"The Rodeo Capital of the World"

We left West Yellowstone Friday morning and headed back thru the park towards Cody, Wyoming. We got to Cody that afternoon and set up shop in our new campground for the next three nights. Cody is the birthplace of the rodeo and also the town founded by the famous William F. Cody (aka Buffalo Bill), who is responsible for settling the Wild West. We started our Cody adventure Friday night by taking the convenient campground shuttle bus to the world famous Stampede Rodeo. The rodeo was a true Western rodeo and we saw bare back bronc riding, saddle back bronc riding, women’s break away roping, steer roping, team steer roping, women’s barrel racing, and finally the famous bull riding. We also saw some other interesting things such as a 5 year old bull rider and our bus driver’s daughter Liz, who is Cody’s famous female bull rider. After the rodeo we ventured into downtown Cody to see what the town had to offer. We found a cool little bar called the Silver Dollar and met some very cool local folks.


Saturday was pretty much a rain day and we just ran a few errands, watched a few movies, and then embarked on another trip to the rodeo that night. We returned to our normal seats and sat with one of our new friends who was an Australian grandmother watching her friends compete in the rodeo. We started out the rodeo minding our own business and simply enjoying the events. However, about halfway thru the rodeo we were approached by a bachelorette party from Bozeman, Montana! They were a group of very sweet girls and we enjoyed watching the rest of the rodeo with them. After the rodeo we were somehow appointed to head up the transportation and security detail for the rest of the party. We smuggled the group onto the shuttle bus and went back into town with the girls and had a good time hanging out with them at the Silver Dollar. They ended up getting super stalked and eventually chased by a bull rider and pickup man from the rodeo. We escorted them back to the front door of their hotel as the creepers followed in their truck as we walked them down the street. We said our goodbyes to the girls and now have five new friends and a wedding to attend on September 12th in Bozeman, Montana.


Sunday was our last day in Cody and we went to the Buffalo Bill Historical Center. The world famous Cody Firearms Museum was by far the best exhibit. They had a little over 6000 guns on exhibit that represented pretty much every gun manufacturer in existence. The exhibit led us thru the evolution of the very first firearm all the way to the present mass production of modern weapons. The firearms exhibit also had an amazing Boone and Crockett display of every animal you could imagine from a mounted Walrus to the world record Polar Bear who stood 11’ tall. We also went thru the Buffalo Bill museum that examined the American cowboy, dude ranching, the settling of the west, and how Buffalo Bill utilized his outdoor shows to communicate to the world about the American west. After the museum we strolled thru downtown Cody one last time, grabbed some dinner, and then headed back to the camper and called it an early night. Tomorrow we are out early and headed to Darby, Montana to visit my cousin Lacy at his ranch and spend some time in the true west away from the tourist areas.


Cheggy

Yellowstone National Park

If you have never been to Yellowstone National Park it would be hard for me to explain how amazing it is and most pictures cannot do it justice! It is a huge park, 3,468 square miles/2.2 million acres to be exact, with a wide array of terrain including rivers, forests, grasslands, mountains, and thermal fields. The thermal fields were the most interesting thing to me; there would be holes in the ground constantly pouring scalding hot gases or boiling water. We spent three days exploring the park; with an estimated 400 miles of road in the park we covered just about all of them! Along the way we encountered a lot of wildlife including bald eagles, elk, bison, black bear, blacktail deer and a lot of Asian tourists!! The first day we did all the touristy things like seeing Old Faithful, reading all the history and nature facts and taking a million pictures. After a day of driving, Cheggy and I decided it was time to get out of the truck and start doing some fishing! We had stopped by a fishing outfitter shop that night and explained to them that we were just a bunch of rednecks from Georgia (like we needed to explain that) and didn’t have fly rods so wanted to know what was the best tactic to catch some trout. They were helpful enough to tell us of what tackle we needed to use and what areas in the park we would have the best chance to catch some fish.


So the next morning we started on our great fishing expedition into the park, of course after buying a license and getting a lecture from the park ranger who obviously thought we were adult delinquents based on our camo hats and NASCAR t-shirts! We scouted out some areas where we thought surely the tourists wouldn’t be so we could get some serious fishing done but upon our arrival we found fly fisherman everywhere! We stuck out among this group of fishermen, to say the least, with our Wal-mart water shoes, shorts, spinning rods and southern accents. After 10 hours we returned to the camper empty handed, kind of, we had fished in rivers that looked like they came straight from a National Geographic documentary and that in its self was worth the trip.


The next morning we headed to some creeks and rivers on the western border of the park to try our luck. We rode around debating where the creeks were and if we were still in the park or which direction we needed to go before finding the perfect fishing hole. Cheggy was the first to the river and on the first cast caught a nice brown trout; finally we had found some fish!!! The next few hours we either caught or lost (we like to call it easy release) about 6 nice trout. We felt a little special after talking to some fly fishermen who had only had one hit, the Georgia boys had showed them up! After cleaning our catch, under the watchful eye of a hungry bald eagle, we headed home to get ready for our big event in West Yellowstone, the local rodeo! The rodeo was located about 5 miles out of town in the middle of a field and had a seating capacity of about 350. The crowd was mainly tourist and totally diverse! They had all the events of a typical rodeo just with a few less participants than usual, mainly because of no-shows according to the announcer. It was still a good time and a great way to end our stay in West Yellowstone. We’re actually headed back east to Cody Wyoming, Home of the Rodeo, for a few days. Stay posted we’ve got some cool things planned for this weekend!

Grand Tetons

We pulled out of Estes Park, Colorado Sunday morning and began the long haul to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The drive took 12 hours, but was totally worth the scenery. We avoided all major highways and took all scenic routes through some of the most beautiful country God put on this earth. We were a bit shocked once we reached the Continental Divide in Wyoming. We were greeted with snow on the ground, 40 mph wind gusts, and temperatures in the low 40's. After descending back into lower altitudes we needed a pit stop for groceries and fuel. Perhaps the most amazing aspect of the entire trip was a visit to the Wal-Mart in Rock Springs, Wyoming. It was unlike any other Wal-Mart trip I have ever experienced. At about 8:00 PM it was getting dark and we decided to call the next campground where we had tentatively made arrangements. To our surprise we learned they sold out and had no room for our party wagon! After frantic phone calls we learned all of the campgrounds around Jackson Hole were already closed for the day. At this point the temperature was starting to reach the 30's and we had no place to go! We decided to just roll into town and wing it. Our fateful Garmin totally screwed us and led us to some shady boys camp where we could barely turn around the rig. We finally got back on the stretch to Jackson Hole and by chance happened to pass by a KOA campground. KOA is now our new arch nemesis. They charged us a fortune and the spots aren't even big enough to hold a Ford Pinto and a one-man my first tent. Our neighbors were literally 4 feet away and had a camper full of screaming kids that were absolutely tearing the place apart. After John and Kate plus eight finally shut up we called it a night and tried to stay warm in the windy 32 degree weather.

On Monday we headed into Grand Teton National Park. The Grand Tetons are located just to the south of Yellowstone in NW Wyoming. They are pretty much extremely steep granite spires that rise almost 14,000 feet in elevation. At the base of the range are several blue crystal clear glacier fed lakes that are pretty amazing. We started out by exploring around all of the lakes and then went for a 6 mile hike at Signal Mountain, which is a summit overlooking Jackson Lake and the 3 major Tetons. After our hike we drove around several dirt roads throughout the park looking for wildlife. We saw many pronghorn antelope and a few buffalo along the drive. We headed back to the campground that afternoon and cooked up some dinner and decided to catch up on some laundry. The visit to the laundromat at the KOA campground was a very interesting experience. It was Potts and me along with a group of moms doing midnight laundry. They were pretty interested in our adventure and I think we made quite an impression. As fate would have it, we ran out of quarters and didn't have enough change to dry our clothes. There was no change machine and everything in town was already closed. The wonderful RV housewives of the Jackson Hole KOA took up a collection amongst themselves and donated enough quarters to our cause so that we could have dry clothes. A few hours later and a couple deeply intrigued women, we had our laundry finished and were ready to get some sleep and move the show to Yellowstone.

Cheggy

Rocky Mountain National Park

We said our farewell’s to Uncle Guy and started the short journey north to the little town of Estes Park, Colorado. After doing a little last minute research, we found a nice campground with a great view that was only a mile from the entrance of Rocky Mountain National Park. We arrived about lunch time and starting the typical setup of the camper, but today would be anything but typical. As Cheggy and I relaxed from our hard day of driving and watching our new TV with satellite, we heard a strange noise and soon found our camper without power. Not a problem we said, the breaker tripped on the electrical hookup or maybe the cord disconnected slightly…that has to be it. But after investigating the situation we discovered we had some serious electrical issues on our hands, the main power cord for everything in the camper had been pinched in the frame, shorted and burned through the bottom of the under liner. Needless to say after 6 hours of work, a trip to the local hardware store, a thunderstorm, and varying opinions from all of our surrounding neighbors we had the power up in running again. After all the excitement we called it an early night to rest up for our visit to the Rocky Mountain National Park

The next morning we woke up to the cool 42 degree weather and started the ascend to the beautiful scenery of the park. After a quick stop at the visitor center Cheggy and I were headed to a very unfamiliar destination… a hiking trail. I know what everyone is thinking, Cheggy and I hiking in the Colorado mountains? With our fancy new hiking boots and bottled water we attempted our first mountain hike, a 2.2 mile loop to visit some of the prettiest views in the country. Once we accomplished our daily feat we decided to view the rest of the park from the cab of the truck! It was an amazing drive with all different kinds of terrain throughout the park. Varying from alpine tundra where the temperature was 45 degrees with about 60-70 mph wind gusts to the valley lakes where the temperature was 70! We're headed north tomorrow to the great state of Wyoming!

-Potts

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