Southfork Bed and Breakfast Cody

... the day.<br>I added one picture from the day before for Mia and Caroline. I forgot to upload the "rabbit shot with Bud and Bina". Thought they might enjoy it.<br>For those wondering if the "put America to work" program is working, it is. All across the country we have seen signs and work crews that provide the answer that at least some people are getting jobs.

After spending the night in Rapid City and enjoying all of its strip mall glory, we woke up and took a hike up to Little Devil's Tower in Black Hills National Forest. This was a short but steep and rewarding hike. After scrambling up some rocks, we reached the top and could see the beautiful Cathedral Spires and straight out beyond the hills to the prairie a couple thousand feet below. After our hike we took our a tour at Jewel Caves, which is a ...

... a village day out and very much community orientated with everyone around us waving to friends, relatives and enjoying the social banter.  We felt as if we were intruding but as we were hungry we joined the queue for the barbecue, which again was barbecue shredded beef on a bap, cowboy beans and coleslaw.  Thankfully we were fast enough to push the kids out of earshot of the lovely ladies before they uttered "yuk`&#8217;. <br><br>We ambled up to ...

... how stupid people were being in trying to ascertain a photo by going so close &#8211; about 25 &#8211; 30 feet instead of over 100 feet (yes we know this as our children were now Junior Rangers and that was a question!).<br><br>Feeling happy at finding a bear we left him (or her &#8211; sorry a question on determing the sex of a bear was not in the Junior Ranger swot book and there was no way I was checking for balls) and headed off for Cody. <br><br>We were staying at what ...

... carved through the granite&#8212;some only just wide enough for the van to get through. Awesome views of the tall needle-like spires of granite. Sylvan Lake was beautiful, no blue skies today as there was rain overnight and cool overcast weather all day, but still beautiful, with tall gray granite spires and huge rounded weather boulders making borders of the lake. Began to hike around the lake and stumbled upon the ...

... rack 'n' ribs diner (which was closed save a large table who'd just ordered) to let us in for a quick munch before heading around the corner to the Silver Dollar Bar for a few beers and frames of pool. The barmaid more or less incinerated conversational etiquette by asking us, after a couple of minutes of chat, whether or not we were 'together' as she had a bet on with the (massively camp) waiter who'd served us in the ribs ...

... springs so I stopped at the hot springs for an hour or two and just relaxed in the pools. There are couple of different pools available and each one is a different temperature. <br><br>By the time I arrived in Cody it was early evening so I went for a couple of beers at a nearby bar and then went for dinner in an italian restaurant, which was really good. I was expecting tomorrow to be a long day in Yellowstone so I made sure I wasnt out too late this time.

... Cook City is certainly a small group of buildings gathered around nature but not one that has been commercialised nor "booming nor vibrating with tourists. We struck some road works as they are upgrading the road in this section; this created a 10 - 15 minute wait for the pilot car to guide us through. No big deal we have done this before, when we roll again the traffic thins out and the route becomes again something of picture book stuff, the views of the mountains and ...

... educational material relating to the environment and wildlife, another was entirely dedicated to the life of William Cody... better known as Buffalo Bill, after whom the town is named. And the final one was a gun museum. I'm not sure what to say about the gun museum other than it was quite an eye opener. They don't seem to pay too much regard to animal rights in the US mid-west... they like to hunt animals too much it seems and so we were a little shocked to see giant stuffed and ...

... The ride into Stewart is beautiful, many waterfalls, and rivers. Unfortunately it rained continuously. Putting up a tent while it's raining is not fun. After we set up camp, we had a nice salmon dinner downtown. We also gassed up and did laundry. Returning to the campsite ...