Day 6

Good evening. I did not get a chance to start writing until this evening. Everyone was up before 8am today. We went to the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody. This historical center has five museums; Buffalo Bill Museum, Whitney Gallery of Western Art, Plains Indian Museum, Cody Firearms Museum, and the Draper Museum of Natural History. Of the museums I enjoyed Plains Indian Museum and the Whitney Gallery of Western Art. We spent a little over three hours there. I could have spent more time but we decided to go since we had to drive 130 miles to get to West Yellowstone (this is an actual town). Before we could leave town we decided that we need to hit Wal-Mart to stock up on food so we don’t eat out every day while staying at a cabin at West Yellowstone. We ended up spending an hour or so buying groceries and waiting on all parties before driving again.

The drive is breath taken the whole trip. We first drove through Buffalo Bill State Park. Then drove through Shoshone National Forest. We did see a couple of buffalo bedding next to the highway. Mari, kids and I stopped and got a couple pictures before going on.

We hit the east entrance to Yellowstone National Park. Well you would not believe it; things are turning green and snow. Not much at first. But as we climbed up the mountain and got to Top Notch Peak we hit snow. Not just a little but several feet of snow, like five to eight feet at some place. David said that the east pass to the park just opened today. Turned out they had an avalanche and just gotten it cleared this morning. And guess what it snowing. Not just flurry but snowflakes. He had to have the heater on in the car. The temperature gauge on the explorer showed about 33 degrees.

As we made way to the west entrance/exit we came upon a herd of buffalo both cow and calf's. Once we got through the east pass and past the lake and into the lower areas it was nicer. We drove some of the pastor areas were there is no snow. We did make a couple of stops and took pictures. Take a look.

We drove out the west entrance and immediately turned into West Yellowstone. This is a tourist town for sure. Roads are wide and in some areas paved. But the hotels are huge, made of logs. Even found that the McDonalds is a log built building. After some driving back and forth on the streets of the town we did find the cabin. Yes, it is smack in the middle of town but you have all the conveniences you could ask for. We are staying in Cabin 126 -Yellowstone building which is part of the Faithful Street Inn. The cabin is a two story building. You walk into a family/TV room with fire place. Straight into a bedroom with two double size beds that led into a full bathroom which goes into the large kitchen. There is also another bedroom with a queen and twin size bed. The second floor is all open. Half has a queen bed and across from the foot of the bed is a twin size bed. On the other side of the up stairs is a full bathroom. The bathroom has a big deep tub, a shower and toilet and 2 sinks. Problem is it has no doors from the beds. You get to hang out in front of everyone. The other problem is the stairs comes up between the two areas, no doors.

Well after some discussion the room assignments were completed. Mom, dad and Ryan got the bedroom with the two double beds. Michelle, Breack and Phoenix got the first floor bedroom off the kitchen. We got the upstairs. Mari and I got the queen and Marissa got the twin. We checked with the registration office and got a fold out bed for David. He setup the bed in the back of a walk-in closest.

We got settled in and got groceries put up. Michelle started cooking grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. We all sat down together for supper. I went to sit down and the back of the chair fell apart. Apparently the back had been broke already and they just placed it together to make it look like it was okay. Well after supper we cleaned up dishes. The amazing thing is this place has an automatic dishwasher. This will save some time on who has to do dishes. This just leaves who has to make meals.

Well I have finished today’s blog. I’m not sure what is going on tomorrow.