Chief Joseph Scenic Highway and Beartooth Highway

We took a long drive from our base camp and drove over the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway to the junction with the Beartooth Highway.  We then took the Beartooth Highway over Beartooth Pass to Red Lodge and then returned to Cody via MT-72 and WY-120.  The Chief Joseph Scenic Highway mostly follows part of the route that Chief Joseph used leading the Nez Pierce Indians attempting to reach sanctuary in Canada while trying to avoid capture by the US Army.

Starting up the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway

View from the summit at Dead Indian Pass

A memorial sculpture for the Nez Pierce

A panorama from along the Beartooth Highway

Long Lake

Looking down below Beartooth Pass

Video panorama from Beartooth Pass

This juvenile Red-tailed Hawk was using the strong updraft on the mountainside to hover while scanning the terrain below.  It would then swoop down low over the land below and then return high up to hover again.

A couple more views from the Beartooth Highway

Buffalo Bill State Park

We are spending several days at Buffalo Bill State Park on the edge of Buffalo Bill Reservoir on the Shoshone River, a few miles west of Cody, Wyoming.

Our campsite along the shore of Buffalo Bill Reservoir

A couple of views across Buffalo Bill Reservoir

Mountains to the north

We've seen a lot of wild Prairie Sunflowers lately.

Died sunflower seed head

A couple of the local inhabitants

Just outside of Cody, we found this large field of commercial sunflowers.

Little Bighorn Battlefield

A few years ago, Barbara learned that one of her great-grandfathers was buried in the Custer National Cemetery within the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument.  He was a civil war veteran and Custer National Cemetery was the closest national cemetery to where he died.  We decided to visit the National Monument to visit his grave and to see where Custer's last stand happened.

The older part of Custer National Cemetery

Grave of James Upton (Barbara's great-grandfather)

Area along the Little Bighorn River where many more Indians were encamped than Custer was expecting

Last Stand Hill where Custer and his group met their end

A sunset in the plains

Bighorn Mountains

We spent a few days in Buffalo, Wyoming, so that we could explore Wyoming's Bighorn Mountains.  Here are just a few images from one of our drives into the Bighorns.

The Bighorns viewed from the east.

A mountain stream

Water Lily covered lake