Friday August 21, Horseshoe Campground, Bighorn Canyon, WY

What an absolutely fabulous day. It started with a visit to one of the best museums we have ever seen, then being told about the Bighorn Canyon, sightings of wild animals, temperatures of 36 degrees and one of the best campsites ….that is free!

The Buffalo Bill Historical Centre in Cody had been highly recommended to us and combines 5 world class museums in the one complex. The Buffalo Bill Museum was fascinating, somehow everyone has heard about him, but it was great to find out the true story about him. Ian checked out the Firearms Museum with a collection of over 3000 guns, while I went through the Western Art Gallery. This in particular was a real highlight for me, with a collection of paintings depicting life in the west during the early years. We spent about 4 hours, by which time we were in overload and our feet were getting sore, but came out feeling as though I had learnt so much more about early life in the west.

Left Cody and headed north east to Lovell through a very lush irrigated valley, and called into an RV place to sort out a small issue with the water heater (nothing major, except it needed to be manually lit). He recommended Bighorn as a great place to camp…hadn’t even seen it in the guide books, although it is a National Reserve. The campground is on a reservoir formed by a dam on the Bighorn River, which is overlooked by red layered sandstone cliffs.

Found a site and left our chairs there so that no one else would take it, then wound our way up the canyon to a lookout. It just amazes me to see how deep the sandstone has worn down are thousands of years of the river washing through it. Continued to the end of the road for another 10 miles and the scenery was incredible.

Driving back we spotted a little group of longhorn sheep near the road, then a small band of wild mustang horses. I noticed a guy walking towards them, so grabbed my camera and went down to have a chat with him as I noticed he had a camera with a big grey lens on as well. Turns out he is a full time artist in a nearby town and was capturing images of the horses to paint for an upcoming exhibition. So I tagged along with him and got a bit closer to the horses …. thrilled with the opportunity to photograph the stallion and mares much closer.

It was 6.30 as we drove back and the light on the hills was magnificent, a great end to a day. Forgot to mention that after Ian’s episode with the Leatherman “saw”, the first thing we bought in Cody was a “proper” saw. Last night there was a lot of driftwood on the river and Ian collected quite a bit and sawed it up, a lot easier than the night before. Had a wonderful fire and enough left over to take with us. So tonight, with temperatures still in the high 20’s we sat around a campfire after dinner, seem to be picking up on the American way!