The Three Amigo's Go West. Episode 3.

[Guest]

Saturday 26th July 2008.

Today is a day of several "first's" and the first ermmmmmm first was to a popular restaurant for most of us Dibbers.

Despite over 10 trips across the Atlantic now neither I or any of my family had ever been to I.H.O.P. perhaps on the grounds that I'd never been over there with Pancake fans before. This all changed with my marriage to Lucille and especially with the inclusion of Tarryn who is a Pancake nut ! So as soon as we had got up, showered and make up'ed (not me as I don't wear make up on holiday !) we all jumped in to the "powerful" car we'd hired and trogged up the road for at least a mile to The International House of Flancakes. I say "Flancakes" because from what I saw they weren't much like the Pancakes my Mum used to make... Too fat and fluffy, which is kinda odd because thats the way Lucille has described me on several occasions so I felt a kind of kinship towards the establishment for the remainder of the trip.

Unfortunately Tarryn decided to wear white trousers so it came as no surprise to us that, as she had ordered "choco pancakes", she soon had to make a trip to the rest room to remove half of them from her legs... even Percil would have struggled...but after a ton of water and soap from a dispenser she stuggered back to the table, clean but looking like she'd had an "accident" of major proportions.

After dining we drove to our friends, parked up and was driven in to town to watch one of the main events, namely The Cheyenne Frontier Days Parade. I couldn't understand why SO many locals had brought chairs of various types, all lined up along the route with children all sitting neatly, cross legged, along the kerb. Over an hour or so later, all became clear.

As mentioned earlier the parade was HUGE. Like a typical British Carnival but a great deal bigger. Just about everyone who was anybody appeared in it, mostly on horse back from the Sheriff to Coroner to Ranchers and associations throughout the State. It was full of genuine 1880 carriages and stagecoach's and marching bands and floats. Whilst I got carried away with both camera's you'll be pleased to see that I've just included a few pictures to demonstrate.









That evening, our friends had a prior engagement, so after the parade we drove back to collect the Magnum and drove "in convoy" to Frontier Park in order to see "the daddy of them all", the Frontier Days Rodeo. Here we had a HUGE bit of luck. Friends of our friends were exhibitors and Ranch owners and because of such they kindly provided "back stage passes" to enable us to walk behind the scenes and get to see the Rodeo for free. For, us, coming from England, to be able to walk in such an environment was unbelieveable, to be walking with and watching genuine 4th or 5th generation Cowboys and Cowgirls was truely an experiance of a lifetime. So much was I enjoying the whole thing that I dropped my new £1000 Canon camera which fortunately bounced and hopped its way neatly along the ground somehow missing all of the "animal deposits" that had been left behind. A quick dust off and I realised that I'd got away with it...she was fine.

After a few introductions, Lucille and I mainly concentrating on humans, Tarryn doing her Dr Doolittle bit and chattin' with the critters...



... we all walked through the "paddocks" and up to the grand stand over looking the arena. Apologies for those that have been to a Rodeo this is the 2nd one we've ever seen and they are very exciting to watch. So much so that during the first one we had seen in Jasper, Alberta a few years ago, it was SO exciting that Tarryn fell asleep the moment we got there and slept through the whole thing. Fortunately that was not repeated in Cheyenne and it was a great spectical. The action is constant and to be honest, as always, we very much like the animals making fun of the contestants..and they do. The bull riding is very exciting to watch and once the rider is off, whether by design or thrown, the attitude of the bulls can be very entertaining. Equally as riders chase after the young calves, preparing themselves to drop from their horses and grab the calves by their horns, the calves often either slow down, quicken up or go off at an angle...the cowboy is committed and falls face first in to the mud.
The arrogant way in which the calves trot off is a sight to see, leaving the impression that they know exactly what its all about begging the question do they brag to each other how well THEY did in the arena once they get back to the paddocks.

Here are just a couple of pictures out of the 6 million I took.





During the 3 hours we were there, I went, aka was sent, downstairs to get refreshments and as a "first time" treat for the girls purchased some "Elephants Ears" which went down a treat...yummy..just as I remembered them during my 1999 trip to Nascar at Charlotte.

It was during the Rodeo that sadly, we had to say goodbye to our friends who had to leave for their evening engagement. Shortly there after in the late afternoon we said goodbye to our new found friends who had provided the free entry tickets and we headed back towards our Motel for the last nights stay. Twas Tarryn's turn to pick the evening dining experiance and it was NO surprise for her to pick The Olive Garden so we stopped off for a meal before retiring for the night.
Personally, I'm not a great fan of Olive Garden and find it poor value for money but hey...she's a kid, and despite being South African by birth, I'm convinced she has Italian in her somewhere ?

We briefly popped over to The Frontier Mall to have a little look around the stores and, as it turned out, made a HUGE blunder.
Remember "yesterdays" GHD story where Lucille blew up my cheap and not so cheerfull voltage adapter.

Well we saw some "American grade" hair straighteners that looked very similar to GHD's, worked out at £35.00 but had a strange name. Unfortunately, shocked after hearing our accents in the middle of Wyoming, the young girl in the store informed us that she'd never heard of GHD's, so couldn't say how good "her" versions were in comparison... so we left them. We've since found out that they were GHD's, just branded differently..Darn it !

OOOOOOOO well.. Another day is over. Cheyenne had been a great start to the trip, settling us in nicely for the "Grand tour" ahead of us.

Tomorrow we head North once more, completely in to unknown territory...and we..can't wait.

[JudyC]

I just dipped into the trip reports and found this one. Just had to leave a comment to say how much I enjoyed reading it. I'll go and look for the rest of them now

[DIBBadmin]

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