6-30 Bighorn National Forest and Mountain

Another gorgeous day out here in the west my friends! It was actuallly too hot to drive with the top down, if you can believe that. 98 degrees is actually above my MOTDO (maximum outdoor temperature to have top down). So we kept the top up, cranked up the air and experienced by far the prettiest, and most exciting roads of the trip so far. Woo Hoo! Went through a couple passes around 9,000 feet and really winding with some harrowing drop offs. But well worth it. And Mike is a very good mountain driver. I was never nervous. (ok, for those of you who know me, you know that was a lie. i was maybe a little nervous... just kidding) He says the car handles like a dream. Almost like it was on rails going though the mountain passes through the switchbacks.

This was the view of the snow capped mountains as we were driving west on 90 toward Sheridan.

We are entering Bighorn National Forest where the roads were "wild and crazy". But absolutely breathtaking. There are formations in here dating back over 1 BILLION years!

They were not exaggerating when they declared this a scenic byway.

We spotted some wildlife today! These are mule deer. They were just out munching on grass.

All along the roads we saw lots of Lupine.

And the most exciting part of my day was we got to see three moose! They were just standing along the side of the road in a little stream munching on the brush. The moose you are looking at toward the back of the first picture kept kicking at the water. I don't know if he was kicking up stuff from the bottom or just playing. This was one of the two small ones. The one in front was larger and just looked up at us every now and then. We were on the other side of a gully so I was pretty sure she wasn't going to bother us.

The moose in the next picture was the other small one. We stood and watched for a bit and then left. They never even stopped munching. That was VERY cool.

These are the Shell Falls. They are on the, yep you guessed it, the Shell River. They are absolutely magnificent! This picture can not do it justice. The sound of the water running through the cavern was a roar. To think that water can cut it's way through rock like that is amazing.

We followed the Shell River all the way as it wound itself back down the other side of the mountain.

We watched a spectacular lightning storm as we drove across to Cody. Lots and lots of lightning. Got rained on for a bit and then it stopped by the time we hit Cody.

Today was a tremendous day. Breathtaking scenery and wildlife. And to think, yesterday I was wondering if it could get any better...