a scary experience/to Yellowstone via Cody, Wyoming

My day got off to a good start; I watched a group of wild turkeys cross the road in front of me as I left the campground.

I stopped once at a roadside minimarket and got a 16 oz. cup of Cappucino for just $1.39. What would that have cost me at Starbucks?

For lunch I followed a roadside sign to a nearby picnic area. It had about a dozen picnic tables of which only three were occupied. The area was heavily interspersed with pine trees and I could smell the pine. The temperature was about 70 degrees with a light breeze. Couldn't have been a better setting for lunch.
Along the way I passed Crazy Woman Creek. What's in a name? I don't know what's in this one but I'm sure there's a good story somewhere.

I pulled off the road to rest at a roadside pullover and saw a dirt road leading from it which said "Route 16, eight miles." I thought I was on Route 16, but I decided to follow it and see where I ended up. It turned out to be quite a scenic trip. The route went up and eventually reached an area high above a deep canyon with a river running through it. It was quite striking and quite large. It may not have been the Grand Canyon, but it was certainly a grand canyon.

The road was quite narrow and curvy, however, and at one point a police car driving too fast came towards me around one of the curves. I swerved the little bit I could toward the drop to the canyon, and he swerved to his right enough to just avoid hitting me. It was all over before I even had time to be frightened, but in retrospect it was a reminder of what a chancy business life is. One minute I am driving along minding my own business; the next moment I am within a few inches of being pushed over the side of a cliff and being one of the 40,000 people killed annually in car accidents. A few minutes later I was back on the main road and continued on my way.

I was getting tired and tried to get a cup of coffee and a piece of apple pie in a little town called Greybull (Wyoming). No luck. No place in town that served apple pie. I finally settled for a root beer float (with extra root beer) at an ice cream parlor. In a town without apple pie, I hardly expected to find WIFI, but I asked anyway, and to my great surprise they not only had WIFI in the town, but they had it right in that very ice cream parlor. I brought in my netbook, opened it, and found that Ilana was Skyping me. I answered her call and had a pleasant video conversation with her and Miriam (who is still cute!)

                                            statue of Buffalo Bill, Cody, Wyoming

My next stop was Cody, Wyoming, which is Buffalo Bill country. They have a Buffalo Bill Museum, which was closed for the day by the time I got there, and a huge statue of Buffalo Bill on his horse.



They also have a rodeo which goes on every evening. I had called up Yellowstone National Park earlier in the day to make a reservation for a campsite, but I was still anxious to get there and get set up before dark, so I was about to pass up the rodeo, when the thought came to me,"Yellowstone will still be there tomorrow, but I can only see this rodeo tonight," so I went back and attended the rodeo.

I'm glad I did. It was quite an event. First they played God Bless America and America the Beautiful while a young girl rode around the arena holding a big American flag. Sure, it was kind of hokey but it was also very dramatic and moving as well. It might have been even more effective if it had not been immediately followed by horsemen and women riding around the arena in a similar format holding flags of the various sponsors of the event while announcers encouraged people to patronize these Cody businesses. Oh well, I suppose it's all America.

Then the events began. There was the wild bronco-riding and the bullriding which one might expect at a rodeo. I was surprised that no one got hurt; it seems like a hard way to make a living, especially considering that the contestants have to pay an entrance fee and only the winner of each event gets prize money.
They also had roping events where the cowboys had to rope a calf and tie him up. The women were also not neglected. The women did not ride the wild broncos or the bulls, but they did compete along with boys under sixteen in roping events. (I guess they figured there was a certain equality between boys under sixteen and women.) Nor were children under 13 neglected. In one case there was a six year old who actually rode one of the bulls - although not for very long. I remarked to the lady sitting beside me that in Pennsylvania the parents would have been turned in for child abuse.

And just to spice things up - since I suppose just the traditional rodeo events weren't enough - three teenagers were selected from the audience to come into the arena and participate in a dance contest. There was also an event where all the children in the audience were encouraged to come into the arena. Three calves were then released with ribbons tied to their tails, and the children who were able to get the ribbons off of the calves' tails were given some kind of prize from a local merchant. It was quite an evening!

Incidentally, I did eventually get a great piece of apple pie at a restaurant called Grannys there in Cody. It was so good that I asked to talk to the chef so I could compliment him - or her if it was actually granny who baked it. The young lady at the cash register, however, said that the pie had probably been baked in the morning by someone on the morning shift, so I had to forego that request.

I didn't get to Yellowstone until 11:00 PM. When I got there I found out that I had another 50 miles to drive to get to my campsite. At one point I came to a T in the road and the signs there did not include my camping area. Moreover, there weren't a lot of people to whom I could turn for directions after midnight on this very dark road. Fortunately, as I was pondering what to do, a truck pulled up behind me, and the driver was able to point me in the right direction. I did eventually find my campsite at about 1:00 am. It turns out that Yellowstone is 7,000 to 8,000 feet high (the Appalachians are 4,000-5,000 feet) and quite cold at night. The thermometer in my car registered 39 degrees. I wasn't about to even think about putting my tent up at that point, so I just adjusted my car seat to the sleep position and called it a day.