2015 Yellowstone Road Trip: Day 7 & 8 July 24 - 25: Wild West

2016 Yellowstone Road Trip: Day 7 - 8: July 24 & 25 - Wild West

States: Wyoming

Motorcycles that passed us: 39

Motorcycles we passed: 0

Trivia:

The west is very, very dusty.  It's obvious why the cowboys wore bandanas

There is only one restaurant in Cooke, WY where you can get pasta for lunch.

Culinary tastes out west are much different than what we're used to.

Miles Traveled: I lost track, but definitely more hours to drive the distance than the miles would indicate.

Memories:

Gordon:

Lunch Pasta Quest in Cooke, WY

Buffalo Bill Museum

2.5 Billion year old rocks drive

Cows on the road

The road down to the Plains

Danny:

The Gunfight in Cody

Bucking Broncos at the Rodeo

Therese:

The winding road

The kid calf stampede at the Cody Rodeo

The Natural History wing of the Buffalo Bill Museum

The cool, quirky hotel in Buffalo

Grace:

Meeting all the actors at the shoot-out

The second half of our Day 7 took  place in Wyoming: a whole different world from Yellowstone Park which is also in the state of Wyoming.

The guide books and several people at the campground had recommended, if we had the time, we should take the scenic Chief Joseph Highway from Yellowstone to Cody, WY.  Several guidebooks referred to the trip as hair raising and harrowing due to the mountain drive and the many switchbacks.  So we set out with some trepidation. 

Since I discovered I like the winding road driving, I was at the wheel.  True to the reviews, the drive was mountainous and there were many switchbacks.  However, it was never harrowing.  The roads were very modern with wide shoulders and many pullouts to let the faster traffic pass.  I had no trouble at the posted speed limits.  However, there were many motorcycles on the road coming in for the big rally in Sturgis, SD.  They all passed us.  We had fun counting.  Little did we know that later in our trip, 39 motorcycles would seem like an extremely small amount.

The drive was beautiful and the view from the top of the mountain was spectacular.  

We emerged from the mountains in a small town called Cooke.  Our camp hosts had recommended we eat at the "Bed and Bun". The food, they said, was excellent. Oops.

We had been eating sandwiches for lunch for a billion years according to Grace.  So rather than pulling over for a cooler lunch, we had planned to eat out as a treat.  Well Bed and Bun only had sandwiches.   Normally, I don't tolerate fussy kids when we eat out, but this was vacation and we had promised something other than sandwiches.  Grace wanted pasta.  There was no pasta to be found.  To make matters worse, we were diverted for a significant amount of time by a rock shop with lots of shiny things in the window.  We finally found the one place in the small town that served pasta.  The rest of their selections were quite good also, so we ate and hit the road.

It wasn't much further to Cody, WY.  Much to the appreciation of our dusty, cranky kids, the hotel had a trampoline right outside of our room door in the parking lot.  It was a small, family owned place, not much to write home about - but the service was excellent and did I mention they had a trampoline outside our room?

We couldn't stay long, though because we learned there was a shootout staged every night in front of the Irma Hotel in downtown Cody.  We headed the short distance over and grabbed some fast food and hunkered down to watch the action.  It was a pretty corny show with a lot of heart.  Money collected from the nominal charge for seating was used to support causes around children's illnesses, near and dear to our  hearts.  

There was a lot of patriotism and a lot of talk of gun safety because of course, guns are everywhere.

After the show, the actors offered to sign posters and Grace eagerly got everyone's autograph.  Danny held back a bit so I collected signatures for him.  I'm sure all the gunslingers believed me when I said the signatures were for my son.

We hightailed it back to our hotel to get into cool weather clothes and walked the short few blocks to the Cody Nite Rodeo.  The rodeo is held every night, all summer long.  During the week, entrants pay a fee hoping to win a prize.  On Saturday night, professional rodeo people participate..  We were there on an amateur  night and the whole thing had a feel of minor league baseball.  The stands were full and the crowd was very enthusiastic as were we.

It was really thrilling to watch the calf roping and cheer each contestant on as they tried to beat the previous best time.  The rodeo clowns had microphones and kept up a steady banter with the announcer and the crowd.

The highlight came at halftime when it was time for the calf stampede.  They called all the kids out to the field.  Before the announcement was even over, Grace was heading for the aisle.  Danny wasn't far behind.  In all, about 75 kids ended up on the field.  Their objective was going to be to snatch a ribbon off the tail of a calf for a prize.  

Before the contest began, the rodeo clown had the kids do some stretches.  Then he told them to grab handfuls of dirt and put it in their pockets. Finally he had them lie down and roll in the dirt.  Gordon and I just sighed - the kids had just had a quick bath, the first one of our vacation, before we headed to the rodeo.

The following morning we had no pressing agenda and decided to grab breakfast at the highly recommended restaurant directly across from the hotel.  This cemented our belief that we should never take recommendations from Wyoming people.  The food was fine.  But it was just pancakes, eggs, bacon, etc.  Nothing special - nothing you couldn't get at any average diner anywhere.  Oh well.

Our next stop was much more satisfying.  The guide books had listed the Buffalo Bill Museum of the west as a "must see". One of our Yellowstone camp friends had especially recommended the Gun Wing of the museum.  He said the collection was even larger than the NRA's collection.  We figured it would be a quick stop and a nice diversion before our drive to Buffalo.  However, it turned out to be everything and more than what we had heard.

The museum is actually an affiliate of the Smithsonian and is very modern and state-of-the-art. Buffalo Bill Cody is a huge focus with an entire wing devoted to him.  But this is only a small part of the museum.  The Natural History wing was very well done and kept the kids' interest as well as ours.  They also had a beautiful wing featuring art of the west.

Of course there were guns and it got a little creepy seeing people so into the annual variations of various types of guns.  There was a game you could pay to play which involved shooting at targets.  We were really impressed with Grace's aim as she hit about three of the targets.  Her form wasn't great, though as she balanced the butt of the gun on her chin.   Then the kid behind her got up to shoot and hit every single target.  We were, to say the least, out of our element.

The coolest part of the gun wing for me was the gun that was recently found in a forest after resting against a tree for over a hundred years.  There had been an article in the NYT when it was found and it was cool to see the actual gun.

We spent most of the afternoon at the museum and then made the short drive to Buffalo.

There was really  nothing to do in Buffalo but it was a nice launching point for our upcoming adventure in the Black Hills.  The hotel was a very pleasant surprise.  It was similar to the Cody Hotel in that it was the 50's style with doors that opened onto the parking lot.  But the woman who owns the hotel had turned the building into her personal sandbox.  Her art and collections of nests, feathers, bones, fossils, etc. were everywhere.  Whenever the whim hit, she created art in the hotel grounds.  She was a very interesting person as well and we enjoyed talking to her while enjoying the treat she baked, as she does every day.  She even took us into her residence off the lobby to show us her pride and joy, a raven made out of chicken wire and tar paper.  Super cool.

I needed to grocery shop that night and the kids seemed to have major screen withdrawal so we let them watch TV.  It happened that Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was playing so everyone was happy.

The next day we set out on our drive to the Black Hills.  It was another beautiful drive with some more mountain and valley driving.  We got to see both cows and sheep on the roads as this part of the country has open ranch land and you never know when an animal is going to get the yen to stroll across the road for greener pastures.

Another unexpected treat was the road signs that informed us of the age of the rock we were driving through.  We started with rock that was 2.5 billion years old!  Practically as old as the planet.  As we climbed the mountain the rock became younger and younger.  Soon the black hills appeared and not long after that we reached our campsite and that is a story for another day.    

Oh, and did I mention?...the kids got cowboy hats.