Thermopolis to Cody
At Granny’s Donuts, this morning, we didn’t have donuts. Debbie was proud of her restraint, having only a bagel and cream cheese — although she did order extra cream cheese. I revelled in my ham, eggs and hash browns, and my toast. I gave Debbie some of the toast, to bulk up her meal a bit…
Afterwards, Debbie attempted to photograph the Thermopolis Police — the Thermo-police — while I got distracted by the iron dinosaur outside the dinousaur museum.
With that, we carried on our way, this time not pausing for the World’s Largest Mineral Hot Springs mountainside writing, nor for the World’s Largest Mineral Hot Springs. Some 20 miles North, it came to our attention that we should have taken a different route through Thermopolis. If we had taken that route, however, we wouldn’t have been distracted into stopping in Thermopolis, and would have missed out on the springs, the spa, and the restaurant full of stuffed animals — so it was a good wrong turn, and I was navigating when we took it. Yay me.
We corrected by taking a state road West until we rejoined the road to Cody. Cody was founded, and is named after, Buffalo Bill Cody, a man who shares his initials with the British Broadcasting Corporation, and Breeze Bar and Club. Ever the entrepreneur, BBC placed his town so that you practically couldn’t drive to Yellowstone from the South East without going through it, and pulled strings to get a third entrance to Yellowstone opened by the government.
We passed dozens of motels and restaurants — and not much else — on our way through Cody, before eventually finding the Buffalo Bill Historical Centre, actually five well respected museums. We elected to get a combined museum and trolley tour ticket, and with the time available had a reasonable explore of two museums — the Buffalo Bill museum and the Natural History museum (which is very much Yellowstone oriented). We managed a cursory look at the art gallery — various depictions of Yellowstone, and very nice too. We didn’t have time for the firearms museum or the Plains Indians museum.
In the Natural History section, an exhibit discussed the controversial move of reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone. In general, conservationists are for it, while farmers oppose it. Visitors were invited to provide their opinion on comment slips, some of which were displayed. One said: "God did not create wolves: the Devil did"; another paraphrased Genesis (the book, not the band), saying that since God gave Man dominion over all the animals, NO WOLVES!
The trolley tour was very slickly narrated my Mike and Margie, a well rehearsed husband and wife team who were obsessed by the saga of BBC’s burial — he was buried in Denver, contrary to what his will specified and to the anger of Cody’s residents, but some believe that a Cody doctor snuck up to Denver and substituted a similar looking corpse. Hmm. We were also handed a rock to look at. Twice.
Debbie and I were both amused when they pointed out the oldest building in Cody; built in 1896. They were very proud of it. Bless.
Cody does seem like a nice place to live — the pesky tourists bring money and ameneties that a population this small could not usually afford.
Cody’s other claim to fame is its rodeo. During summer they have one every single night, and of course we got tickets. With our evening planned out, we checked into the Days Inn near the rodeo arena, popped into Walmart for some bits and bobs, grabbed a quick but filling pizza buffet at Pizza Hut, and got to the arena early, for some good seats.
We are in room 101, but unless your deepest fear is a wheelchair friendly bathroom, it doesn’t live up to its reputation. Pizza Hut had dessert pizza. That still impresses me.
We were among the first at the rodeo, so we got seats right at the front of the "Buzzard’s Roost", which overlooks the chutes where they prepare the various beasts for their ordeal.
We spent an hour watching cowboys and girls of various ages trot around the arena on horses, and talking to the Ohio farmer who was sat next to us. By the time the show began, the light was fading, and it soon became clear that photography would not be very successful — a good thing in a way because it freed me to enjoy the show.
In order to be polite, we stood through a patriotic introduction, in which — as children on horseback carried large US flags — the national anthem was preceeded by a recording of a Dubya about the war, and some stuff about God, etc.
Highlights included:
- A mildly homophobic joke (too long to repeat)
- The announcer saying "Is there anyone here from Massachusetts?", followed by a cheer from somewhere in the crowd, then "Welcome to the United States of America". Hoho.
- 200 children chasing two calves, trying to get ribbons off their tails. That’s what I call a spectacle.
- Bucking bronco and bull riding. I’m not sure I’d like to fall off one of those things if it was standing still
- A man trying to shoo a bull into its pen, by whacking it with a spade shaped implement, and in return being charged and pushed up and over the fence.
I’m not sure whether all this is cruel to the animals, but they looked in good shape, and I suspect these people know a lot about animal husbandry.
Back in the hotel, The Day After Tomorrow is on. It’s not as funny the second time around.