More Yellowstone, snow, and cowboys

Picture I took of Old Faithful as it started erupting

Me over at West Thumb Geysers and Hotsprings
(Yellowstone Lake can be seen in background)

Lake Yellowstone Hotel Entrance
(This place has a very nice looking dining room)

Across from the Lake Yellowstone Hotel is... Lake Yellowstone

I found this pretty ironic, although understandable
(fishing on Fishing Bridge was banned due to depletion of trout stocks here)

The road conditions in the east passes were...
Well, at least there wasn't very much ice on the road

Cody, rodeo capital of the world according to its rodeo stadium

I started out the day with eating breakfast standing next to my car. The dining room at West Yellowstone where I was staying was packed! Jeff Briggs and I left for Yellowstone National Park entering the west entrance to go see Old Faithful, the West Thumb Geysers, Lake Yellowstone, and the Fishing Bridge. It was a pretty fun day. The weather was actually clear at the geyser and lake areas! There wasn't much rain like yesterday.

Old Faithful was a bit late today, but that was okay since it gave us some time to wander around and look at the lodge. We ended up hiking around most of the West Thumb Geysers before heading to Lake Yellowstone to check out the historic hotel over there. Massive potholes in the road ended up causing us some troubles though. One especially deep one took out one of my tires. When we arrived at Fishing Bridge, I noticed that one of my tire's sidewalls was about to rupture. Thankfully, there was a service station in Fishing Bridge, so I was able to purchase a replacement tire there before it could blow out on me while we went through the passes. It was definitely snowing on the way out of the park since we were going through the mountains. Thankfully, it stopped as we got into the lower elevations.

We left the park through the east gateway and headed towards Cody, WY. There were some pretty interesting things to see in that town. Lots of cowboy stuff and lots of rodeo stuff (I think it is considered the world's rodeo capital or something like that). We were initially planning on staying here, but a couple days ago, due to roads being blocked, I moved my plans from Cody, WY to Billings, MT. The roads ended up opening yesterday, but I still am glad that I made the move to Billings. My good friend and teammate, Brian, is from Billings, so I ended up going to his dad's restaurant over there. I met his family there and ended up having some of the best, true 12-hour mesquite-wood-smoked BBQ I ever had. If you are ever in Billings, MT, you must try CJ's Bar and Grill, very nice place with really good food and really nice people!

Tomorrow, I will be heading to Keystone, SD. We will be staying just inside the Mt. Rushmore National Monument area. It should be fun. I will see if I can also see the Battlefield of Little Big Horn National Monument. My neighbor recommended that I go check that out, so I definitely will try.