Last Day in Cody

This was our last full day in Cody for this trip and we have really enjoyed it!

We started preparing for our departure in the morning by getting most of the outside tasks completed. We will be leaving early tomorrow for Rocker, MT (near Butte) to stay overnight, and then on to Kalispell on Tuesday. Glacier National Park here we come!!

We relaxed this afternoon and then went out for dinner and a show tonight.

We went to The Cody Cattle Company and had chicken, brisket, baked beans, slaw, corn bread, caesar salad and a brownie. We had lemonade to drink. It was pretty good food.

The show was better than the food. Everywhere West is the group of three who sang and played multiple instruments and they were great. We even bought a CD of the songs they played tonight.

Everywhere West (the 2 on the right are father & son)

This is a short video - hope quality is okay

Buffalo Bill Museum

Charley went to the Buffalo Bill Museum this morning for his second visit. We were there last year. I decided to stay home and keep watch over Sadie. She is supposed to be kept a little quiet for a few days and that is not easy with a puppy!! And she is feeling her oats today.

I failed to include something in my update yesterday. Cheyenne was acting strange while Sadie was at the vet. We thought she must have been feeling bad or something but after Sadie returned we realized that she was missing her little buddy!! She perked right up and was fine! Amazing how smart these little guys can be.

The rest of today will be R&R to get prepared to start packing up tomorrow for the next leg of our trip.

Hope you enjoy the museum pictures!

 

Click on the link below to see all of the museum pictures.

Buffalo Bill Museum 

Cody Nite Rodeo on Thursday & Fix-it Friday

We went to the Cody Nite Rodeo last night and it was fun. This rodeo seems to be more of a "learning" rodeo than a professional one. We saw bareback riding, team roping, saddle bronc riding and barrel racing. There were also some young girls who did some trick riding. And the clown told a lot of jokes to entertain us between events. All in all it was a fun evening. And the nachos drowned in cheese were good!! They also had a VERY LARGE bull tied up in back of the stands that you could get your picture made with for $10. Needless to say we did not do this..... He was a whopper though....

Today, Charley took Sadie in to the vet for her fix-it job and then delivered our truck to the Ford dealership for his fix-it job. Our truck is back safe and sound and believe it or not, the bill was LESS than they estimated. We also just picked up Sadie from the vet and she is a little groggy but seems to be fine. Our challenge is going to be trying to keep her somewhat quiet for the next few days per the vet's instructions..... Here are pictures of Cheyenne and Sadie today. Both are fine, just a few days of healing yet to go.

Tomorrow we are going to the Buffalo Bill Museum if all goes well.

Hope you enjoy the rodeo pictures.

Click on the link below to see all of our rodeo pictures.

 Cody Nite Rodeo

Cheyenne is better

The medicines that the vet gave us yesterday for Cheyenne are clearing up her allergic reaction to whatever it was?? We cannot imagine what it was unless it is some type of fungus in the grass due to the heavy watering they do in this campground. It is pretty soggy every morning (they water at night). But, thankfully, it is beginning to clear up. Thank you so much to those who expressed their concern about her well-being. She appreciates it.... :-) and so do we!!

Today, since we did not want to leave Cheyenne alone until after we knew for sure she was going to be okay, we took a ride out to the Wild Mustang range on Whistle Creek Road. This is between Cody and Greybull and it is an open range that is dedicated to the wild mustangs. We saw some mustangs but had to look at them through binoculars so good pictures were not possible. They do not allow you to get close to them. We do have a couple of long shots included below. Since I have loved horses since I was a little girl, the trip was well worth it to me.

We also saw a pronghorn antelope standing in the middle of the road and we weren't sure if he was ever going to move out of our way. He just stood there staring at us for the longest time. But it did give us a chance to get some good pictures of him. Beautiful animal!

Unfortunately we did not see any black tailed prairie dogs that the brochure said lived on this same range. Seeing them would have been special. Maybe another time.

We got to talk to the grandchildren (and their Mom and Dad) tonight on Skype. That was special because it has been several days since we last talked. And we grandparents will suffer from withdrawal symptoms if we do not get to see and talk to them frequently. I just wish that Skype was a little more reliable than it is. The purchased version probably is better (we use the free one). But we get it done, even though sometimes we have to hang up and start over.


The rest of our day was spent just relaxing at the campground, except for a quick grocery run before dinner.

If all goes well, we are planning to go the rodeo tomorrow night. That should be fun!!

More later.

The long, long shots of a couple of wild mustangs (sorry they are a little fuzzy)

The pronghorn antelope

During our drive, we saw a little of this

And a LOT of this!!

Plans do Change!!

Well, plans are made to be changed I guess. Yesterday we had planned to stay around the campground and basically do mostly nothing. And that is what we did. However, we noticed that Cheyenne's eyes (actually the eyelids) had started swelling. This had us very concerned because she has never had this happen before. I put some cold cloths on her eyes to try to help the swelling.

Her eyes were still swollen this morning, but about the same as last night, so Charley took the truck in for an oil change as planned. Then he called me and indicated that we had a leak in the truck and he was going to have them determine what was wrong. So he was there a little longer than planned.

About 8:30AM, I called the vet here in Cody to make an appointment to take Cheyenne in to get her checked out but the swelling suddenly worsened and spread to the top of her nose, and it had large bumps in it. Well, needless to say this caused me to panic! So as soon as Charley got back to the campground he was loading up Cheyenne to take her in to get her checked immediately. And I have to hand out a BIG THANK YOU to the Lifetime Small Animal Clinic for taking her right in to see what we needed to do. The vet indicated that it is probably an allergic reaction to something she may have been digging at our campsite. So she got a shot with antibiotics, for possible infection, and it also had something in it for the swelling. Plus two types of tablets she is to begin taking tomorrow. Plus a solution to dab on the swollen areas. Plus some special shampoo to bathe her in. We are also to do a vinegar/water solution to pour over her after a bath that she will be getting tomorrow. And the vet asked us to call in the morning to let them know how she is. So we are watching her closely to make sure she doesn't scratch at it because it is obvious that it is itching. Sadie has not had a problem, thank goodness.

Now, back to the leak in the truck. After doing a coolant pressure test, they found two problems. One, there is a small leak in one of the radiator hoses and, two, the big issue, is that the water pump is also leaking. So, after Charley came home from the vet and he was able to update me on the status of the truck, we decided that we need to get both fixed now. Especially since we are headed to northern Montana to go to Glacier National Park. We do not want to get stranded in an area that has fewer places who could take care of us. The dealership here has the parts in stock and is going to take care of it for us Friday morning.

As you may remember, Sadie also goes in on Friday for her "fix it" surgery. So with two vet bills and the repairs/oil change for the truck, Charley says we are going to have to float a loan or get a job!!

Well, that is all of the excitement we can stand at once!! Hopefully the rest of today will be uneventful. We will make no further plans for sightseeing until after we see how Cheyenne is tomorrow.

A picture of our swollen Cheyenne

She is being a real trooper through all of this. She keeps trying to play with Sadie, but she is getting frustrated with her a little. And, of course, Sadie doesn't understand.....

Sunday in Cody

We drove around Cody today just to check things out and decide what we wanted to see and do while we are here this week. We drove out to the Buffalo Bill Dam and took a few pictures of the surrounding scenery and tunnels.

We also drove past the Buffalo Bill Museum which we are definitely planning to visit again - we were there last year and decided that we wanted to come back and spend more time there. Planning to go on Tuesday.

We also checked out one of the visitor guides and there are rodeos every weeknight at 8:00PM. We are definitely planning to do this!!

We also saw where there are wild horses in a nearby area that we need to check into further to see if it is a must see. I (Sherry) love horses so we will probably do this as well.

Looks as if it may be a busy week here. We take Sadie to the Vet on Friday for her "fix" job (spaying). We have not told her yet - .....

We also got together with Greg and Jan White (fellow bloggers who are here at the same campground with us). Their blog is Our RV Adventures, which Charley has been keeping up with for quite a while. It was great to meet them and share some of our adventures and theirs. We hope to be able to get together with them once again before we all depart Cody.

Greg and Jan White

Cody Wyoming Scenery

Our Drive to Cody, Wyoming

Well, silly us!! We thought all of Wyoming looked the same but, boy, were we wrong!! Our drive to Cody took us over the Bighorn Mountains and the scenery was gorgeous.  After a short drive on I90, we passed through farm and ranch country with green pastures and fields. Then we started up the mountain. The climb had to have been 8-10% grade all the way to the top with no relief!! After starting up the mountain our speed dropped to 25MPH and stayed there until we got to the top. The climb had to have been 8-10 miles long with switchbacks up the side of the mountain. We went up to around 8900 feet altitude so our truck had to work very hard to get to the top, but she made it!! She got a rest when we started back down..... We also saw snow still on the mountain tops.

We did see one interesting thing during the drive that did not have anything to do with the Wyoming scenery. We saw our first "back pack" for a car!! An SUV had a back pack style luggage carrier strapped onto the luggage rack and hanging down over the rear window. And it was loaded (full).

The top of the mountain was several miles of open meadow/pasture land (free range) where we saw a very large flock of sheep and several cows just meandering across the road.

On the way down the mountain, we stopped at Shell Falls for some pictures. Shell Creek has carved a path through the rocky terrain and it now looks like a small canyon surrounds it. It is amazing to see so many different types of scenery in such a short drive. Our pictures will help explain.

The rest of the drive was just barren and desolate countryside (and it was a little boring).

We arrived at Absaroka Bay RV Park at 1:00PM. This is a fairly nice park with paved interior roads and pull through sites. And they have free WiFi (which is always nice). After setting up, we chill-axed for the rest of the day.

Climbing up the mountain

Snow in July

 Beautiful scenery

Shell Falls

 More Shell Falls

 No idea what this rock is ??

The barren countryside

 They own the road!!

Please click on the picture below to see all of our photos from today.

July 22, 2011

Packing up and heading out!!

We spent some of yesterday preparing the 5er for our departure this morning. Otherwise we took it pretty easy. Charley did go to the Woodcarving Museum in Custer and found it to be very interesting.

This morning we finished up preparing for travel and headed out of Custer at about 9:00AM. It will take us 2 days to get to Cody  so we have stopped at Peter D's RV Park in Sheridan, WY for tonight. We stayed here for a couple of nights last year. It is a very small park, not fancy, but very convenient to I90.

We only have about 150 miles to travel tomorrow so will not be in a rush to get started in the morning. Maybe we can have an extra cup of coffee and a leisurely shower before we leave!!

Here are some pictures from the Woodcarving Museum and a couple of the Wyoming countryside.

 

Some very talented folks did these!!

Wyoming is pretty in its own way, amazing how the terrain changed when we crossed the state line!!

Needles Highway at Custer State Park

We went back to Custer State Park today to finish our tour on the Needles Highway. This is a beautiful drive with so many rock formations, mountains, lakes and tunnels. This is the highway that has one tunnel that is only 8 feet 4 inches wide. And our truck is 8 feet 2 inches wide with the side mirrors folded in. One guy was standing there watching us. I believe that he thought we were not going to make it……but we did!! This is an absolutely fantastic drive and it does not take very long at all, as long as you don’t stop to hike on the many trails that are available.
 
On our way back we stopped by to meet Mike and Pat McFall. We are followers on their blog. We also purchased our Pressure Pro system from them. They live just down the road from Broken Arrow Campground. Very nice folks. We are going to try to get together for another visit when we return to Broken Arrow in late August.

Tomorrow we will be getting the 5er prepped to leave on Thursday morning so will probably be spending most of the day at the campground. It will take us 2 days to get to Cody, with an overnight stop in Sheridan, WY at Peter D’s RV Park.

Here are a few favorite pictures from today with a link to all of them if you are interested.

Looks like it is about to fall, doesn't it?

Gorgeous scenery everywhere

The 8 ft 4 in tunnel!!

Beautiful Sylvan Lake

 Longhorn Cattle

Click on "Needles Highway" below to see all of our “many” pictures from today. We had two cameras going!!

 Needles Highway