In Yellowstone, you do not make a run to the border; you make a run to Cody for groceries. Cody is about 75 miles from Fishing Bridge out the east entrance of the park. It is essentially 75 miles of little more than wilderness and a few campgrounds.

On the way out, we stopped at the remnants of corkscrew bridge in Sylvan Pass. This was one of the old roads into the park that had to circle around and over itself to keep the grade low enough that older cars and horse drawn buggies could drive up it.

There was a large Yellow-bellied Marmot hanging out next to the overlook. Unfortunately, a group of people drove up in loud cars and scared the marmot away, so John and Kate only got a few pictures.

A mile further down Sylvan Pass, we drove by some Bighorn Sheep on the side of the mountain. There was no place to pull over because the shoulder was a cliff or a rock barrier. We had to pass on photographs on the way out. (Well, Kate did a quick illegal stop in the road to get a cell phone photo.)

Next, we drove through Shoshone National Forest; It is just outside the east entrance of Yellowstone. We did not stop for pictures on the way out.

Near Cody on the way out, a car slammed on its brakes a few cars ahead of us. We were able to safely slow down as the car in front and a few behind it pulled over. As we came up to the spot, we saw a dead deer in the road. Kate thought it had been dead for a while, but it kicked as we drove by. The grill and front of the first car was smashed in. We hope someone had a gun to put it out of its misery because we did not. At the time, we were driving through a flat grassy valley, so we are not sure how the deer surprised the driver.

In Cody, we stopped for lunch, checked a couple of stores for RV sewer gaskets, and then went shopping for groceries … for … a … very … long … time.

On the way back, we did stop in Shoshone National Forest for pictures. Kate tried to get a cancel stamp at the Shoshone National Forest office, but they only had a park stamp without a date.

And we stopped at the Yellowstone east entrance for the obligatory Yellowstone National Park sign pictures.

In Sylvan Pass, we ran into the Bighorn Sheep again. Part of the herd was wandering in the road, so if we were not paying attention, we might have literally run into them. Some of the sheep were on the side of the road grazing, and others were up the hill.

After watching and taking photos for a bit, some of the sheep wandered across the street and started rubbing up against the guard rail. We think they were trying to rub off their winter coats.

Some of them jumped the guard rail. You can hear their back hooves clang on the rail.

Some of them stayed up on the mountain side in the shade grazing.

The ones that crossed the street came back and did an odd head-butt rub. We are not sure if it was affection, trying to rub their winter coat off, or juvenile practice battle.

Finally, they grazed and worked their way back up the hill. One of them laid down in clear view for a great zoom in video.

We also stopped at the Corkscrew Bridge overlook on the way back, and there was a smaller Yellow-bellied Marmot scrounging in the gravel. The same thing happened. John took thirty seconds of video before a car drove up and scared the marmot away. John ended up with a few properly exposed photos of the side, a few over-exposed close-up photos of the front, and a bunch of properly exposed photos of a marmot butt.

A common problem in Yellowstone is that a stopped car and big camera lens causes other people to screech to a halt and run over to see what they are missing. And of course, this scares away anything smaller than a Bison, Elk, or Bear. At which point, the persons says, “Oh, it isn’t a bear?” and leaves.

When we got back, we were not sure the cats even noticed that we were gone.

After feeding the cats and eating, we biked up to Fishing Bridge to look for spawning trout. After finding no trout, we climbed onto the ridges beside the bridge. One side had a herd of 11+ elk. The other ridge was empty.