Day 11—the Timms family gets their ‘cowboy’ on

We all slept in this morning—it’s amazing how tired you get from simply driving around and getting in and out of the RV—we’ve taken a few short walks and such but nothing really strenuous since Jackson and yet we’re all just wiped out every night! Anyway, it was nice to kind of have a leisurely morning around ‘camp’ and then we headed out around 10:30 to the Cody Wal-Mart (#3). It looked like a typical Wal-Mart on the inside—but the outside was cute enough to warrant a picture! (And please just ignore the little emergency happening on the sidewalk in my photo—I didn’t notice the lady on the ground until Michael pointed it out—Ooops! I think she was okay—just fell or something!). I was excited to find “Wheat Montana” bread products in the store (but no grain)—they are a major producer of wheat and I’ve heard a lot about them & their flour so I’m looking forward to tasting their bread. We ate lunch at a cute local BBQ place—Bubba’s BBQ (which sounds more like a southern joint than a western one, IMHO!). I feel like this is an appropriate time to mention that if you enjoy eating honey mustard, be prepared to bring your own when you visit Wyoming—apparently, they have a statewide aversion to serving it or something! My poor chicken finger loving daughter has had a rough time without her beloved honey mustard!! I didn’t realize it was a regional item!

After stopping at a museum/gift shop with an awesome miniature display of the history of the West, the rest of the afternoon was spent with Michael and Ralph trying to repair our ‘facilities’… not to get into too much icky detail, but we had noticed some problems and they needed attention. After several trips to get supplies, they completed the necessary repair.

Our evening plans were to attend the Cody Nite Rodeo. This was our first time to ever attend such an event and it was really fun! The girls both wore their cowgirl hats and we were all whoopin’, hollerin’ and stampin’ our feet while the cowboys and cowgirls did their thing. Michael’s favorite was the bull riding. The girls loved the barrel racing, and I enjoyed the calf-roping (though I did feel a bit sorry for the poor calves who would lie there looking like ‘what in the world just happened to me?!!”). Another thing that I think we all appreciated was that they began the rodeo with a very meaningful invocation—clearly there is no worry here about being ‘politically correct’—the people of Wyoming love God & country and aren’t afraid to say so… very refreshing! After a late night stop at McDonald’s (#7) for free ice cream—courtesy of our campground—we all headed to bed and were out cold in a matter of minutes!

The weather was much improved today—and while I wouldn’t say it was warm, it was significantly warmer than in Yellowstone. We also heard that it rained all day there today so we’re glad that we made the decision to leave. We had originally only planned one night in Cody, but by staying here 2 nights, we were able to have a little ‘down time’ (well, Michael & Ralph would probably disagree about that since they were busy with repairs!).

Tomorrow, we are heading about 80 miles south to the town of Thermopolis, where we will spend the night before picking back up on our original itinerary again. Thermopolis is famous for it’s mineral hot springs—so I’m hoping all the ‘old people’ (yes, me included) will be able to enjoy some of it’s supposed ‘healing benefits’ for achy bones and joints. The high is forecasted to be 75 and sunny—which will be a welcome sight!