We set out from Buffalo, still heading west, and the land is reasonably flat but there are hills in the distance

That’s not Yellowstone yet, those are the Big Horn mountains, seen here from a town called Tongue River…

Soon we were climbing those mountains, with the plain we had just covered from Buffalo far below us

The road was really quite steep – the RV was struggling to keep up to 20 MPH on the climbs

… but once we got to the top, there were green rolling hills again. Seemed strange having just climbed up so steeply.

still a bit lumpy though…

Once we had crossed the top plateau, we came to the descent down the other side.

… which was about 13 miles of 10% gradients with hairpin bends

and we could see the plain far below and stretching to the west

About halfway down we had to stop to allow the brakes to cool. When we stopped and got out the smell of overheated brakes was really strong. The RV is 32 feet long (about 10 metres in modern parlance) and weighs about 7 tons empty, so it was a bit of a handful.

Once down on the plain, the roads were very flat and mostly straight. We found only three bends in about 15 miles, until we came to the bridge over the Big Horn river. This territory is famous for the battle of the Little Big Horn, or Custer’s Last Stand which took place a little north of here. Sadly, we didn’t feel we had time to go and look at the Big Horn Canyon.

There is some arable farming here, but in the distance the mountains of Yellowstone are looming…

We came through Cody, named after William Cody, perhaps better known as ‘Buffalo Bill’. There is a really nice museum dedicated to him there.

From Cody we continued west towards Yellowstone. We had not appreciated that the entrance to Yellowstone from the east (there are only five entrance roads) was considered the most ‘difficult’. So our route went through about 50 miles of steep canyons and ravines

following the path of a river flowing out of Yellowstone

When we eventually got to Yellowstone, the road became even steeper and more winding, until we again came to the inner part of Yellowstone, where there is a huge lake, surrounded by hills covered in pine trees. Lots of them are almost white and appear dead, with new growth coming up between them.

We could not get any space for the RV in any of the camping grounds inside Yellowstone that night, so we had to head back outside the park and find a place about three miles outside. On the way we did see another bison, ambling slowly down the road completely ignoring the traffic…