Ride 'Em Cowboy! - Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Ride 'Em Cowboy! - Tuesday, June 14, 2011

The sign over the road down Yellowstone Avenue reads, "Rodeo tonight! 8:00PM" Another place it explains that from June until September there is a rodeo at 8pm every night. As we rode past the venue at 8:20 there were a lot of cars in the small parking lot but the stands were not full of people. And there was a lot of dust being kicked up at one end of the field. Cody, Wyoming, is a cowboy town.

There is a Buffalo Bill Historical Center in town which is surrounded by the Buffalo Bill State Forest and then there's the Buffalo Bill Dam. Since the main industry in Cody is tourism there is much to do and see and eat. Even Wal-Mart showed up here. And I want to check out the Sierra Trading Post Outlet store before we leave...I hope. But we have a lot more important things to do before we leave on Sunday to start our trek eastward.

When Tom got up this morning after 6am it was 40 degrees outside and 50 degrees in the trailer. He turned the heater on (for me) and went to shave. When he got back it was 45 degrees outside and 60 degrees in the trailer. It was so nice when I got up even before he returned.

Even after getting up a little later and having most things done to leave, we weren't completely ready to go until 9:05am. Our ETA was 12:15pm. But since this RV Park says that check in time is 3pm (maybe that's just for the hotel) Tom decided not to hurry and to enjoy the scenery.

We noticed when we entered it that the town of Lander has an elevation of 5357 ft. That's another town with an elevation of over a mile high. Denver advertises itself as "the Mile High City." I always thought that that was rare. Now I'm finding out that there are a lot of towns that could say that but they couldn't say "City."

Lilacs are in bloom and people are just planting the flowers around their houses.

I had been hoping that we would get to ride through the part of Lander that we didn't see yesterday but I was dissappoined. But we got to see some new and wonderful territory. One of the things that we have been seeing sometimes on our travels were oil wells. Some of them were working and some were not. The ones we saw today were working. I'm curious as to how much they produce in one day.

Because we drove more slowly today than on other days we arrived at the Yellowstone Resort and RV Park a little after 2pm. We set up the trailer and, as has become our custom, we "crashed." When we got up we did the dishes.

Then it was time to eat. We didn't feel like cooking so between the navigator and the "urbanspoon" we found "Bubba's Bar-B-Que." So we ate "cowboy" tonight. And because we were a little earlier than the "dinner crowd" we had a quiet meal as well.

Then we went food shopping and looked for a laundromat. The one at the park is expensive ($2 for washer and for dryer) we looked for one in town. Of the two we found, the second was the better of them. There were people using the second one compared to no people in the first one. And the second one was clean. But it, too, wanted $2 for a washer and twenty-five cents for I don't know how much time on the dryer. I was told that the washers held a lot. The sign said that they were double capacity. We shall see what we decide by Saturday. This will be out last laundry day on the road.

When we came back to the trailer we put away half of the groceries and then started on the book work. It was much later than usual.

Tom gave up and went to the bathrooms, came back and went to bed. After a while I went to the bathrooms. I didn't want to go out when it was colder. It is now 12:20am and the outside temperature is 52 degrees. The inside is 63 degrees. Besides, we were reminded when we checked in that this is bear country so we should be careful when we are out after dark alone.

With that thought I say "good night."