Cody, Wyoming

We made it to Cody! Quite a haul over the Big Horn Mountains- definitely not the highest mountains we've traversed, but certainly the windiest. I was getting car sick driving! Thank goodness Bridget doesn't have the tendency to get nauseous in the car!

The "Buffalo"Bill Cody center houses five different museums. This is the firearms museum and Bridget is trying her hand at shooting again. She excels at rifles over pistols! One old timer couldn't believe how good she was! The largest American gun collection in the world is here and the complete Winchester Collection shipped from New Haven in 1974. Mark loved this- he worked for Winchester for several years in the 80's.

We also visited the Buffalo Bill, Plains Indian and Natural History sections of the complex. 

Next we went to Old Trail Town- A collection of 26 original buildings on the original site for the town of Cody mapped out by Buffalo Bill. It was better than any ghost town we'd tried to visit prior to this!

This is the restaurant/hotel Buffalo Bill built and named after his youngest daughter, Irma. It has a real saloon feel to it and the buffalo meat just falls off the bones! We fueled up here before heading to the rodeo :)

Bridget had to try Rocky Mountain Oysters which she has seen prepared on the food network show, "Chopped". So here we are dutifully trying our bull testes! They were actually quite good- we all liked them- even Mark!

Cody is the rodeo capital of the world, so of course we had to go! It opened with horses trying to buck men off their backs. The men are timed as to how long they can stay on. I believe the winner was 8 seconds. Then we watched cowboys try to rope calves, flip them on their backs and tie their legs. The winner there was 13 seconds. After that they have cowboy partners compete. One has to rope the steer's head and the other the feet. I don't know how they do it! Mark explained to me that there is a wire cable inside the rope which I never knew. That explains a bit of how they get the rope to behave for them. But still, the speed and timing and anticipation has to be so precise. The winning team in that event took 12 seconds. Bridget's favorite event was the barrel racing, where contestants have to drive their horse as quickly as possible around an obstacle course of barrels then sprint to the finish line. This was a cowgirl only event and the winner did it in 17 seconds. The time span between all 10 cowgirls was only 2 seconds, the winner 17.54 and last place 19.49. Bridget does a similar obstacle course at riding school, but they are walking/ trotting/ cantering- not galloping and sprinting! She loved it.....the whole rodeo I mean! There she is above in the whole mass of kids. They were called down into the arena to compete- who could grab the ribbon off the calf's tail. They let two calves loose and the kids all run around in complete mayhem trying to grab the prized ribbon! A very full, fun day!