Day 8- Yellowstone NP to Buffalo Wyoming

Well guys, we are in Buffalo Wyoming tonight. We had plans to be camping at the Flintstones BedRock Campground in Custer South Dakota but after it took us almost half the day to go through Yellowstone, we decided to bunk in Buffalo.

We got up this morning after a peaceful night's sleep in Massacre Rock State Park and got on the road to Sturgis. It rained last night when we got to the state park; cleared up and then it rained again during the night. We stayed dry and slept right through it! We left the park around 8am and headed to Yellowstone. Now Yellowstone is a very beautiful national park with so much to offer; there were thousands of people from all over the world there. We heard many different languages being spoken just as we did at the Grand Canyon. The foreign travelers were amazed by all of the motorcycles that adorned the park today! If you didn't know, you have to go through Yellowstone to get to Sturgis from the West Coast unless you want to travel a few hundred miles out of the way! But why wouldn't you want to see this majestic national park! We saw the hot sulfur springs and even got to see Old Faithful Geyser! The Snake River that goes through the park looked like an ocean, the water was crystal blue and it was beautiful! We did get to see some of the wildlife in the park, but NO BEARS! The temperature in the park was around 72 degrees all day and bright sunshiny skies! It did rain and hail on us again today; did I say HAIL! this was the third time on the trip that it had hailed on us, but this time it was barely noticeable and it didn't last long at all. As we left Old Faithful to head toward Sturgis, we went through several tunnels in the mountains along the water's edge! I would do anything to have stayed there all day long, wait a minute...we did stay there all day...haha!

After we left Yellowstone, we entered into the Big Horn National Forest. This national forest was along the scenic highway that we were riding on, Hwy 14/16/20. We went through several towns and ended up going over Big Horn Mountain. We thought we had gone through and over mountains on this journey, but we went over the biggest mountain I believe in the country! As we rode into the mountain, we noticed signs saying steep inclines and we were thinking, "oh this is going to be like any other mountain."; boy, were we wrong! This mountain had roads that went up along the side of the mountain like an incline on a major roller coaster! We climbed about 10 to 12 miles up this mountain; looking to our right side while riding the motorcycles you could see for miles down below and across the land. We had a few trucks pulling campers that were barely making it up the mountain, so they pulled over to to let us and the other cars go by. We did stop and take a few pictures of the awe-inspiring scenic views and we climbed to an elevation of 9430ft above sea level! The temperature at the top of Big Horn was 42 degrees and there was ice on the some of the caps. The roads were red asphalt, which we have never seen before and the ride down Big Horn was fun! We had alot of twisty curves that my motorcycle, Brandywine, enjoys! Mike seemed to enjoy them as well! We went into a town called Ranchester Wyoming to get to I-90E and then we stopped in Buffalo for gas and decided to stay the night here.

So tomorrow we will see Devil's Tower, Mt. Rushmore, Crazyhorse Monument, and spend some time at the Sturgis Bike Rally. Again, thank you all for keeping up with us on this journey! We are having the time of our lives; seeing the beautiful scenery and meeting some really nice people! Oh, I almost forgot, we have traveled 5403 miles so far and have a good many more to go!