Day 5 -- MT, WY

Day 5 -- The day from Hell! I did something really stupid -- a real Jim Barcelona dumb move; but, what the hell, it's all part of the adventure. We'll get to that.

Southern Montana below Billings is very picturesque and great for high speed cruising. There's a little more traffic than in North Dakota, but you can lead the pack all the way if you want to. Right before I turned of toward Yellowstone, I stopped in Bozeman. Yes, Chris K., I was picturing you there. College towns are great. I can't lie and say it felt like Ann Arbor or Charlottesville, but it was a universe away from Billings. Lots of interesting places to eat and buy stuff. I saw some Montana State gear in the window of a store and as I entered my eyes went straight to the shoes. For an obsessive shopper like me there are certain visual keys that you can see in your peripheral vision that suck you in like a vortex. For example, in any department store in the country I can spot every rack with a Sale sign on it from 100 feet away. So I saw some cool shoes. And what made them cool is that I haven't seen them in Michigan or Ohio. So I bought some all terrain running shoes. Yeah, like I could run ten feet! No matter. They look good when traveling through the west. I did however resist dropping 27 bucks on an Under Armour brand hat with the Montana State Bobcats logo on it.

I ate a tasty sandwich at a deli in Bozeman and read the paper. I was content. As i left, I drove up the street through the campus and down the road to Yellowstone. After what seemed like a very few miles I was in national forests and it was very attractive country. Of course the drive is slowed by two lane roads but who cares?

I made it to West Yellowstone, MT and walked around a bit and thought that I should find a place to stay instead of in Cody, WY which was on the other side (east of) Yellowstone. Now here's where a typical Barcelona pickiness turned out to be painful. I thought "No, I don't want to stay here it's too back woodsy. Probably no Internet connection." Dum, dah, dum dum.

So I drove up to the park entrance and saw that senior passes to all parks were $10; as opposed to $80 for youngsters. I quickly found out that I'm just a kid since I under 62. So I plopped down my $25 and drove in. I had no clue what there was to see beside Old Faithful, so I stopped to read the map and newspaper they had given me. I found out Old Faithful was 16 miles away and it erupts on average every 93 minutes, so let's see it. My timing was good. According to a had written sign it would erupt again at 4:13pm plus or minus ten minutes. It was 3:55pm. I walked over and sat down. By the way, there are hot springs and steam rising from the ground all over that part of Yellowstone. It was a sunny but chilly day and it felt good. At 4:10 there she went and it was pretty interesting, not spectacular, but interesting. No announcement, no speech from a ranger, just did its thing.

Where to next? Well, I didn't sleep well the night before and I was really tired. So let's get out of here. I was still aware that Cody was east of the park, but the maps I had made it appear to be not too far out of the way. So I headed around Yellowstone Lake toward the east exit. After ten or twelve miles the voice in my head was screaming "Turn back! You're going the wrong way." But I thought, I know what lies behind, maybe is smoother sailing ahead. So far, one bad decision -- heading east. Once around the lake it appeared that I was closer to the east exit than the west so I was committed. Mind you, the speed limit is 45 and you can't go 45. Next bad decision -- assuming Cody was about 5 miles outside the park. When I finally got through the mountains -- I about shit as I saw the frosty warning light come on and the temp drop to 37F -- and made it out. i saw the sign -- Cody 53 miles. I could have puked.

So here I sit, 106 miles and three hours from the west entrance to the park with no way south or west without --you guessed it -- driving back through the damn thing! I may punch out a bison just to show then I've had enough of this place. But, what the hell, it's an adventure.

Just a thought to those of you who know about my outbursts of road rage. I only gave one tree hugger the finger today. And finally, dinner from the buffet at the Sunset House in Cody was a feast in brown gravy.