Subject: Catching up from Cody
Hello all. Here is a report from Cody, WY as we are preparing to leave. We have really enjoyed our time in Cody. But now we are moving. Having heard from our friends, Sam and Brenda, who are currently in Lewisville, TX we hear the temps are still close to 100 and they even reported a 107 temp during their drive through CO. We took a vote and the unanimous decision is not to head towards the heat but to continue our travels eastward until the heat leaves TX. So tomorrow we will head to Gillette, WY for a stopover.
Brenda let me know from the last email she expects the Screwy Louie tournament to continue once we are back together in TX. Of course, Sophie and I are game but I am not sure Beverly (Bibi) is up to it after the last ‘spanking’ their team endured. We will see. Maybe she will have recovered enough from the mental stress to participate.
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| Getting close to Cody, WY |
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| Lake and tunnel entrance to other side entering Cody |
Our first full day in Cody was Sunday and Bart dropped by that evening. During his visit, he showed David and I the lures, line and fishing tackle he uses for trout fishing. He is taking us fishing on Tuesday. So Labor Day, David and I searched in Wal-Mart for the appropriate fishing enticements. We did not find exactly what we were looking for but found enough similar lures to go fishing. Bart had already bought all the lures he recommended we use but anticipated the store would have more by now. Not to be deterred, we went looking for other tackle stores but are pleasantly surprised that people in Wyoming take Labor Day seriously and were not open.
The next morning Bart picked us up at 7 and we went to a local eatery for breakfast, called ‘Our Place.’ He told us we needed to be there no later than 7:30 or we would have to stand and wait for a place to eat. It is a place the locals enjoy and he was correct, because around 7:30 the place was packed and hungry folks waiting to get in on the porch. Wish I could take ‘Our Place’ with us and its 25 cent bottomless cup of coffee. Next we headed off towards the Shoshone River for our first stop of fishing during the day.
We pulled up in front of a house and Bart told us to wait there while he carried the bait (homemade peanut brittle) up to the house to get permission to fish. In Wyoming, the water is publicly owned but the land underneath the water and beside it is privately owned. So you can fish anywhere you want as long as you stay in a boat but you cannot step out of the boat without a landowner’s permission unless you are on public lands. Shortly he returned with a big smile, without the bait, and told us we have permission and that the bait works every time. (Note to self, learn how to make peanut brittle)
We made our way to the river’s edge full of anticipation and trepidation. The bank was steep since the river is not swollen with melted snow this time of year and the bed is full of rounded river rock making the walking somewhat clumsy. Bart, being the old pro he is, navigated these skillfully like a mountain goat while David and I learned as we walked how to get around without falling. After a bit, we each took our places and within two or three casts we hear a whistle. It is Bart with the first catch of the day, a nice 18 inch trout. Evidently he noticed the excitement mingled with disappointment on my face so he brought me up river to where he was and told me where to cast my lure. On the second cast, I too have a fish but it is only 16 inches long and not big enough to keep. Since it is my first trout I have ever caught, it felt funny releasing him back into the river, after all, 16 inches is a pretty big trout anywhere.
My next cast into the same spot cost me my lure. This is how it went for me this day. It seems whenever I caught a fish, the next cast I lost my lure. Bart consoled me by telling me that I was doing it right and that I was getting the lure down where the big fish were located. Somehow this did not help too much since he caught bigger fish all day and never lost his lure. David had better luck with the lures and actually caught a big fish too. All in all, we had a good day and enjoyed Bart’s company and fishing expertise. We kept a rainbow, a cutthroat and two German browns all 18 inches or more since that was more than enough for a fish plentiful meal. Pictures are attached of Bart with three specimens and David with his biggest fish of the day for those of you doubtful of this fish tale. Bart had a good time as well. He drove us to many places not on the tourist map and reminisced all day long. Bart grew up here and we enjoyed hearing his stories probably even more than he enjoyed telling them to us.
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| Bart with 3 of the fish from the Shoshone River |
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| Catch of the Day! |
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| David's first trout caught in Wyoming! |
We made plans during the day to meet Sophie and Beverly (Bibi) at Bart’s nephew’s place in Clark (of Lewis and Clark fame) just north of Cody and next to Clark’s Fork of the Yellowstone River. The GPS navigation system worked well for the girls but driveways are shared in WY and made for some guesswork on their part. Luckily Brett, the nephew, was home and saw them as they tried to turn around and leave. He ran outside and flagged them down because we were late getting there due to the great fishing and they could not see us or Bart’s truck. All’s well that ends well. We had a marvelous time getting to know Brett and his wife Stella.
They have a magnificent place built right beside a stream on 40 acres. The area is in a high wind area (some have been clocked at 130 MPH+) and he built the house to withstand the force of the winds and the cold temps encountered during the winters. They are very warm, inviting people and prepared a delightful meal for us. Bart fried the trout we caught during the day and judging by the amount of fish consumed by everyone, it was some kind of good eating. We said goodbye late in the evening and drove back to the RV park for a good night’s sleep.
The next day we headed over to the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, a historical research center and series of 5 museums. We enjoyed learning about Buffalo Bill, the habitat of the area, indian cultures and seeing the collection of over 2,700 guns of all shapes and sizes. We were tired after this excursion so we took the rest of the evening off to review our future travel plans. During this review, we were assaulted with violent winds and rain. We had been told the winds could really blow here but this without a doubt proved it. I had not felt this much movement in the RV since riding out a tropical storm in Perdido Key, FL years ago. Finally, it settled into a nice rain the rest of the night.
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| There is Buffalo Bill Cody inviting us to come on in |
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| Some of his stuff from the Wild West Show days |
Waking the next morning to a beautiful day, we took Sophie and Beverly (Bibi) to ‘Our Place’ to experience the wonderful breakfast. We needed to eat well before heading off on a day’s drive on Chief Joseph Scenic Highway and the Beartooth Highway. We packed a picnic lunch for later in the day. Our photography team went nuts with the various vistas offered throughout this drive. Cody is around 5,000 feet above sea level and we climbed through various levels up to 11,000 feet during the day. There was one stop at the very top where the temperature was 64 degrees and we noticed when we got back to Cody the temp was 93 degrees so there was a 30 degree swing in temp between the two elevations. We stopped for our picnic lunch beside Beartooth Lake nestled right up against the Beartooth Butte. As we ended the drive in Red Lodge, Montana we found the candy store with homemade saltwater taffy, Beverly’s favorite. We bought over a pound of the stuff and were surprised when David showed up with their sack full of goodies that easily outweighed ours.
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| View from Dead Indian overlook on Chief Joseph Highway |
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| Same overlook with a pan to the left from 1st picture - WOW! |
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| Sophie and Beverly as we leave Chief Joseph highway and head to Beartooth Highway |
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| Beartooth mountain (tallest); where highway gets its name |
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| View from our picnic area beside Beartooth Bluff and Beartooth Lake |
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| Felt like we are and next pictures look like we are at the Top of the World! |
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| View from the top |
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| Where did all the trees go? |
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| Notice the snow pole on the rail. Must get a lot up here. |
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| Heading back down |
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| Back in the trees again. That is our highway to use in getting down from up here. |
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| Sophie and David, Rock Creek Vista Point - Elev 9,190 ft |
Friday is our last day in Cody and there are three things I wanted to do before leaving. Visit the Japanese ‘relocation’ center, Old Trail Town and the gunfight in the street re-enactment. David and I went to the relocation center at Heart Mountain, located midway between Cody and Powell. The site is preserved in part and is open to the public to see the conditions at the camps. There were 10 of these camps established in different places during WWII to house Japanese and Japanese-Americans away from the West Coast of the USA for fear of spying and invasion by Japanese forces after the sneak attack by Japan on our Navy at Pearl Harbor. The population at this camp was right around 11,000 people, making it the third largest city in Wyoming at that time. We spent our time learning about the camp and the people. We know it was wartime and strange things happen during war including harsh reactions to people. Not unlike today with the Al-Qaeda threat.
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| Heart Mountain - Indian laying on his back, head to left with big hump in his chest shows his heart. We used this as our landmark in Cody. Always knew where we were by locating Heart Mountain. |
Beverly and Sophie opted out of the visit to the camp and instead chose to catch up on the laundry. During the day a large thunderstorm came up and it began to rain. This left them no choice but to go back to the RVs and put David and Sophie’s awning back up due to the wind. They did it just fine and felt a lot more confident in their future efforts to learn about all the various RV systems on the rigs. Speaking of thunderstorms, a second round came up overnight and caused both of us to ‘batten down the hatches’. It was even more dramatic than the previous ones we endured earlier during the week. We moved the slides in due to the awnings flapping so hard and closed the small bat-wing roll out windows in the bedrooms because of the wind shaking them so much. This was quite a show of forceful wind and rain. We had been warned earlier in the week not to leave the awnings out and leave the motorhome. This is because Cody will get winds that come up quickly (with or without rain) that can easily rip or tear the awning from the RV. I, for one, believe it.
Well, in between the weather episodes, it cleared off and we all went to Old Trail Town. This is an attraction in Cody that represents how an old trail town would have appeared in the late 19th Century. They have collected a number of real cabins and buildings from various areas in Wyoming, disassembled and reassembled them here all together along with furnishings, historical items, wagons, buggies and other articles to resemble a town. This is a very interesting and unique exhibit to walk into places where Butch Cassidy, Jeremiah Johnston and other historical figures actually walked and lived. After dinner that evening, Beverly and I went downtown to the Irma Hotel (built by Buffalo Bill Cody and named after his daughter Irma) to witness the gunfight in the street. Sophie and David chose to sit this excursion out. After it was over, I wish I had opted out too. It was interesting but sound quality interfered with the story line and was not as engaging an experience as I had wanted. Turned out as I expected, a bunch of dead bad guys in the street with the good guys not even suffering one single wound and clearly victorious without seriously trying to win. Oh well, us bad guys never get a break.
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| Old Trail Town |
It is now Saturday and time to leave Cody. Our plans are to travel to Gillette and spend the night. Then we will head towards Rapid City, SD with a stop between Gillette and SD to see Devils Tower. But, wait a minute. There seems to be a problem. First rattle out of the bag and David encounters an issue with one of the arms on his tow bar. Beverly and I had stopped for gasoline at the station we had scoped out the day before. I had finished filling up and no Sophie or David yet. About this time we get a text telling of the troubles and instructed that everything is now okay after David broke out his tools and did some quick repairs. So we await them in an adjacent parking lot because they will need gas too. After they fill up, we take off pulling in behind them as we leave Cody. But wait, there are more problems. Now I have a warning light on my dashboard telling me there is an issue with the Auto Park brake on my RV. We have made it approximately 3 – 4 miles out of Cody when we decide there is nothing left to do but have a mechanic check out the issue.
It is Saturday but we find one open just about a mile from us so we unhook the car (could not find a turnaround large enough to make a u-turn with the rig and car still hooked together) and go back to his garage. (Note to self - drive/travel on weekdays) David and Sophie proceed thinking this is a minor thing and we will be along shortly. Well 2 – 3 hours later it is not so minor. A pressure switch must be ordered from the closest Workhorse Chassis location in Denver on Monday and replaced on Tuesday. So here we are still in Cody for at least the next three days. David and Sophie had to retrace the miles between Greybull and Cody. Ahhhhh. Life on the road, just what we expected would happen. The good news is traveling with friends makes this a lot easier to deal with and there are no deadlines for a bunch of retirees. So this is just what the doctor ordered, a few days of R&R while awaiting repairs to the rig. We will update you in a few days as to our progress and whereabouts. Until then, we are still having a great time.
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