After our week in Yellowstone we were gradually reintroduced to normal life… We have ended the week having worn our best clothes, eaten in restaurants again and marvelled at some man-made wonders. After all that nature and wildlife, it was a complete contrast and just what we needed. We must not take the natural beauty of the US for granted and we even had a night away from Reg!

 

So, we returned to Jackson Hole and decided at that point that as lovely as Grand Teton and Yellowstone had been – it would be really lovely to have a bit of a treat to celebrate our wedding anniversary.  We flirted with the idea of flying to Seattle for a few days, but after a pretty soul destroying look at flights and Amtrak we settled instead for a night at the Gallatin River Lodge.  Sheryl, our pal who has just started The Luxury Travel Boutique can also vouch for us, that one, reasonably priced night in a ranch is an impossibility… but this Lodge was a bit of a one off and I think we got lucky.

 

It was a four hour drive up the western side of Yellowstone, briefly back into Idaho and then into Montana.  We arrived about 3ish and the place was lovely.  Very simple, but nicely done.  It was for Suzy and Sheryl’s reference a little like our last place in St Tropez with the ever-attentive host.  It turned out we were one of two guests – but at least this meant that they looked after us very well.

 

After the early mornings and cold nights of Yellowstone it was heaven to have a huge bed, lovely white linen, a hot tub and of course a fantastic dinner and a nice bottle of wine.  No idea why we had a shot of Sambuca at the end of the meal – but the waiters seem to have encouraged us!  Matt is getting very western these days and had a bourbon with the boys.  I told you everyone is butch up here!

 

Sadly, it was just a 24-hour break as the hotel was fully booked the next night and Reg was looking at us beguilingly from the car park.  So off we went again and planned to go see Bozeman and then on to Livingstone.

 

Thank you, Karen and Michael who sent us a link, to the best small towns in America and Bozeman was the chosen one for Montana.  I can totally see why.  It is stunning scenery all around and you can see the level of affluence.  Really attractive downtown area and we took advantage to buy some new walkers as we have worn the others out!

 

Our campsite in Livingston was beside the Yellowstone River which was a gushing torrent, but steadily the weather has heated up all week and we were able to sit outside and rest (nothing to do with the hangover from the night before!).  We were very chilled and enjoying a change in pace after all the hiking, driving and sightseeing of the week before. 

 

We left Livingston and broke our journey at Cooney State Park.  This was on our way to Cody where we wanted to spend the weekend.   We had a long old day – getting up and washing Reg, doing the laundry  and food shopping and then set off to the park.  Nothing gets on our nerves more than unmade roads and we discovered that the park was 12 miles down a dirt track.  Matt had spent two hours of his life cleaning Reg and the bikes (The Thompson Twins) and by the end of the day they were dirtier than when he had started – but he was very brave about it!

 

Cooney was a very strange park – no water or electricity, but after the trek in – neither of us felt like going anywhere else and we are totally self-sufficient with the exception of the hairdryer when we cannot plug in.  It was attractive, a lake setting in a dip between hills and mountains.

 

We reached Cody after driving over the border into Wyoming in the middle of an enormous storm. The sky went mad and we had a really gusty wind for a bit, but survived!

 

We camped first night at Buffalo Bill State Park.  Bill Cody aka Buffalo Bill founded Cody and everything is named after him. This bit of the Shoshone River was dammed in 1910 to provide water for agriculture as it is feast or famine here normally.

 

When the snow melts, the river can be 19ft higher than usual, but the rest of the year they only tend to get 10-12 inches of rain.  So, they built the dam that created the reservoir a century ago.  We walked to the visitor centre on Friday and it was amazing.  The dam was the tallest in the world for a period and it was a very scary sheer drop down looking over the edge I can tell you. 

 

We might be becoming American as there was a lady in a golf cart offering lifts from your vehicle to the visitor centre.  I would say maybe not even a quarter of mile.  She seemed so offended when we initially refused to get on her golf cart that I relented and got on.  It was great – very speedy! What she did not realise is that we had walked three miles from the campsite – so we did not feel too lazy.

 

On Friday, we arrived in Cody proper.  We went to the Buffalo Bill Museum of the West which was excellent.  I had never understood who Buffalo Bill was or why it mattered, but now I do!  In a nutshell he was a hunter, a scout for the cavalry who ended up becoming almost the Beckham of his day.  By the end, he as famous for being famous and put on these enormous shows with Native Americans, bison, horses and Annie (Get Your Gun) Oakley which toured the world.  He was motivated to explain the Wild West and preserve it before it all disappeared.  Very interesting as by the end of his life he realised the impact of what he had done earlier – i.e. killed a lot of Indians and bison and seemed to feel very sorry about it. As well he might!

 

Friday, we sampled the Cody nightlife and did a little bar crawl and went to the best restaurant in town for ribs and a burger.  All good fun – but the absolute highlight was in an Irish brew pub where we saw a very bad taste menu description – Black and Tan onion rings!  We are still smiling about how terrible this is! Also at the same bar we saw a new hairstyle for Matt – photo attached.

 

But at last I come to the highlight of the week – the rodeo!  We went to the Cody Nite Rodeo and it was the best fun!  We sat in the grandstand and loved that all the kids dress up in Stetsons and boots.  With the help of the programme we quickly became experts in barrel racing, the tie down and of course the bucking bronco competition. 

 

As you can imagine after some beers the Bradburys were cheering the contestants. There were some hilarious moments – for instance when a man fell on his arse trying to kick his boot off or when a very young girl on horseback had the slowest horse in the world. 

 

The atmosphere was fantastic – really good fun – who knew that there were men called Rodeo Clowns and that their job is to act the fool throughout the whole thing?  This one in particular was very funny.  For reasons, too complicated to explain he had a corgi and it proceeded to do what the Blue Peter elephant did all those years ago.  Never work with children or animals (a fitting tribute to John Noakes) and this guy was surrounded by bulls, kids, calves and then the corgi.  It made us both cry with laughter.

 

We will have to go to another rodeo now to see if they are all as good as Cody’s or whether that is the best one.   To explain how funny, it is – do see the photo of the Pepsi banner.  The way that they thank the sponsors is for women on horseback to ride like the clappers around the arena with these huge flags… none of the digital hoarding nonsense we get at Spurs!

 

Check out the video of the bulls and cowboys. This morning I laughed all over again about how hopeless my videos were – was I so drunk that I could not follow the horses or were they really quick!?  Anyway, I have deleted a load of blurred rubbish – these are Matt’s efforts.

 

So, we have had a really lovely week – the sun is back out and we are very excited about seeing Marie and Shaun who arrive next week.  That said though it has been a terrible week again at home and we heard about the London Bridge attack yesterday afternoon.  Horrid business and I am sorry for the impact that it has on everyone.  I am also sure that it will be wonderful to get the election over. 

 

Be assured we are thinking of everyone and send you lots of love from the good old US of A.