Cody From Cody, WY

We decided to make the big 570-mile move from Dillon, CO to Cody, WY in 2 days, spending Saturday night at Riverside City Park in Douglas for free. Several states, mostly in the plains, offer free camping in city parks for travelers which is very appreciated.

And on Sunday, we settled into a nice lakefront water/electric site at Buffalo Bill State Park for 2 weeks. We came to Cody for a few reasons. First, we wanted to be hanging out near Yellowstone because my brother and family were coming out to visit us!! Also, we wanted to do a couple of scenic drives in the area as well as go to our first rodeo.

We ended up leaving Cody with the cutest souvenir imaginable, a new RV adventure kitty that we’ve renamed Cody. She is 7.5 years old and was surrendered to the shelter because her previous owner passed away. As soon as we got her we realized she was sick and she ended up in the kitty hospital for 3 days on an IV. She wasn’t eating, we think for at least a couple of weeks. She is doing better and eating now, so we are hoping that she was just sad and there are no underlying medical problems, but we’re still not sure.

As her health improves we are realizing she’s not quite as chill as we originally thought. She is a very rambunctious kitty. Though Michael would disagree, she borders on misbehaving. For example, right after her paws were dangerously close to our thermostat (that will be a problem one day when we aren’t home) she began removing the pins from our pushpin map with her teeth! The map was taken down but not sure what can be done about the thermostat.

Buffalo Bill State Park is on the Buffalo Bill Reservoir a few miles east of Cody.

There is a very pretty walk through a canyon below the dam that creates the reservoir on the Shoshone River.

The first weekend, while Cody was in the hospital, we drove a big loop up to Red Lodge, Montana via the Chief Joseph Highway (WY-296) and the Beartooth Highway (US-212).

The Beartooth was the real stunner, which became well known when Charles Kuralt called it “the most beautiful roadway in America”.

The Beartooths are known for their lakes. The mountains in the distance are the Absaroka Range and Yellowstone is on the other side of them.

We spent our second week mostly at home since we had Cody back from the vet. Cody and I survived Michael taking a fun work trip to Chicago for a couple of days. Yes, I said fun, he even got to go to a Cubbies game.

Being the closest town to the east entrance of Yellowstone, Cody is very touristy. But it’s also a nice western cowboy town and has a famous nightly rodeo during summer.

Since 1919, July 1-4 is the Cody Stampede, the longest-running professional Rodeo with parades each day. We went on Saturday night and found it very entertaining and were glad our visit coincided with the Stampede! The weather was awful, but made for a gorgeous sunset.

Next up, we spend a great vacation week in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks with family!