The wind blew 55 mph wind gusts all day today. Started out before daylight. Along with that, the temperature was down around 40 and we had to fire up the heat! I had charlie horses in my right leg most of the night so chose to sleep in rather late, by that I mean 10 a.m. late!! When I worked on the road and drove about 20 miles a day everyday, I used to get horrible calf cramps at night. Guess I really needed a day off. Got up and took a nice long warm shower and spent the rest of the day doing bookwork that had been neglected all month and can now happily say I'm caught up! We have rocked and rolled all day and DH has spent the day in his chair with KayCee and a book. She doesn't like rockin and Rollin, so she chooses to lay in his lap! It may also have something to do with us leaving them all day yesterday. In getting ready for tomorrow, we will be going into Cody and doing the Tourist thing, complete with watching the gunfight at the Irma hotel in the evening and a Nature walk along the Shosone River. We will drop the dogs off in the morning at the daycare. It's only supposed to be in the 70s tomorrow, hopefully with not as much wind. The only good thing is that the fire smoke has been non exsistant today because of the wind. They are forcasting showers and SNOW showers for Labor Day weekend and Monday. We don't have any specific plans....there are some nice folks here in this park and maybe we can get a gathering or BBQ planned or something. I think it would be really nice if the wind wouldn't blow at least one day, so we could use our patio awning! Looking forward to a relaxed day exploring Cody. We still have a couple of weeks here and I want to make a couple of more trips in to Yellowstone to watch for bears and explore some other towns around here.

This week is turning out to be more work than a job! We started out Monday going Northeast out of town and took the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway up to the North East Entrance to Yellowstone and then followed the Beartooth HIghway down through the North Absaroka Wilderness area of Yellowstone in hopes of seeing wildlife. The driving every day is trying. We had lunch at the Dead Indian Campground and I was startled by a small bull! Just turned around to be aware of my surroundings and he was staring at me from across a stream! Glad it wasn't a bear! Continuing up the mountain...switchbacks and steep, narrow mountain roads. Then we made it back down to the Fishing Bridge and Yellowstone Lake where we saw the greatest amount of wildlife. My request was filled when we came upon a buffalo carcass by a stream and a large grizzly came bounding across a marsh and began feeding on the carcass. We saw 200+ buffalo yesterday and probably that many today. A herd was on the road and we were all stopped. Some of the young bulls were fiesty and wanting to spar a little and were getting mighty vocal. On down by Yellowstone Lake, there was another boar grizzly walking along a pond and further down  we spotted a mama grizzly and 2 playful cubs. We saw huge Elk...5 mountain goats and many water fowl. Today we drove over 225 miles. Left the dogs in Cody at doggie day care and went to the other side of the park and watched Old Faithful erupt. Had lunch in the cafeteria of the Lodge there. Did a little shopping in the gift shop and went to the 2nd floor for ice cream before heading up the highway and exploring some other geysers and paint pots. Meanwhile the fire has grown to over 22 miles in length. They have over 250 firefighters, 5 helicoptersand 2 staging areas. One to our east and one to the west. It is smokey again here tonight, but when we came out of the park tonight, they have one of the horse lodge - ranches on evacuation notice and it looked like the flames were right behind their main buildings. Sad deal. Hope they save it.  Saw a beautiful new Monaco Coach today at the intersection going to Fishing Bridge, that had been in a collision with another vehicle....what a mess. Took out the drivers side front quarter.....two or three bays and the front corner was all smashed. Not a cheap deal...probably $25,000 dollars of damage and it'll never be the same. DH was having a ball today looking at geysers and water falls. He's into reading all the history behind these wonders, and quite the photog.