Day 11: Raining

We slept in a little on the morning of Day 11, because we didn’t have anything planned other than to drive to Cody, Wyoming. We had finished everything we wanted to do in South Dakota in two days (we had originally set aside three days for the state). We packed up our stuff and left Ellsworth Air Force Base around 10. We stopped at the BX to get breakfast from Burger King, which we got about three minutes before breakfast ended.

We ate breakfast on the road and listened to radio reports about the Rolling Stone interview with General McChrsytal. Eastern Wyoming is very flat and boring until you reach the mountains, so we tried to keep ourselves as entertained as possible. It was hard. Emily, Allison, and I watched It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia on the pull-down TV in the back of the car.

At one scenic view turnout, we read about the Battle of the Hundred Slain which happened near the viewpoint.

We went to check out Fort Phil Kearney nearby, where my dad looked the museum. As we began leaving the Fort, it started raining. Hard. In fact, the rain got so heavy that we had to pull off the interstate and wait on the side of the road until some of the rain subsided. After a few minutes, we began driving again, but we soon had to stop and wait. We couldn't see ten feet ahead of us. The Fetterman MonumentWe stopped at a gas station to get something to eat when the rain had stopped. The next portion of our drive was through the mountains, where there was supposedly more bad weather. Luckily, the weather remained pretty calm through our windy drive in the mountains. On our way down, the weather did get a little foggy, but the rain held off.

By the time we reached Cody, Wyoming, where we were staying for the night and the next day, we had driven a total of about nine hours on what was supposed to be a six hour drive. We pulled into a Holiday Inn and found out that the only rooms they had left were two-roomed cabins, which is exactly the kind of place our family likes. There was also free coffee and snacks inside the huge hotel western shop, which was definitely a plus. Once we had unpacked the car, we drove through Cody to check out the town. We passed a ghost town, a rodeo, and tons of western museums. We pulled into a Mexican restaurant named La Comida, which had some delicious food. It started raining again while we were eating.

When we finished our meal, we went back to our cabin and watched an episode of Psych before falling asleep.