Motocaching the Cowboy State - Part 4

Day 5

At 6:00 we partook of the motel’s breakfast which was nothing extra but adequate.  Our first cache of Big Horn County was in Sheridan at a kind of park with a fishing pond.  It was called “8^th and Fishy” and after a little search we located it.  The next cache was nearby but after looking it over we decided to pass.  It was in a big ravine thick with underbrush and we figured we didn’t have the time or clothes to tackle that one.  So we proceeded on to another one located at a ballpark near the fairgrounds hidden in a fake phone box on a telephone pole.  Thanks to the hint it was an easy find.

Before leaving Sheridan we went to Starbucks to visit Yancey’s friend, Eric, who was on a temporary assignment there from Denver.  He treated us to a coffee and hot chocolate which was very good.  We gassed up across the street and headed for what was arguably the most scenic and motorcycle-fun leg of our trip.

After a short distance on Interstate 90 north we turned west on Highway 14 that took us through the Big Horn National Cloud Peak Forest Wilderness Area.  We climbed a twisty mountain route and came back down the other side known as Shell Canyon.  Yancey had a helmet video setup which we took turns using.  The only problem I had was that I had to use his helmet which was much too big and it kept dropping down over my eyes – not a good thing, particularly on that road.  We stopped at an especially scenic spot near the bottom of the back side and took some pictures.

From the Cloud Peak area we descended to a big basin approaching Greybull to the southwest.  We passed through Greybull and Basin and continued south on Highway 16 in Washakie County toward Worland.  What had been a cool (cold on a motorcycle) early morning was now a hot and getting hotter late morning.  Our first stop in Worland was a DNF but we did find a micro (very small container) cache coming into town.  Next we went to a residential neighborhood where I gave up on one that Yancey found in an old pile of pallets in an alley.  A girl was sitting on her steps reading a book nearby and I asked her if there was a park close.  She directed me to one about two blocks away which was very convenient so we motored over and had lunch under a pavilion in a big shady pleasant park.

 

When I plan these trips I lay out the caches and use them as navigating points.  On this trip I had more than one route planned before I settled on the final one.  Unfortunately I left some of the caches for the rejected route in my GPSr.  This error combined with my poor sense of direction resulted in a twelve mile detour much of it over a gravel road due to road construction and then a quarter mile hike on a dusty road to a hilltop overlooking the Big Horn Valley.  After getting the cache it finally dawned on me that we were going in the wrong direction.  We did not want to go back to Buffalo.  So we had to go back over the gravel into Worland and turn south toward Thermopolis.

 

We had a lot of hot afternoons but I believe the hottest was in Thermopolis.  Of course, this is a hot springs area and you could smell the sulfur everywhere.  We stopped at a dusty private camping area where Yancey finally found the cache hidden in a poplar tree.  From there we went to “Rocky Top River View” which was a fantastic view but we didn’t find the cache which was supposed to hidden among some big rocks.  Yancey found another one hidden on an old wagon on a street corner in the middle of town before we headed northwest toward Cody and out of Hot Springs County. 

The countryside along Highway 120 between Thermopolis and Cody is fairly barren.  Before reaching Cody we encountered some pretty ferocious winds.  Not as bad as in Nevada but the worst of this trip.  We didn’t do any more caches but headed straight for the Budget Host motel.  There were many other bikers at the motel and all over town for that matter.  We got into a lengthy motorcycle conversation with one who was leaving the motel just as we got there.  He had traveled all the way out from Minnesota.

After lubing our chains and getting cleaned up we had a lengthy but unintentional tour of the town trying to find a restaurant the motel owner had recommended.  Cody seemed to be the liveliest town we had visited.  It may have been due to its proximity to Yellowstone.  We finally gave up on the restaurant we were trying to find and settled on a pizza place downtown.  I thought it was pretty good.  This was our shortest day with 9 caches, 2 DNF’s and only 284 miles.

Pictures: 1&2 in Shell Canyon, 3 lunch in Worland park, 4 Big Horn Valley (unintentional detour), 4&5 Thermopolis Falls.  To be continued.  M/W