Doing Local Errands

All we did yesterday morning was run a few errands. We stocked up up on some groceries and we stopped at an outlet store that we have seen several times while driving around town. The outlet store was no big deal and there was nothing there that caught our fancy enough to buy. We then came home and rested until our start times at work. It was also a very cool day and we had some light rain in the AM so it was kind of dreary most of the day.

There is a special staff meeting today at 2 PM for all the front desk workers so that means a little bit earlier start for me today. That pretty much rules out going someplace before work today. We are thinking about a couple places we would like to go on our days off this week. The first one is a boat trip in the Bighorn Canyon that people around here have taken and are talking about how nice it is. It is free for employees of the Village so we may go there with some other couples on Friday. We are also talking about a trip to Billings, MT, where there is a Costco and some other stores that we miss and are usually only in the larger cities. The trip there is about 1 1/2 hours, so it's not a place you go every week.

The good news is that today is our "Friday" and the last work day of the week. It wasn't such a bad week so I guess we are settling in to the routine...

Wrapping Up Our Amazon Gig

Yesterday morning was a stay at home morning and we completed the rest of the details for our next job in Kentucky at the Amazon.com facility. We made our reservations at the Green River Marina Resort in Campbellsville, KY, from October 22 thru December 23 of this year. Amazon had presented 6 different campgrounds to us from which to choose. They ranged from across the street of the facility to 16 miles away. Ours is 5 miles away from Amazon. They pay for full hookups at wherever you decide to stay, and they pay for arrival up to 2 days before you start and pay through the day after you finish your work assignment. We tried the closest one, but of course, they were booked. We have a couple that we work with here - my working partner, Karen, and her husband - that have signed up for the same time frame and campground that we signed up for. We also completed our paperwork on line so we are ready to go in October. We are a little concerned about the travel at that time of year through the northern states but we expect it to be OK as long as we stay on and near the Interstate highways. Also, We expect to stop at Patty's house for a visit on the way out there and we are looking forward to that. We have from around October 5th to the 22nd to travel to Kentucky from Cody, WY.

We also went into town and went to the K-Mart store there. That was the first time in years that we went to one of those stores. It isn't too bad and it is an option to Walmart. Josie misses her Kohl's store down the street that we had in Arizona. Our budget doesn't miss it though.

This morning we woke up to a light rain which is the first we've had in July so far. The weather has been a pleasant surprise, so one day of light rain is something we can take. There are no plans yet for our pre-work time today, so we'll see what happens...

Parade Downtown

The annual Fourth of July Parade in Cody was to start at 10 AM, so we walked about 200 yards to the street corner at the Resort and found a great place to sit. We were amazed at the crowd of people, lining both sides of the street:

The main street in Cody is 5 lanes wide which is perfect for a parade. For a town of 8800 population, it is a great street to travel on, with hardly any delays. The parade lasted for about 1 1/2 hours and included around 130 entries. It started with the color guard, representing all branches of the service:

There were several bands, antique cars, lots of horses, both large:

and small:

It included lots of floats that were local organizations, banks, politicians, medical groups, dancing clubs and schools, go carts, fire trucks, rangers and sporting groups like this one:

The parade ended with the Wyoming entry in the upcoming Tournament of Roses Parade to be held on New Year's Day, 2011:

There were probably 200 or more members from high schools all over the state:

They will represent the state very well.

It was back to work again at 2:30 in the afternoon and it was another hectic day. We heard the fireworks begin at 10 PM and stepped outside to see some of it over the rooftops. The fireworks were being set off just at the edge of town so they were visible from just about everywhere.

We hope everybody had a great holiday yesterday and we'll see ya tomorrow...

Fourth of July Happenings

It was another late start to completing the blog entry today as we went to the Cody Fourth of July parade on the street by our office. Those pictures and discussion will be in tomorrow's entry.

We basically spent yesterday morning catching up on rest from our busy 2 days off. Josie did laundry and I watched some of the golf tournament. Before the golf telecast I watched a show about golf commentator (and former professional golfer) David Feherty, one of the wittiest guys in the sport. It was called David Feherty's American Journey and it told the story of how and why this Irish lad who was a United Kingdom citizen changed his citizenship to the U.S. this past February.


In addition to the humor, it was very meaningfull. He talks about his visit to Baghdad two years ago as the impetus for pushing toward American citizenship. He fell in love with the U.S. soldiers and spoke of how the media often mischaracterizes them. He said "I wanted to be able to call them my soldiers, my pilots, my sailors."

On this day before Independence Day, it was quite the reminder to appreciate those that serve and help keep us independent and free. If the show is re-played, even if you are not a golf fan, I think you might find yourself welling up with a little pride and maybe even a couple of tears. Definetly worth viewing.

Work was extremely hectic as we had to check in a large number of holiday guests. As hard as it may be to believe, we will have a large number of folks arriving today, the Fourth of July. People actually still travel to a destination on the day of the holiday.

We still have a couple hours before we do it all again - work, so until tomorrow...

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!!

Yellowstone, Northern Route

We set a time to leave yesterday of no later than 8:30 AM to go to Yellowstone by taking the northern route. This involved taking the Chief Joseph Scenic Byway out of Cody and through a small portion of Montana before entering Yellowstone at the Northeastern Entrance. This is a beautiful trip in itself and represented some of the most scenic travel anywhere in the country. We took a total of 130 pictures yesterday and many of those were along this highway. I included a couple of those below, starting with the picture from the Dead Indian Summit at 8080 feet:

Also at the top, we found this chipmunk that was playing just over the rail:

We reached the Northeast Entrance to Yellowstone and it wasn't long before we spotted some antelope in the fields. We got a good shot of this one:

There is a long valley of open range called the Lamar Valley, and there were buffalo everywhere. There were several herds scattered about the valley and we got some good pictures, one of which is below:

Continuing on to the northern loop on the Grand Loop, we took a turnoff to see a petrified tree. What in the world would a petrified tree be doing in this part of the country? If you read the information in the link, you will be surprised, as we were, to discover that Yellowstone has more petrified trees than any other site in the country:

Further on, we stopped at another location that offered a half mile walk to view the Wraith Falls:

Was the one mile round trip walk worth it? We thought so.

When we arrived at the first turn southward on the upper loop road, we came to Mammoth Hot Springs. Here, there are many different walkways that take you around the unusual effects of the thermals that are common in Yellowstone. There are also places where Yellowstone employees have housing, and we couldn't ignore taking a shot of this grassy lawn area outside one of these residences:

Yes, there were probably 15 or so elk just grazing and lying in the grass.

We took several shots of the thermals in this area, two of which are below:

They really are fascinating.

The crowning event of the day was spotting our first bear in Yellowstone. Once again, we came upon a huge traffic jam and saw people pulling off the road and running with their cameras to a location at the edge of the forest where we saw this:

He was just calmly walking along, stopping to graze a little bit, and then continued on his way.

The day was another long, enjoyable day off. We think that we will only ask to work 4 days on jobs in areas like this so we can spend more time seeing the beautiful sights. We will again go back to Yellowstone - at least on our way to the Tetons and Jackson. We could never get tired of going back to this place.

Today starts another work week for us - sigh. Josie is doing laundry and then it's time to get ready. These last 2 days went like lightening...

Buffalo Bill Historical Center and Stampede Rodeo

(This post was interrupted this morning by poor response times on the computer and our self imposed requirement to be out-the-door by 8:30 AM today).

We got a fairly early start to visit the Historical Center yesterday. Our plan was to see as much of the 5 museums as we could in one day and return home in time to go the Stampede Rodeo at 8 PM. If we we were not able to see everything in one day, we could return today as the admission was good for 2 consecutive days. It turned out that we were able to see all of the museums in one day as we spent about 5 hours touring the complex. There was so much history and lore associated with these museums it was nearly impossible to see every aspect of each of the museums.

Starting with the entrance:

The admissions desk was just inside this entrance and we purchased our 2 senior tickets for $13 each, which entitled us to the 2 day admission. Our first museum visit was going to be the Plains Indian Museum but we took a slight detour to see the boyhood home of Buffalo Bill Cody that was moved here from Iowa and set up on this site some time ago. It is a plain, Midwestern home:

The Plains Indian Museum was just packed full of the history of all the tribes in the western part of the country. It would be impossible to show all the superb displays in this museum so I have only included a shot of one of the many areas:

There were probably a half dozen separate areas with displays in this museum and we spent probably 2 hours total in this first museum.

The next one we went through was the Buffalo Bill Museum and it too was packed full of mementos from his scouting days, and days in the military, not to mention items from when he ran the Wild West show for which he is most noted:

Most Scouts for the military in those days were only commissioned for one campaign, but Bill Cody was a Scout for 5 years and eventually became Chief of Scouts - something that not too many people knew about him.

We moved on over to the Whitney Gallery of Western Art and were amazed at the many beautiful paintings, sculptures and statues that were part of Buffalo Bill's era. There were paintings of Yellowstone that were done in the 1890's and they look as though they were just completed:

After a visit to the Draper Museum of Natural History, which was a walk through the various depictions of Yellowstone at different elevations, the geology and the animals that inhabit the Park, we toured the Cody Firearms Museum - not one that Josie was looking forward to, but one that I found exciting:

This final photo of our tour of the museums is of of the Cody Scout Statue, which is in the rear of the Museum's complex:

We enjoyed the day at the museums and were glad that we were able to see what we wanted to see in one long day.

To make the day even longer, we had tickets to the Cody Stampede Rodeo for the first night of this annual professional Rodeo competition. Since we had photos of the Nitely Rodeo that we already went to in a previous post, we only have a couple shots from last night. The first is of the arena and the stands before the competition started:

The Rodeo started at 8 PM with this color guard, representing the Armed Forces, that paraded around the arena and led the crowd in the singing of the National Anthem:

There is no question that the riders and ropers we saw last night are much better than the Nitely Rodeo cowboys. They have to start somewhere. We watched the bare back riding, steer wrestling, team roping and saddle bronc competition before we left at 11 PM.

What a great day yesterday, and today was even better for us as we returned to Yellowstone and did the northern route. That post will be done tomorrow AM, I hope...

Finishing The Work Week

It is always nice to see the last work day of the week. The last 2 days we have had no tours come into the cabins so the work has been more hectic checking in individuals for the 83 cabins. As mentioned before, when we get tours, we can fill 20 - 30 cabins by just dealing with one person - the Tour Director. The business is starting to really pick up in the Gift Shop which makes Josie happy. She was responsible for closing last night - alone for the first time, and she did well. Both of us are getting into the routine at work and it seems to be running smoother.

We have tickets for the first day of the Stampede Rodeo in town. That starts at 8 PM so we will have to plan something today that will insure that we are home in time. This is the big rodeo of the year in Cody where all the top riders and ropers will compete. It runs from July 1 - 4. The Historical Center has been in our plans for quite awhile, so we will probably go there during the day today. There are 5 museums to see, and they are all different, but in the same complex. If we can see everything we want to see at the Historical Center today, we would like to return to Yellowstone tomorrow and take a different route there and travel the other (northern) loop road.

It should be a fun 2 days no matter what we do...