Cheyenne Frontier Days

It's hard to believe but Cheyenne, Wyoming is only a two hour drive from here.  On Saturday, Mark and I drove up to see what Cheyenne Frontier Days is all about.  Obviously there is the "Daddy of 'em All" rodeo but there was a lot more going on there than we thought. 

We left out bright and early because the rodeo started at 12:30 pm and we wanted to take our time and enjoy the trip. 

Entering Buffalo Country

Of course they had the rodeo. And as an added bonus they had all of the carnival rides, the carnival crap you can buy and carnival food that goes with any fair.  That just goes without saying.  

Cheyenne Rodeo

Outside of the fairgrounds they had a huge Settlers Area that featured blacksmith exhibits, chuck wagon cook-offs, leather making and tooling, soap making and that sort of stuff.  They had a large display of restored stagecoaches there too.  

Chuck wagon Cook-off

They also had an "Indian Village" that abutted the rodeo fairgrounds and they had Native American "crafts", food and performances there as well.  I guess it's Cheyenne's way of trying to keep things PC.  For the most part it was all pretty hokey but the people from Ohio, Indiana and Illinois were walking out of the Indian Village with armloads of stuff so I suppose it made someone happy!

Kids learning the "Hoops Dance" in the Indian Village

After the rodeo and looking at the settlers area and the Indian village we drove around Cheyenne.  The biggest surprise there?  There were 3 or 4 HUGE Senior Living Centers that had been recently built. (Or seemed to us to be) Now I don't know what crazy person would purposely want to retire to the lovely state of Wyoming but apparently there are plenty of people that do.  Either that or they have lost a bet with their children somewhere along the way and this is where they will stay for as long as the children say so (Do ya hear that Mom and Dad?) 

Downtown Cheyenne

We ended up in downtown Cheyenne and by this time it was about 7:30, we were starving and by luck we found this nice restaurant to eat at: The Wyoming Rib and Chop House.  

Wyoming Rib and Chop House

When we arrived they asked us if we had reservations.  Well of course we didn't.  We had only decided to go to the rodeo on Friday and who the hell needs reservations for restaurants in Cheyenne for crying out loud?  Um… apparently everyone does.  (Another rookie mistake on our part)  So a mere two hours later we were seated and we actually had a great dinner despite the fact that we had eaten our bar napkins for our appetizers. 

All in all it was a great day and it was capped off with a beautiful Wyoming sunset. (Hate to say it but Texas still has the best ones by far!)