Cheyenne Frontier Days

On the left is a picture of a saddle bronc rider in the middle of his ride. This one made the 8 seconds required to receive a score.

This picture was supposed to be one of the last ones put on but for some reason this site does its own thing, so I had to adapt to that situation.

Today we went to our first Rodeo event. It was called rodeo slack. It started early in the morning and consisted of team roping and women's barrel racing. The picture to the left is of chute #9 which is where all of the team roping, steer wrestling events started from. The barrel racing started on the opposite end of the arena.

To the left here is a shot of a team coming out of the box. The calf is let out first and the team has to wait for a short time frame before they are aloud to chase after and rope the calf. The cowboy on the right first ropes the calf around the horns or neck. Then the rider on the left has to time it perfectly to rope the steer's hind legs. If he only gets one leg it is a 5 second penalty on the time. If either cowboy misses their roping at all, then there is no time awarded.

On this picture is one of the lady barrel racers. This is when she is turning around the last barrel and is getting ready for the sprint to the finish line.

This is a decent shot of a bull rider enjoying his 8 second ride on a bull who is rather anxious to throw him off.

More to come in next post.

Mt Evans Colorado

If you have been to Colorado and have never drove up the road to the summit of Mt. Evans, then you have missed one of the great scenic drives in the country. The road to the left is an early section of the drive as is the next picture also. Mona had some difficulty with the heights of the road and the curves that look like you could go right over, so I handed her the camera and said start taking pictures. It helped keep her mind off of the high altitude and narrow road.

The road keeps winding and climbing and eventually you will make it to the summit which is at an altitude of over 14,000 feet. Now think about that. It is over 2 miles high. The views are spectacular. When we got near the top we saw a couple of what I believe were mule deer.

On the way down we saw a herd of mountain sheep. It was a really neat site seeing them walk around on the steep terrain. They were perfectly at home and did not seem to even acknowledge that people were around them.

Here are some more pictures of the ride up. They speak for themselves.

Hope you enjoyed these pictures. I know we enjoyed taking them. Don't miss this drive if you ever make it to Colorado. It is only about 25 miles west of Denver on I-70. You hit the road to Mt. Evans at Idaho Springs. It is another 25 miles or so to get to the Mt. Evans road and then the Mt. Evans road is about 20 miles one way. It is located in a National Park, so there is a fee per car to get into it. Worth every penny!

See ya next time when we will cover the Cheyenne Wyoming Daddy of Em All Rodeo at Cheyenne Frontier Days.

Laramie & Medicine Bow

Since we had about a week before the Cheyenne Frontier Days Festival & Rodeo, we decided to do some exploring. We wanted to go to Laramie and Medicine Bow, so we loaded up in the Jeep and took off. We were not disappointed as you will see in the pictures. To the left is a picture of Medicine Bow peak with the clear mountain lake in the forefront. This picture was supposed to be later in this post but for some reason it is not loading where it was supposed to load. Oh well!

We went to Laramie but didn't really see anything we were that crazy about, outside of the old Wyoming Territorial Prison and Fort. We may or may not go back to see it closer. We decided to go ahead and ride up to Medicine Bow Forrest and mountain range instead since we didn't know how long the ride would be. On the way we saw this marker which is a memorial to the Overland Trail, the route taken by the cattlemen driving their herds up from Texas, from 1862-1868.

Just after passing the Trail marker, we were able to see this distant view of Medicine Bow peak. We continued driving toward it and the scenery is absolutely beautiful.

We came into a little town called Centennial which is a town of 100 people. At the entrance to the town was an old Railroad Depot with a Caboose sitting off to the side. Pretty neat site and well kept up.

Here is a slightly closer look at the peak. We were getting into the mountains at this time.

Of course driving a Jeep we had to try some of the off-road paths. We went for a ways on this road before we ran into these snowdrifts. Thought it was pretty cool going through a snow drift in the middle of July.

Yes, I did have to use the 4-wheel drive to get through the drifts. Actually the second one was too deep and long to get through because my tires were not the best in the world.

Here is some more georgeous views from up on the mountain. These were taken from the same road as the snowdrifts.

We had a great time and I am sure you will enjoy the pictures. Tomorrow's post will have another great road trip as we went to Colorado and did a marathon 13 hours in the Jeep. It will take me till tomorrow to pick the right pictures for the next post. So until then, Adios.

Leaving Deadwood/Lead area

Well, it is time to leave the Deadwood/Lead area.........but, don't worry. We are coming back at the end of the month. You see, Mona talked to Papa Joe, the owner of the resort, about workkamping there next year. Papa Joe said that would be fine, but he could really use help this year during the Bike rally. It seems that they have a huge following at the resort during the Stugis Bike Rally weeks. Mona decided it would be a good way of making some money in tips, plus an hourly wage and free rent for the month, we decided that it was too good to pass up. So, we will be going back there for the month of August. You can make those kind of decisions being gypsies of the road. ;-)

So saying goodbye to the area, we headed south to Cheyenne, Wyoming for the Cheyenne Frontier Days Festival from July 20-29. We arrived at our campsite at T-Joe's RV Park, just east of Cheyenne. The price was good, less than $300 for the month. It is a perfect distance of 5 miles from town and the only drawback is being on the frontage road of I-80. Other than that it is still pretty quiet and we have full hookups.

We checked out the area and went to take a trolley tour which costs $10 per person, but I found a coupon online to get two for one. The trolley tour takes about an hour and the driver was very knowledgeable of the area.

The picture to the left is of the Railroad Depot and Museum. It is pretty neat and the restaurant attached to it has some really good beef bbq brisket. All the eats around here are somewhat expensive but then it is a tourist type environment.

Deadwood Entertainment

I could not leave the Deadwood area without telling you about some of the great entertainment in that town. And I don't mean the Gambling houses. There are at least three gunfights daily right on the streets. They go off at 2, 4, 6 pm. I think I have mentioned the stockade before but I must tell you that if you like the old cowboy music, you will want to just sit and listen to Yancey de Veer. He has 4 cd's for sale and he is so good we got all 4. Yancey plays 7 days a week.











Now there is also a great show at BB Cody's, right next door to Hickock's. Actually there are two shows there. It features Cowboy Woodie Cochrane and his wife Cleda Jane. Here is a picture of us and the stars of the show. This was the dinner theater show. They have a free comedy show at 2:30, 4:30 and 6:30pm. It only lasts for 20-25 minutes but is well worth the price of admission, oops, it is free! And if that wasn't enough, they also have a Dinner Theater Show at 8:30pm which has a cowboy buffet with fried chicken and bbq ribs. Times and menus can sometimes be changed, so be sure and check when you are downtown. They also have 4 cd's and are good enough that we also got all 4 of them. We had already met Woodie & Cleda Jane because they were our neighbors at Recreational Springs Resort.



Just as a test for this site, I would like to ask that anyone who reads this post please email me at teeman55@yahoo.c0m. This will let me know if I need to keep doing the site. Thanks much.



Now the next post will be from Cheyenne, Wyoming where we are going to be for Cheyenne's Frontier Days and their famous Daddy of them all rodeos. So until then, See ya later buckaroos, Rick & Mona, the midwest travelers.

1880 Train

Today we went to Hill City to ride the 1880 train from Hill City to Keystone and back. We arrived in the afternoon as we had checked on the train departures on the internet and knew that there was a train at 1pm. We purchased the ticket and only had to wait about 5 minutes to board the train.

The train pulled out on time and we had a nice leisurely hour ride to Keystone. There was a lot of pretty scenery along the way.

This was our conductor. His name was Ed. He comes by to take your ticket. You don't have a ticket they say they will let you off where ever they are at the time they find you don't have one. Everyone had a ticket evidently because they did not stop.

These were some good scenery pictures. Below is the picture of the arrival at Keystone. There is a walk involved in getting to the main part of Keystone and it is pretty much a tourist area.

That was the end of the line but we did pay for the round trip. The trip one way takes approximately one hour. They spend 15 minutes in Keystone and then they head back on the return. So, If you want to spend time in Keystone, arrange your tickets accordingly. Hope you enjoyed!