Sunday December 27th - Day 7 of fly and drive trip to Oregon - Idaho Falls Idaho to Thermopolis WY

Today was an exciting and scenery filled day.  I woke up to thankfully only a few more inches of snow more than were there when I got to the hotel in Idaho Falls.  The roads in town were awful just like they were when I arrived the night before so I was concerned that the entire day could be difficult.  Amazingly, the highways improved dramatically, seemingly at the city limits.  I had hoped to go through Cody Wyoming today to visit the museum my friend from Oregon recommended but ID-31 had a chain control in effect so I stayed on US-26 which took me further south and added miles both.  I did get to go over top of 9500 foot tall Togwotee pass and I had a good walk along the river in Dubois WY.  The photos do a pretty good job of showing the types of scenery I experienced today.  Other than than snowmobile recreation users at very high altitudes there were virtually no other cars.  I mean many minutes between even seeing one oncoming vehicle and virtually no following or being followed until I was almost done for the day near Riverton Wyoming.  The snow was all done about 20 miles before Dubois so I was able to do the last 140 miles at good speeds.

The park in Dubois was relaxing and one of the only walks that felt safe and accessible enough for me to do on my own.  Those pictures are below.

Just outside of Dubois there were beautiful sweeping more desert like views that reminded me of Nevada or Eastern Montana.  It was very relaxing and enjoyable.

After this section there were some painted hills type scenes I didn't take the time to photograph.  After that there was an hour or so of relatively unremarkable ground to just get over including an interesting third leg of a triangle that cut off a big V shaped section of US-26 that went through Riverton.  On a map it's interesting, in person it was pretty ordinary but very easy driving.

Finally, I turned back East on US-26 then a few miles later, North which was marked as West on US-20 to get to Thermopolis.  Thermopolis is extremely charming and the drive through Wind Canyon is breath taking.  I only got a picture of the first of 3 medieval looking tunnels at the start of the canyon.  The canyon was narrow, icy and there were lots of mine shaft like railroad tunnels on the other side of it.  There weren't any obvious vantage points for the best parts and the light wasn't great but it is a well known piece of scenic roadway.

The Best Western Plaza hotel in Thermopolis is a lot more interesting and historic than it looks on their web page.  I had a filling and satisfying dinner at the Safari Club across the street.  I had hoped to go to the hot tubs here in Thermopolis but at this point I'm more tired than motivated to head out again so I guess that isn't going to happen this trip.