day 9 -hightailin it across Wyoming

After 4th of july fireworks we woke up to haze and clouds. We had slept later than intended so we 'got the heck out of Cody'. We had great US Highways to follow for about half the way - the first part was prairie where the deer and the antelope played. Then we hit the Big Horn Mountains and started climbing - and climbing - and climbing. 9666 was the elevation of the Powder river Pass. As we climbed the mountain we passed oodles of bicyclists - apparently a group from "cycle america" was on the move over the mountain. Congrats to all of them! Once over the Big Horn we stopped for lunch in Buffalo. We jumped on the interstate and rushed on over to NorthEastern Wyoming to catch up with the Mother Ship at Devils Tower - apparently, however, we were too late. We walked all the way around the tower and no sign of it! On the plus side we did meet some Firefighters from Sedona AZ. They had been sent to Edgemont, SD to help with the fires there. (They were definitely the best looking group of firefighters that I have seen outside of a calendar.)We took some county roads on our way back to the freeway and were astonished to see something crossing the road in front of us - a mother turkey herding her 6 chicks! They just walked across the road in a perfect line and off into the tall grass on the other side. We made it the rest of the way to Spearfish with no issues. One more "first" for me though, as we returned from dinner the tornado siren was going off. It sounds just like the old air raid siren from the 50's - so I had a temporary flash back to hiding under a desk (although what good that would have done I have no idea).Watching the news and then this day of vacation is complete.