated this museum a lot more than I did.

Blunderbuss

Gatling gun

Personally, the Buffalo Bill Museum was my favorite.

Buffalo hide coat worn by Cody himself

The center also had a few small exhibits about the Japanese-American internment camp at Heart Mountain. The grand opening of the Heart Mountain Interpretive Learning Center is scheduled for August of this year. I didn't realize that it was located so close to Cody -- my husband's aunt was sent to this camp as a child during World War II. (As an aside, my mother-in-law was sent to Rowher, AR.) I wish that we would have had time to stop there, even if the center wasn't open yet. We've taken the boys to Manzanar and to the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles in order to help them better understand this part of their family history.

The rest of the afternoon was spent driving on small highways, crossing through the beautiful Bighorn National Forest in our quest for Gillette, WY. I made reservations at the Fairfield Inn in Gillette specifically because they had an indoor waterpark. And I made sure that the boys knew about it ahead of time, too -- a mom's "carrot" for good behavior! It was everything they advertised -- M and J spent all evening there, while I did our laundry. So far, according to the boys, this place ranks as the "best hotel ever"!

On to Devils Tower and South Dakota tomorrow...