Day 2 of the trip... a long slog through eastern Wyoming, followed by a fantastic climb into the Big Horn Mountains, then a wild descent through a huge canyon... then another 80 miles of desolation on the plateau before hitting Cody and ascending into Yellowstone...

As I mentioned earlier, Wyoming is wonderfully politically incorrect. Plenty of anti-Obama stickers ("Change" is all I got left!) and charming places like Dead Swede Campground and Crazy Woman Creek. If we cross the Maimed Mick Ford tomorrow, I will not be surprised.

Cody was essentially Estes Park but with cowboys. Which is OK, that's what it was selling. Peyton was thrilled that the bar of the Irma Hotel was showing the Russia-Poland game and allowed him in to watch the last 5 minutes. So they're not completely anti-progressive if they are showing soccer games in the bars.

Speaking of, 4 of the 5 high school we passed had soccer fields and goals. I always thought Wyoming didn't do any soccer. And by the way, even the rattiest towns filled with junkyards had pristine beautiful schools, brand new buildings with either immaculate grass athletic fields or turf. Then again, I presume that the state takes a majority of its oil money to fund the schools for its sparse population.

Once we hit Yellowstone, we knocked off the southeast part of the park today. A few animal sightings:

Note this buffalo turned his head when we started firing pictures. I think he was eyeballing a charge at the boys. I know I was by this point.

Actually, he was just laying under this tree and Peyton spotted him 30 yards from road. There were people literally walking within 10 yards of him on the other side of the tree that had no idea he was there. Zach was worried about getting charged, but we left the car doors open and I reminded him the first rule of surviving an animal attack was to be faster than somebody else in your party.

We stopped by a few sulfur geysers... Zach was not impressed with the smell but was interested to find out that were actually standing in the caldera of a supervolcano that is due to go off again any day now. There were a lot of questions from him about the last time it happened (650,000 years ago), if anybody was present (possibly one of his Grandmas), and what time it happened (3 PM... I made that answer up too, what was I supposed to say?).

It was a 2-hour drive then south through the southern part of Yellowstone and all of Grand Teton Parks before we are now safely nestled into our condo in Jackson Hole. We are planning on heading back north tomorrow to hit the park's northern meadows, where we hope to see some bison and elk herds and hopefully a grizzly or wolf or two. Will leave you with my favorite of Jeana's shots of the day... the Grand Teton (Paul's and my goal for Sunday/Monday) with a wild elk herd in the foreground.