Chief Joseph Highway - Part 2

Entering the tiny town of Cooke City, MT.

There is little of note in Cooke City aside from its proximity to the entrance of Yellowstone National Park.

It was late in the year and a number of businesses were closed now that the tourists had left and winter was fast approaching.

There are few places to eat in Cooke City, and the food is always less than satisfactory.

After driving with few stops between Cody and Cooke City, we chose to drive straight through.

This summer we will take our time, explore the little town a little more, but this late in the year we wanted to drive a short ways into the park before turning around and heading back the way we had come......................

No vehicles, no tourists, no waiting...................

The few times that we had entered the park through the North East Gate we had always seen a grizzly bear within minutes of entering the park.

As we slowly drove the silent and empty two lane highway both LC and I expectantly looked to our right and left hoping for a sighting.

Not on this day.....................

But we did quickly find bison.................

Random picture of a random glove, sitting on a pole alongside the highway..............

There was plenty of beautiful on this quick trip to the North East Gate of Yellowstone National Park.

Endless beautiful.

Mountains.  Valleys.  Winding two lane highway.  Overlooks.

But surprisingly (and disappointingly) few animals.

Not the elk or bear or even abundant bison we had hoped for.

But this close to the end of fall and the start of winter we were just glad to be up in the mountains.

There was a silence to the world at this time of year, and we had hoped to experience that before winter arrived.

We did.

We were reminded yet again just how much we love living where we live...........

Back in Cody much later in the day, we made a quick pit stop at Wal-mart before heading towards the house up the South Fork.

Where else could you find a Storm Trooper guarding a car, but in a Wal-mart parking lot in Cody WY .................