Bear Country USA

Well, time for a little catching up.  We've been pretty busy the past couple of days and I've just now had a chance to post.

Yesterday we visited Bear Country USA in Rapid City, South Dakota.   (http://www.bearcountryusa.com/) We had driven by several times on our way to other places and the girls really wanted to see it.  It's a drive through animal park with a ton a bear. It was pretty good, but not as exciting as seeing them "in the wild." 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiFyF3zs8Og

They did have a walk through area with baby animals that was pretty good. 

After Bear Country, we loaded up the rig and headed back into Wyoming towards Cody.  The first 275ish miles went fast and smooth.  Then we hit the Medicine Wheel Passage.  It's one of the most scenic routes we've taken so far.  Really beautiful but also REALLY SLOW.  The grade was 10% for 9 miles.  Then coming into Cody we encountered a 9 mile stretch of road construction.  That doesn't sound so bad, except that the road was in such poor condition that we had to drive 10-15 mph for the entire 9 miles.  Cost us about an hour.

We finally made it to Cody around 10:00pm and knew we'd have to stay in the WalMart parking lot again since every RV park in town was full.  Cody's a really popular place in the summer.  We've spent a few nights in WalMart parking lots so far (whenever we're just going to nap a few hours and keep driving).  But what a surprise when we pulled into the WalMart in Cody.  We were one of at least 30 or so rigs doing the same thing.  It was like a little community.  Good thing WalMart lets RVers do this.   I'm not sure what we'd do in out of the way places when there's no space in the parks.