Still trying to figure out why Buffalo is called Buffalo.

So we leave, full of breakfast and confusion, and head west on US Highway 16, through Bighorn National Forest, riding the Cloud Peak Skyway.

We roll past beautiful Meadowlark Lake – population 8 and elevation 8,199. The lake is named for former Harlem Globetrotter Meadowlark Lemon, who’s in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

Half of that preceding sentence is true – the HOF part. Wyoming’s state bird is the Western Meadowlark. Seriously. Somewhere it is written that all states must have a city or town named after their state bird.

As we descend out of the mountains, we arrive in the town of Ten Sleep, population 260. We’ve ridden about 60 miles since leaving Buffalo. Ten Sleep was an American Indian rest stop that got its name because it was ten days travel, or “Ten Sleeps,” from Fort Laramie, from Yellowstone National Park, and from the Stillwater River. Ten Sleep is home to Ten Sleep Brewing Company, a microbrewery whose tagline is “Good Beer for Good People.”

It’s a bit early in the day for beer, no matter how good it is for us, so we press on toward Worland, where we turn north on US Highway 20 toward Manderson. That’s where you’ll find the Hi Way Bar & Café.

In the town of Greybull, home to actor Wilford Brimley, we head west on US Highway 14.

Fifty miles later, we arrive in Cody, on the banks of the Shoshone River at the western edge of the Bighorn Basin. The city is named after William Frederick Cody – better known as Buffalo Bill – a scout, bison hunter and showman – and one of the most colorful figures of the American Old West.

At one time a rider for the Pony Express at age 14, he got the nickname “Buffalo Bill” when he had a contract to supply Kansas Pacific Railroad workers with buffalo meat. He’s purported to have killed 4,282 American bison (commonly known as buffalo) in an 18-month period in the late 1860s.

The city of Cody’s primary industry is tourism, and the big deal in town is the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, a celebration of Buffalo Bill’s influence on western culture. The Buffalo Bill Center has five museums, including the Cody Firearms Museum, the Whitney Western Art Museum, the Draper Natural History Museum, the Plains Indian Museum, and the Buffalo Bill Museum, which chronicles the life of William F. Cody, for whom it’s named.

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Leaving Cody, we continue west on US Highway 14, passing Cedar Mountain, Buffalo Bill Reservoir and State Park, before rolling into Wapiti, 20 miles past Cody. Wapiti is named for the Cree Indian word for elk.

Thirty-two miles later, we arrive at the East Entrance to Yellowstone National Park.

Yellowstone was the world’s first national park, established by Congress and signed into law by President Ulysses S Grant in 1872. The park is known for its wildlife and geothermal features, especially the Old Faithful Geyser, which we will visit tomorrow.

Grizzly bears, wolves and free-ranging herds of bison and elk live in the park. The Yellowstone Park bison herd is the oldest and largest public bison herd in the US. More than 6,000 bison roam inside the park’s boundaries.

The bison’s resurgence in the park is a success story for nature lovers. After a mass slaughter of tens of millions of bison on the Great Plains in the late 1800s, conservationists brought about the nation’s first efforts to successfully recover a species teetering on the brink of extinction. While only 23 bison were left in Yellowstone in 1916, the herd today is thriving. In May 2016, the bison became America’s official national mammal, so named because of its historic, ecological, economical and cultural value.

With 4.5 million visitors in 2016, Yellowstone is the fourth-most visited National Park. Only Great Smoky Mountains, Grand Canyon, and Yosemite have more visitors. Yellowstone is huge – more than 2.2 million acres. You could spend weeks here exploring its natural beauty.

We have today and tomorrow. We’ll do a drive-by and hope for the best.

From the park’s entrance, we continue west for 25 miles, riding along the shoreline of Yellowstone Lake. We turn north, hugging the Yellowstone River, at 678 miles, the longest undammed river in the continental US. Fifteen miles later, we arrive in Canyon Village, the civilized hub of the Park.

Canyon Village gets its name from the nearby Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, which is about 20 miles long, 4,000 feet wide, and up to 1,200 feet deep. Artist Point, Lookout Point, Grand View, and Inspiration Point all provide breathtaking views of the canyon.

After snapping photos and selfies galore, we turn west onto Norris Canyon Road, which takes us to the Norris Geyser Basin, the hottest and most changeable geyser basin in the park. The tallest active geyser in the world, reaching more than 300 feet, is Steamboat Geyser, located here in Norris Basin.

Unlike the slightly smaller but much more famous Old Faithful Geyser, which we’ll visit tomorrow, Steamboat has an erratic and lengthy timetable between major eruptions. Sometimes, Steamboat Geyser goes more than a year between major eruptions. Since you couldn’t be here with us, the next best thing may be an online tour offered by the National Park Service.

The online tour is much quieter and less stinky than actually being here. The Norris Geyser Basin is one of the most thermally extreme environments on the planet, with temperatures measured as high as 459 F, 1,000 feet below the surface.

Throughout Yellowstone National Park, there are more than 10,000 hot springs and geysers. Tomorrow, we’ll visit the most famous – and predictable – of them all. Old Faithful.

But first, we’re tired and hungry, so we jump on US Highway 89 (sometimes called Grand Loop Road), then US Highway 191, and head for tonight’s destination, West Yellowstone, Montana – just outside the Park’s western entrance. Montana is the eighth of nine states we’ll visit on this trip.

West Yellowstone is home to the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center, a non-profit wildlife park that provides a safe way to observe these creatures up close and personal. Wanna see what the bears are up to? Check out a live view, known as the Bear Habitat Webcam.

There are no panda bears here, but that would be an interesting tourist draw. Turns out more than half the tourists coming through West Yellowstone are from China. The tourism surge is being fueled by looser visa rules, rising middle class salaries, and a growing desire among the younger generation to explore the world.

Chinese visitors to Yellowstone have increased so dramatically in recent years that the park has hired three Mandarin-speaking interpretive rangers to help with communication. This trio of rangers tries to help with language and cultural barriers. In the 2016 summer season, a tourist from China was fined $1,000 for walking off a boardwalk in the park and collecting thermal water, apparently for medicinal purposes.

For many Chinese, the attraction to Yellowstone has to do with it being a natural place, without the severe pollution and big crowds found in larger Chinese cities. And, they get to see old American guys on Harleys pursuing their bucket list dreams.

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Day Thirteen Summary: Channeling Meadowlark Lemon, honoring Buffalo Bill, seeing Yellowstone’s Grand Canyon, smelling the Park’s odiferous geothermal features.

Click here to see today’s complete route from Buffalo to West Yellowstone.

We’re on our way home.

Vroom, vroom.

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Today in Bucket List History:

Bucket List item: “Do Something To Restore Faith in the Country.”

Goal Achieved: On August 9, 1974, Richard Nixon resigns the presidency, and Vice President Gerald Ford becomes the 38^th president. Nixon’s final words to the White House staff: “You are here to say goodbye to us, and we don’t have a good word for it in English – the best is au revoir.  We’ll see you again.”

What’s on your bucket list?