Tuesday 22nd August 2017

August 2Time to move on again, leave Cody and head for the mountains again. We sleep until nearly eight, having finally killed the jet lag. We have breakfast, then a shower and pack. We have a case of dirty laundry, so we decide to seek out a laundromat, which is where I am writing this, as our dirty washing is cleaned.

You see a different America here, but again everyone is friendly, and its no real chore. Later we have an hour’s drive to Lovell, and from there a mountain road will take us to our cabin in the woods. Everyone was friendly though, and wanted to know where we were from, something to do with the accents I suppose. But in 45 minutes, we have two loads washed and dried, and I have filled the car up too, so we were good to go.

But Cody to Lovell was just an hour’s run, so we were hoping for something to do once we got there, maybe some lunch.

The road ran flat through farming country, beside a canal and railway line in pretty much a dead straight line. Passed through a couple of small towns, didn’t stop, and where the land rose, there were derricks, pumping oil to the surface as they have done for over a hundred years.

We came to Lovell, not in a the “high country” at all, just 3500 feet above sea level, and pretty much stretched out along the main road through town, some run down motels, a cinema that seemed to be closed, but is only open now at weekends, but is a handsome art deco pile.

I hear the whistle of a train, so we race through a residential neighbourhood to a level crossing, just in time to see two huge locomotives haul three wagons past. A bit over the top with the horsepower there.

We cruise the town looking for a place to eat; we looked at a place called The Branding Iron, but seemed that all parking was taken, so we go to a place called the food court. There are three franchies in there, all run by the same people. So we have subs and soda, and sit down to watch the locals have their lunch. Three smartly dressed young men in shirts and ties from the local church; two workers from Pepsico, stopping by to sample their company’s wares, and various other locals; farmers, mechanics and ladies who lunch. Even there.

After eating we drive north into the Big Horn Valley park, thing. Through more countryside which then gave way to rolling bleak hills, where it seemed oil was being extracted from sand, big machinery was breaking the land up, and what they were going stained the ground black.

I stop us off at a bend in the river, hoping that this was the famous horseshoe bend, biut it wasn’t. The river was slow and lazy, and the valley sides shallow here anyway. But the air was rich in butterflies and dragonflies, so we spend a good half hour chasing the buggers round.

Back in the car and up the valley, where we see a family of deers or goats feeding at the side of the road, they stay long enough for Jools and I to get shots before they wander off back into the boondocks from whence they came.

Even further up there is a road to the Devil’s Overlook, or something similar. So we go down not expecting much. Nut what we find is a mini, not so mini, Grand Canyon, with an overlook of a sharp bend in the river, hundreds of feet below, and on each side, the canyon walls rise vertically hundreds of feet. We can look down on vultures as they glide by us, maybe them thinking we were not that close to dying, yet.

In three sides of the car park, the ground dropped away to the valley below, and at one point, and Tony would love this, I could see the ground below the cliff through a gap in the rocks, making ot trees the size of moss maybe 500 feet below.

We meet a group of three gentlemen, two from UK, so we talk for a good twenty minutes about the eclipse, Yellowstone and Lovell. There are here for three weeks or more, and had just driven up from Houston, Texas to be here in time for the eclipse. What a road trip that must have been to do in two days.

We were hot and bothered; the car told us it was 32 degrees outside. We had changed the settings from F to C. But we were thirsty, and so went back down to Lovell to a store to buy supplies and something cool to drink. We get two quarts of orange juice, some beers and cider, so are set for the trip to the lodge and cabins.

To be honest, I just booked the cabins, and that was way back in October, so did not know what to expect. We had tried GSV to see what the area was like, but seemed that down in the valley and up in the hills they liked to name roads with numbers. So instead of looking at Forest Road 13, we were looking at Road 13, which lead to a farm our something.

We followed the instructions from the lodge, though more rolling farmland, but all the times the hills in the distance were getting nearer. THe road had a warning sign, severe grades ahead. Serious stuff.

The road passed over a causeway of a lake at the foothills of the hills. I mean, I say hills, turns out they were 5,000 feet above the plain, and anywhere else would be called mountains. Anyway, for 5 miles the road ran in a dead straight line, but above we could see a line in the hills, showing where, we guessed, the road went up. And up.

After a bend to the left, the road began to climb; twisting and turning, but climbing at an alarming gradients, going round hairpin bends, and leaving the plain in a pastel coloured haze far below.

Near the top, trees began to grow; firs and other evergreen trees. The road had reached the top, and turned away from the cliffs. Through brightly coloured meadows until there was a sign to the lodge, one mile down a rough track through a forest.

Halfway down we came across a doe deer, ears erect and wide eyed, but we passed her by, turning sharp left down the final few hundred yards to the lodge. We park up and go in reception and are shown round; this is free, this is free, that is included, there is an honesty bar for beer, and your cabin is the last on the left.

We go down to the cabin, a neat wooden affair, inside two bunk beds, a fridge, microwave, toilet and shower And we would have no neighbours, and a view onto an alpine meadow and trees leading to a rounded summit. In the wildflowers nearby, I could see a host of butterflies. Without waiting, I grabbed my camera and went hunting.

More blues, more fritillaries, more Clouded Yellows and Coppers. Lovely, and all willing to bask, or most were anyway.

Dinner was at half six, all included. Baked chicken and pasta with salad. It is without doubt, the healthiest meal we have had since landing in America, and very welcome. We have a bottle of Asti too, seems right to celebrate our wonderful holiday.

Needless to say, a long day in the high temperatures down on the plain, and a bottle of fizz meant we were sleepy heads by half eight, but did stay awake until after dark to see the Milky Way high over the cabin, but photographing it wl have to wait for tomorrow.