Even though it was check-out day, we were still up early to see critters. I was up early to work on a post. I was behind a day, so I made coffee, lit a fire, and got my MacBook out. Amanda was tired and quiet, but I knew she wanted to see animals on the last day. I remember we did the same thing on the last day in the Grand Teton area: up early to see more animals.
We were going back, in a backward loop, through the middle of the wildlife loop. Where the lady said she had seen a large herd of elk. As we entered through the Blue Bell campground, there were signs that the road was closed. It was dark, and just after six in the morning, so I told Amanda that we were going to see because if we turned around now, we’d never make the distance elk area before sunrise. We made it to the opposing sign at the horse camp we drove through yesterday, but there was no road closure. The sun began peaking as we made our way farther into the park.
Fisherman Flats was the name of the dead-end dirt road we were headed for in the middle of the park. It was the farthest from any paved road you could get. The best chance we would have to see what no one else sees would lie here. This reminded me of our first heartiversary trip, where we cut across a dirt road through Cades Cove in Great Smoky Mountain National Park and saw a mama bear and three cubs. So we had high hopes we might see something on this early morning. Though we didn’t see any elk, we saw a herd of sleeping buffalo and another herd grazing farther along the flats.
We left the flat road back to make the inner dirt road loop and found many buffalo grazing in the early morning. The rising sun made for fantastic photos as we drove the curvy dirt road through the hills sparsely dotted with trees.
We rounded one corner and saw a small herd of a dozen or so elk. They were far off and hard to see in a photo. We sat and watched as they walked up and over a hill. We made our way through a herd of buffalo, planning on turning around to peruse the elk and see if we could get closer. They were the most skittish of all the animals we encountered. Even the coyotes weren’t as standoffish as the elk proved to be. We were a little closer and could see them better as we came up in the elk again. I got out of the car to try and get a shot as they reached the top of a plateau.
Turning around to finish the loop, we encountered the bison herd again. I took one of my favorite shots of all the wildlife on the trip. It screams the American West, with rolling hills, buffalo, pine trees, and the rising sun. It looked like a scene from Dances with Wolves.
We didn’t see much else as we finished the loop. The sunrise view and my favorite shot of the buffalo were worth the early wake-up and 2-hour trip alone. We saw some buffalo getting a sip of water as we headed out.
Once back to the cabin, we got ready to leave and pack the final things in the Yukon. I still had to break down our double single-bed conversion and get everything back as it was when we arrived. I left that till the end, and once finished, we packed our bedding and loaded it all up. We were rolling out in the car just a few minutes after checkout. Amanda said that was not bad for us as we pulled out of the drive.
We stopped at a new coffee shop in Custer on the way out of town. My dirty chai latte was delicious, but Amanda’s honey oat milk latte could have been better; it was mostly milk and not much espresso. Since we came from the West, I’d wondered how long it would take to get out of the Back Hills. About 45 minutes south, we were out of them; there were still hills but no trees to cover them to make them black. Once coming down the last Black Hill, you could see from the high vantage point for days.
We were on the stagecoach trail from Deadwood to Cheyenne. We stopped to eat lunch at a historical marker. It stated the Rawhide Buttes we were next to and briefly explained the stagecoach route. Lunch today was stuffed peppers. While packing, I stuffed some bell peppers with leftovers from the paella dinner mixed with some oat milk queso and chorizo from our queso soup. They were great and still warm when we ate them. My dinner “dovetailing” into lunches was on point this trip; we threw very little food away when we left.
We stopped in Cheyenne for a waffle fry snack, a Sunjoy drink, and a car wash; the Yukon was filthy and needed a bath. Then back on the road with few stops before we reached the Denver area. We stopped at a Buc-ee’s on the north side of Denver; I didn’t even know they had them in Colorado; this one looked new. From there, it was the toll road around Denver; I’m glad Txtag works out of state now. Then, straight to Colorado Springs for a layover.
We stopped by a Trader Joe’s to grab a few things and more snacks. I had asked for an upgrade earlier, which they quickly gave. I was checked in via my app, but they hadn’t sent a mobile key, so I had to wait in line to get one; otherwise, we could have just gone straight to our room. After unloading things in the room, I ran down to the lounge to see what they had. We always end up staying in hotels on the weekend when we want to grab something from the lounge, but they don’t have dinners on the weekends. This time, they had a big salad along with a cheese/veggie tray, mini beef wellingtons, and fried green tomatoes.
We’d planned on eating some leftover mushroom gnocchi and grilled cheese but still ate a salad with added veggies from the cheese tray. The fried tomatoes were great, and I even cheated and tried one of the wellingtons. I heated up our soup in the lounge microwave since our room didn’t have one. We grabbed a couple of cookies and headed to the room.
We were upgraded to a gigantic room that had a dining table for eight but only a small sink in the kitchenette, no cooktop or even a toaster, just a tiny fridge. I’d packed everything for grilled cheese, but Amanda asked how we would make it without a kitchen. I told her every hotel room has what it takes to make a grilled cheese, even ones without a kitchen. You’ll love this; I made us a couple of perfectly toasted grilled cheeses with the hotel iron. They were great and didn’t even taste like starch!
With lounge cookies for dessert, we hit the sack early. The following day, we had a long drive ahead of us. I wished we’d shot for Amarillo, but by the time we decided what we could do, the cancelation cutoff had passed, so we were stuck in Colorado Springs. I initially planned for us to go through Rocky Mountain National Park on the way home, but we scrapped that to spend more time in South Dakota, which was a wise choice, looking back.
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