In which Moominmama experiences a bit of the Wyoming Wild West and survives a snowstorm...

The drive east from Yellowstone Lake takes one out of the caldera and into the Absaroka mountain range, and it is stunning, especially with the mountain tops still dusted with snow. Sunday night into Monday morning, the first snowstorm hit Yellowstone, and I awoke to a winter wonderland in my RV park.

It was beautiful but the snow didn't last -- at least not in the lowlands. But there's still some snow gracing the mountain tops around Yellowstone, including Avalanche Peak in the Absarokas. 

Avalanche Peak is one of the highest points in the park and a hike I was considering until I turned my ankle again this past week.

It was a stupid mistake. The land around Lake Lodge, where I work, is hilly and uneven, and I took my eye off the ground to greet a colleague, promptly putting my weak ankle in an untenable position and tumbling to the ground with an embarrassing squawk.

It was both the end of my shift and the end of my work week, so I had a couple days to recover. But I had also planned to go grocery shopping in Cody on my days off, the nearest town with a supermarket. I was really looking forward to some fresh fruits and vegetables. But nothing is close in Yellowstone; everything is a long drive, and Cody was a two-hour trip there and two hours back through the Shoshone National Forest.

I babied my ankle for a day then set out. After crossing Sylvan Pass in the Absaroka range, I found myself in a very classic wild west! Buffalo Bill Cody has given his name to much of the area -- not just the town but a dam, a state park, a museum and plenty of local businesses.

I entered a landscape of wooden fences, log cabins and brown crenellated mountains dotted with evergreens. The signs advertise classic names like the Double D Ranch and the Cody Stampede Rodeo. Horses nibble the grass at the foot of the cliffs. It was easy to imagine a shoot-out or the Hollywood war cries of Indians on the attack. 

Then there were the Trump 2020 signs. And some surprising billboards. "Wyoming is Beef Country, Enjoy Both," one declared. "Welcome to Wyoming: Here We Hunt, Trap, Shoot and Wear Fur!" Was it my imagination of was the subtext of that billboard: "Get over it, you liberal snowflakes!" Turns out, I was about right. The latter billboard has been somewhat controversial, paid for by a local businessman who admitted to wanting to goad liberal visitors to the national park.

But it got me wondering what the Quaker equivalent might be. "Here We Protest, Vote and Eat (Mostly) Vegetarian!" Maybe? If anyone has suggestions, please feel free to add a comment below!

Unfortunately, it was all my ankle could manage to get my groceries, and I did not visit the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. Perhaps on a future trip. Instead, I stopped by to look at a few placards as I crossed through the little town of Wapiti and the Shoshone National Forest on my way back. It turns out the Shoshone National Forest, like Yellowstone, is a first. 

Yellowstone is the country's first national park and Shoshone is its first national forest, dating back to 1891. Wapiti Ranger Station is also the first of its kind. And I learned that "wapiti" means elk in the Shoshone language.

The Shoshone people lived and traveled in this area for many years, hunting and fishing. They were among the first of the Plains Indians to adopt the use of horses, which allowed them to expand their territory considerably before they were pushed back by the Blackfeet and the Crow, among others. They considered the Lakota and the Cheyenne their enemies and worked with the U.S. Army in the Battle of the Rosebud, one of the fights that led up to the Battle of Little Bighorn. 

The various bands of Shoshone were identified by their primary food source, so there were the Buffalo eaters, the Salmon eaters, the (Bighorn) Sheep eaters etc. The latter group extended into the Tetons.

Sacagawea, the young Native woman who assisted Lewis and Clark, was northern Shoshone, a member of the Salmon eaters band, and negotiated with her people to get the white men horses to cross the Rockies.

And one of the fascinating things about the Shoshone is that their language is a branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family. They have southwestern roots that they took with them into the mountains and the plains. The Shoshone also have ties to the Comanche. Today, the eastern Shoshone live in the Wind River area of Wyoming. I would love to visit but it's a very long drive and will have to wait for another adventure.

In the meantime, I wait for my ankle to heal and look forward next week to getting out to do some hiking and sight seeing within Yellowstone! I leave you with the recent view over Yellowstone Lake.