Cowboy Country

Day 2 : Denver - Cheyenne

Collect your motorhome and make for Cheyenne, Wyoming – the capital city and gateway to Cowboy Country. Try to be there for Frontier Days (www.cfdrodeo.com), though you must book well in advance as the event attracts visitors from very far afield.

•  110 miles to Cheyenne, Wyoming - Visit the Capitol Building and the State Museum.

Day 3 : Cheyenne - Wind Cave National Park

A long drive across featureless, tumbleweed strewn country. But have faith, it really is worth it once you cross into South Dakota. Our recommended campground has no hookups, showers or amenities but deer and buffalo roam to the fence. Coyotes howl but otherwise the silence is deafening and the stars are never brighter. There are other full facility campgrounds to choose from if you prefer.

•  270 miles to Wind Cave National Park - Visit the Mammoth Site and Evans Plunge pool in Hot Springs.   

Day 4 : South Dakota - Mount Rushmore

Everyone knows of Mount Rushmore, one of America’s icons. Fewer know the Crazy Horse Memorial, a giant mountain carving of the famous Indian Chief. Please don’t miss visiting either of them! 

• 40 miles to Mount Rushmore KOA (via Custer State Park) - Visit dramatic Badlands National Park and, time-permitting, the site of the massacre at Wounded Knee.   

Day 5 : Mount Rushmore - Devils Tower

“The Deadwood Stage was comin’ on over the hill” probably carrying Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane!  Don’t miss it; and enjoy a pint at the Old Franklin Hotel or even Kevin Costner’s bar…he fell in love with Deadwood when making ‘Dances with Wolves”. Close encounters of a third kind? You remember the movie? Well the location was Devils Tower.

• 120 miles to Devils Tower stopping at Deadwood along the way - Visit Spearfish Canyon. It’s an easy loop from Deadwood on the way to Wyoming.   

Day 6-7 : Billings - Cody

This sounds like a long drive but it is mostly on the Interstate so you should be at the Buffalo Bill Historical Society in Cody shortly after lunch. It may sound boring – but please don’t miss it! You are at the gateway to Yellowstone National Park.

• 315 miles to Cody - Visit the Medicine Wheel off the more scenic Alt14 on the way to Cody. Once there, don’t miss the Remingtons and Russells in the Whitney Gallery of Western Art. 

Day 8-9 : Cody - Yellowstone National Park

A stunning drive through Shoshone Canyon to the eastern entrance to Yellowstone National Park. It’s then a gentle forty miles to Grant Village and your campground. Expect occasional traffic jams. That’s when the folk ahead stop to view the wildlife. It could be a moose with its young, a bear or a group of deer. People just stop and look at interesting wildlife. Just before Grant Village, turn right to Old Faithful – so named because this geyser faithfully shoots thousands of gallons of boiling water around 150 feet into the air at predictably regular intervals through the day.

• 100 miles to Grant Village Campground in Yellowstone National Park which is normally open from the third weekend in June to the third weekend in September - Visit the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone with its twin falls, one twice the height of Niagara, the Fountain Paintpot and many more geothermal pools and geysers.  

Day 10 : Yellowstone National Park

22 miles further on brings you out of the South Entrance of YNP and into Grand Teton National Park. You only have to look at the Colter Bay website to see the majesty of the Grand Teton Mountains. Open June to Sept , this is not a cheap campground; but the location makes it worth it.

•  40 miles to Colter Bay Village in Jackson Lake - Visit the Flagg Ranch Resort, between Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks.

Day 11 : Yellowstone to Lander

Drive away from the Grand Tetons through the Great Divide Basin to the town of Lander. On your journey you will pass through The Wind River Indian Reservation, home of the Shoshone and Arapahoe Indian Tribes.

• 140 miles to Lander - Visit Fort Washakie and the grave site of Sacajawea and Chief Washakie, the last Chief of the Shoshone Tribe.

Day 12 : Laramie -Wyoming Territorial Park

The name Laramie conjures up pictures of the wild-west doesn’t it? With good reason. In its early days, Laramie was such a rip-roaring railroad town that it made good sense to build the territorial prison here. At the Wyoming Territorial Park, you can still peek into cells where desperadoes such as Butch Cassidy once did their time.

•  235 miles to Laramie - Visit Saratoga Hot Springs’ Hobo Pool  on a loop off the freeway through the spectacular Medicine Bow National Forest.   

Day 13 : Fort Collins

For your last night on tour, you’ll be staying in Fort Collins: the town that Money Magazine once designated as the best place in the United States to live. Located in the foothills of the Colorado Rocky Mountains this is somewhere to relax after all the spectacular sites and sights of the last few days.

•  75 miles to Fort Collins Lakeside - Visit the Anheuser-Busch brewery to see their wonderful horses and sample Budweiser and you might enjoy visiting one of the several micro-breweries.   

Day 14 : Denver - UK

60 miles to drop off your motorhome back at the Cruise America depot in Denver before your return flight home.