Cody, Wyoming

June 12 thru 15, 2004

Leaving Montana before breakfast, we stop at a restaurant. Dale pulled off on the right of the highway, and we get out and dropped the windows for the horses to get lots of fresh air. They are accustomed to this and seem to enjoy being able to look all around.

The diner was operated by a couple who had been on the road as full time RV’ers for several years. A year or so ago they decided to buy the small restaurant and it was furnished with a lot of their collections. The man had a lot of railroad stuff and car racing items. There were old cowboy things. We ordered an omelette and talked to the owners.

My favorite item was a big sign on the wall that claimed, "Every man needs three squares a day, a reasonably good woman and a damn good horse."

It was as exciting to enter Wyoming again as it had been a few days before, except we were headed to the legendary city of Buffalo Bill Cody for several days.

Shortly before we arrived into town, we could see a bunch of horse trailers over in a big parking place. We learned later that there is a group of trail riders in the area who get together every couple of weeks for a ride. We wouldn’t be around long enough to catch the next ride.

As we approached the town, we made a right turn to find the Stage Stop Horse Hotel at 5722 Greybull Highway, Cody, WY 82414 with a phone of 307.587.9096. It was only five minutes out of town. There was a construction crew working on the road at the driveway down into the facility. Soon a man came out and directed us to the driveway into the parking area.

The horses were unloaded and we led them over the huge culvert crossing the deep, swift creek. The owners had to go put their horses in the arena in order that we take our horses through the gate, across the paddock and into the 12 x 24 stalls in the long shed. Each stall had automatic self watering. We were grateful for such nice places for the horses to shelter for the duration of our visit.

We parked the trailers close enough so we could again feed electric from one to the other. The water tanks were replenished so we could use the showers in the trailers.

The owners had moved from back east New York to enjoy the rural life. They both had jobs in town and did the horse hotel business on the side. They boarded a few horses and had several of their own.

Dale unhooked the truck as usual and we all loaded up to explore the town, i.e. look for ice cream. We drove through town and located the gift shops, the Buffalo Bill Museum and eventually a Diary Queen. The statues around the museum were absolutely wonderful. There is a great bronze statue of Buffalo Bill on a horse with a rifle raised high in the right hand. It was mounted on a great pile of boulders and the skylight figures are amazing.

There were statues of pronghorn deer that we had grown accustom to seeing out the windows everywhere we went. They jump so beautifully and bounce across the fields and rolling hills. I became their greatest admirer.

However, those "cute" little prairie dogs still make me furious. They are just another version of rats as far as I am concerned.

Janice and I spotted some shops that we were going to return to as soon as the men found something else to do. It came when the men went riding the next morning.

Riding at Cody

The couple who owned the stables offered to take our horses in their trailer and a friend wanted to go and they would go out on the BLM land to where there were a lot of Indian writings .

Eddie and Dale were ready to go but I chose to not ride. Since that time I have regretted that decision again and again. I thought the hosts were taking our horses in a stock trailer and I was afraid Teege would get kicked. I found later that wasn’t true. It was a horse trailer just like ours. This was another instance of is this fear real or imagined?

Eddie told me, "The hosts took me and Dale and the horses out about 10 miles on the BLM land. We rode probably five miles back out through the country. There were no houses or nothing. We went through a gate three miles out.

"I was rocky in the fields and cactus. When we got to where the Indian writing was on the cliffs. It was great big rocks.

"Dale and I rode around behind the big rocks and up a little rock filled gully for maybe a quarter of a mile. We then ran into the Indian writings. Some of the rocks were big as a car and some big as a house.

"The writings were lines and crosses and a few of them had little circles in them. When we left there we backtracked back out to the main trail. That guy said we were about 15 miles on through what looked about like a desert to me. We rode out where we could look towards the little settlement or ranch of a few houses.

"Evidently they run cattle in there because we had to take a gap down and put it back up.

"When we headed back Dale and I got in front of them and we gaited on back towards the trailer. We took little side trips up around knolls and up little gullies so we could look around. We could look back and see them because we got way ahead of them. They were riding slow.

" Dale and I liked the ride but we had to watch the cactus because we didn’t want the horses to get into them and get spines in their legs."

Janice and I went into town and walked up and down the streets going in and out of about every store. I bought Ed a cap that said "Cody." I splurged on a hoody that was light gray that said Wyoming.

We had a good time and got back home before the riders returned.

There was a lot more things we did while in Cody but I only include the part.

Ed and I decided to start back east toward home.  Janice and Dale were going to Jackson Hole and on down into Colorado.