Day 6 - Casper to Cooke City

Casper WY to Cooke City MT, by way of Cody, 304 miles total and 27.8 mpg. Totals for the trip, 1882 miles, 27.3 mpg. Those are the stats.

Once again I need to be brief. The WiFi connection is only available in the lodge, and it closes at 9! We’re in a cabin in Cooke City Montana. It’s beautiful up here – but we knew that, we’ve been to Cooke City several times, but never stayed here.


This morning we beat the old record (yesterday) and were on the road before 8. There isn’t much that we know to do in Casper, and we didn’t have any time to look around anyway. My impression of Casper is unfavorable – it’s hard to understand how such a small town could complicate the road system so much, for one thing. Anyway, it was a quick up and out this morning.

The drive starts out very similar to yesterday. Very flat lands, no trees (too much wind?). As we get closer to Cody the landscape gets a little more interesting. In Cody we have several things that we want to do. First on the list is to get S-H’s eyeglasses fixed. We tried and failed at this one. Second was to shop at Sierra Trading Post for clothes, shoes and bear spray. We got that done. And we needed lunch – we hit The Irma Hotel, and it was very good.

Back on the road, we’re taking the Chief Joseph trail road to Cooke City. This route is beyond scenic – it is incredibly scenic. Again, you just gotta see it! You can look at our pictures, but you just need to see this. We’ve done the Chief Joseph before, a couple of times – and I hope to do it several more times. At one point I took a movie, which I hope gives some idea of how beautiful it is.

We pulled in to Cooke City around 5, got checked in to our cabin and took the boys for a walk through town (it’s really small, population around 90 this time of year). Did I mention it is a gateway to Yellowstone National Park? On the way we decided to eat, and after checking several menus we picked Cooke City Café, home of over 150 beers. We had wine. Shiraz. It’s now just after dinner, and I’m caught up. I don’t expect any addendums for tonight – Cooke City is a quiet place in any case, and we’re with dogs, tired, and ready to hit the sack!

Tomorrow – Red Lodge!