On the sixth day of our vacation, we stayed in Cody, WY the whole day. We had tickets to the rodeo and had made plans to see the nightly gunfight at the Irma Hotel. Also, we had planned to go to the Western Trail Town today. But we knew the gunfight and the rodeo were at night and needed something to do during the day. They have a great museum in Cody, but I could just imagine how excited Ian would be about that. After the kids got in bed, I was looking through some of the vacation brochures that the hotel had given us when we checked in. I saw a few ads for whitewater rafting and recognized one of them as being about a block from our hotel. LeAnn said it sounded cool, but I figured it was going to be a long shot on such short notice. I decided to go down to a little bakery early the next morning and thought I would stop by the raft office while I did that. We were lucky as they did have openings for all us on a trip that left around 12:30. So the doughnuts and I headed quickly back to the hotel room to tell the good news.
We headed out to the Western Trail Town as soon as the doughnuts were inhaled. The Western Trail Town is a small "town" of actual buildings from the area that were built in the 1800's. Some of these are infamous as some notorious individuals used them. People like Billy the Kid, the Sundance Kid, The Hole in the Wall Gang, and others that I had not heard of. These are the actual buildings, cabins, etc. that these people used to plan bank robberies. There was an old saloon that had bullet holes in the door. It was very cool that they had relocated these buildings here. But it gave you an idea of how rugged and remote the people of this era lived.
Today was very windy and very cold. The first day that we had to break out the long sleeve shirts and jeans. I was beginning to think that whitewater rafting might not have been such a great idea. After a quick lunch, we headed over to River Runners Whitewater Rafting's office and met up with our guides and fellow travelers. Our fellow travelers were a couple from the Netherlands! But they were a lot of fun. Fortunately, the sun came out and started to warm things up a little, so it wasn't as bad as I was afraid. Ian, of course, was very excited and became the life of the party. We got fitted with our vest and loaded into vans that took us down to the Shoshone River. Once there, our guide gave us instructions and seat assignments. He gave the Rial family the front row. Yea us! He explained that today was the first nice day that they have had in weeks. Two weeks ago that had a huge snow storm and it had rained a lot since then. As a result, the river was very high. It was great. We got very wet, but had a very special time. This raft trip is something that Ian really enjoyed. He cracked up the guides continuously. When we got back to the office we were waiting for our pictures to be downloaded, Ian went outside and laid out on one of the rafts and dried himself. It was great also, because the company's photographer is from Memphis. So it was nice to talk to someone that sounded like us!
After we went back to the hotel, cleaned up and dressed, we went out for an early dinner. After dinner, we drove out of town just a little and visited the Buffalo Bill Dam. It was amazing to see this dam built in this canyon. With all the melt off and rain the spillways were pounding and rushing out into the canyon below. It was a little overwhelming. After that we drove back into town.
We parked a few blocks from the Irma Hotel, and walked around. We had not told the kids about the gunfight. Every night, except Sunday (they don't kill people of Sunday), they stage and old fashion gunfight on the street outside the Irma. We got there and for a $1 donation we were able to reserve each of us a chair. We looked around some of the stores while we waited for the show to begin. It was nice. LeAnn and I thought it was cheesy, but again Ian, thought it was AWESOME!
After, the gunfight, we headed over to the rodeo. Ian loves going to bull riding events that are around here, but this was a full fledged rodeo, with all the events. They have this rodeo every night, and the competitors change every night. So some of the events had just a few competitors, and others had a lot. It was a great night and a lot of fun. We had front row seats just above the gates. So the view was great. It was another great day.
Tomorrow, we finally make it Yellowstone! It has already been a vacation to remember, can't wait to see what the rest is going to be like!
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