We only spent 3+ days in Cody, WY but they were good ones! We stayed at Absaroka Bay RV Park. For those of you who say "I could never drive around staying in RV Parks..." this is probably the type of place you have in mind. It's in the middle of the city and sites are literally on top of each other. And...if in the evening you are outside of your trailer and you happen to unconsciously look up at your neighbor's trailer and he doesn't have his shades down - you might just see things that you cannot UN-SEE!!!! "Luckily" it was just him in his skivvies but, um, that "vision" is unfortunately seared into my brain for life... However, this campground had two good things going for it - location to the things we wanted to see in Cody, and good laundry facilities (aka no need for a laundromat!).
My hubby got big time brownie points in plotting out things to do and see while here. We were sitting in the trailer the first night and he said "do you want to do a dinner and a show and a rodeo?"...He'd found this place that had a package deal of all three and I thought to myself - well...my Fab 5 girls HAD sent us a gift card to do something special - so THAT sounds like the perfect something special to me!! (EDITOR's NOTE: The "Fab 5" are myself and 4 of my very special State Champion teammates from Apponequet Regional High School. We have stayed in touch over the years and they have always remained close to my heart and have become even a more significant part of my world over the past 6'ish years or so.) So it was all systems go and just like that we had reservations for a full night of entertainment planned for the next night!
Our first full day in town was chock-full of adventures. We went in the early morning to the Buffalo Bill Dam so that Penny could comfortably accompany us on the adventure. Unfortunately, she couldn't see the dam itself, but she enjoyed prancing around the area and seeing the sites and was then more than happy to nap in the truck while we saw the DAMN DAM - and DAMN it was something!! The view was spectacular, but learning about how they engineered and persevered to complete one of the first concrete arch dams in the United States in 1910 under amazingly harsh atmospheric and economic conditions was an incredibly impressive and jaw-dropping feat. It was a wonderful learning experience and then to see the splendor of the dam on top of that... a definitely highlight.
Next up as we drove around Cody was The Old Trail Town. Again, another hubby great find! They have recreated the frontier west in Buffalo Bill's original Cody Town. OK...I have saved this damn draft a million times because I wanted to say more about the Old Trail Town. I am going to STEAL from their website here to explain what it is because it was great and I don't want to stall posting this any longer just so I can give props to this fun stop on the Kay & Karl adventure! The next paragraph (italicized) is from their website:
Old Trail Town preserves the lifestyle and history of the Frontier West through a rare collection of authentic structures and furnishings. From remote locations in Wyoming and Montana these historic buildings were carefully disassembled, moved and reassembled here at Old Trail Town....Located here also are thousands of historic artifacts from the Old West and grave sites of several notable Western figures. Among them is the grave of mountain man John Johnston, who was portrayed by the actor Robert Redford in the 1972 motion picture “Jeremiah Johnson”. Here too are original cabins used by Old West outlaws Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and a Wyoming saloon frequented by Cassidy’s “Hole-in-the-Wall Gang”. Also on this site is the log cabin home of “Curley” a Crow Indian army scout who helped guide Lt Col. George A. Custer and the U.S. 7th Cavalry to the battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876. Old Trail Town exists today as a memorial to the uniquely American experience known throughout the world as “the Old West”.
We really enjoyed this insight into the Old West. I was particularly enthralled with the gravesite and the display they had on Jeremiah Johnson (or John "Liver-Eating" Johnston as he was known as back in the day). They actually moved his grave to the Old Trail Town in 1974 from a Veteran's cemetery in CA as he had always wished to be buried in the great Northwest where he had roamed. Robert Redford (who played him in "Jeremiah Johnson" the dramatized movie of his life) was there with his relatives for this occasion. Seeing all the newspaper clippings and reading more about him was cool. Getting to see all the wagons and machinery they'd used and the actual cabins set up with belongings and furnishings really made me feel like I was back in time. I especially enjoyed the lamps made out of deer(?) legs and hooves as a base (pictured) - a little creepy but pretty ingenious as well! And it was fun to get to belly up to the bar like the ones I had seen in old western movies and TV shows like Gunsmoke and Bonanza. All in all a very cool stop.
Then Penny got to take a well deserved nap as we went off to our big date night at The Cody Cattle Company - complete with a Chuck Wagon Dinner and a fun show with the Triple C Cowboys. It was one of the places where you sat at big cafeteria type tables with strangers and you had to wait for your table to be called to go up to the buffet. The place was beyond western themed (after all - it IS called the "Cody Cattle Company") but it didn't feel cheesy - it felt...RIGHT! The dinner consisted of brisket, chicken, cornbread, beans, applesauce, slaw etc. Although we'd had a similar dinner in Nebraska, this was - mmmm good!!! I mean I've had some darn good barbecue in my day but the brisket was perfectly (literally perfectly) smoked and cooked and the cornbread melted in your mouth and...YUUUMMM! And the entertainment was another home run! Again, I was expecting it to be a little hokey but totally enjoyable, but these were actually some more really talented musicians! The lead guy is Ryan Martin who is a 3-time flat pick guitar champion and the Western Music Association's instrumentalist of the year. And the award winning fiddle player, the bass player and keyboard player were not too shabby themselves!
And then there was the rodeo... During the summertime Cody is famous for having a rodeo every night of the week. The rodeo grounds are right down the street from the restaurant so it was a fun little power walk to ensure that we made it there on time without missing anything. I didn't even have to box out any small children in line to get inside on time, so that was a plus too! Since this was not our maiden rodeo voyage we knew (sort of kind of ) what we were in for with all the different categories of events. It was fun to not be clueless and this time there were no accidents or ambulances involved so it was a much more stress free experience. Although fun and thrilling, I don't think it was a PRCA quality rodeo. Oh, for you rodeo sheltered folks out there, that would be the "professional rodeo cowboys association" - basically the major leagues of rodeos (as we experienced in Nebraska). But the weather was again perfect and we totally enjoyed a fun and memorable date night in Wyoming!!
The next day we got up early and strolled up the main street in Downtown before the sun got too hot. I got to meander in some shops (just cuz I haven't "shopped" in a while) and felt proud that I came out empty handed each time. I did scoop me up some local coffee beans though from a couple of different places - but THAT was a necessity. Karl enjoyed my shopping excursion because he made friends with a lovely retired Navy gentleman and they enjoyed each other's company while sitting on a bench discussing what ships they had been on and how their respective lives had unfolded. I had to get a picture of the two cuties because I felt bad "breaking them up" when I eventually insisted it was time to get moving.
Our last significant event in the city was the Cody Gunfight - i.e., the Shoot Out at the Irma Hotel. Earlier in the day we purchased a couple of seats (for a whopping $3/each) so that we wouldn't have to arrive early for the 6PM show. It was a 30minute show on the street outside the Irma Hotel including Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Doc Holiday et al. It was worth a chuckle or two and Karl enjoyed me spazzing out whenever a shot was fired unexpectedly! We had originally planned to spend the afternoon at the Buffalo Bill Center Of The West which is made up of 5 separate museums. This had come highly recommended from pretty much anyone who had ever travelled to the area, and had been high on our "to do list" but, unfortunately, we were wiped out and needed some down time writing post cards and doing pretty much nothing but sitting in the AC.
Really memorable stop. AND the town shares a name with a very sweet dog I used to groom. So all in all - lots of fuel for the soul!
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