Our last day on the road took us through small parts of the Bighorn National Forest, the Gooseberry Badlands and a picnic lunch in Yellowstone National Park. It was a beautiful drive home!
Loaf Mountain Overlook on the Cloud Peak Skyway shows off the Cloud Peak Wilderness.
*Clicking on a photo will give you a closer look!
Tensleep Canyon offers unspoiled beauty while rock climbing, caving, hiking, or mountain biking, and our pursuit…the scenic drive.
Leigh Creek Vee has a broad ledge about 200 feet below the rim of the canyon and about 1,000 feet above the canyon floor with a stone monument topped with a cross. The monument was constructed in 1889 in the memory of a British Member of Parliament (member for South Warwickshire), the Honorable Gilbert H. C. Leigh, after whom the creek is named. In 1884, Leigh, a house guest of Moreton Frewen, lost his life hunting big horn sheep.
Sam Stringer, the courageous former Confederate teamster, had the mail contract for delivery of the mail from Buffalo to Powder River, Sussex, and Ten Sleep. In about 1892, he nearly lost his life delivering mail, but his powerful determination got the job done!
If you are at all interested in the taming of the west, then I encourage you to click on Sam Stringer’s name and read his story. He was a soldier, a teamster (including using his wagon to carry the dead from Fetterman’s Massacre), worked on railroad building, as well as a mail carrier.
Our scenic drive home brought us to the Gooseberry Badlands right after driving through the Bighorn National Park. So fun to see the landscape change so quickly!
There is a trail to hike here, but we opted out. Perhaps someday, we will pass by again and take the time to hike the trail.
I have shared about road trips to Yellowstone National Park here, and here. It is one of our favorite parks to visit!
Today, however, since we were headed home, we only stopped for lunch at the Chittenden Memorial Bridge. It was first constructed in 1903 as a Melan arch bridge by park engineer Captain Hiram M. Chittenden of the US Army Corps of Engineers and spans the Yellowstone River.
In 1961, after a lot of public protest, the National Park Service tore down the original bridge and replaced it with a more modern, wider structure suitable for the type of vehicle traffic the park was experiencing. In an opening ceremony in 1963, the new bridge was christened the Chittenden Memorial Bridge.
Among his other achievements, Chittenden was a successful and prolific historical author. The Hiram M. Chittenden Locks in Seattle are named in his honor.
This large raven kept us company the entire time that we ate our picnic lunch.
Our road trip took us 6,738 miles from Washington State to North Carolina. We explored much, learned much, and had so much fun! Wherever you are, if you cannot afford international travel, or maybe that isn’t even a dream of yours, I know that you can find much to see and do in the area where you live!
Since this is my journal, I keep my posts under the tabs in the heading above so that I can find them again. If you ever want to revisit them, you can find them there, too.
See the world around you!
