A Horse, Of Course – Our Wyoming Adventure, Part Four

There are people who like to go on vacation to faraway places and spend most of their time sleeping in or otherwise lounging around their hotel rooms. I do not understand these people. If I want to sleep in and not pick up after myself, that’s what Saturdays at home are for. When I’m on the road, I want to be out exploring as much as possible. And that’s exactly what we did on the third day of our trip to Wyoming this summer.

We started the day in Cody, Wyoming, with breakfast at our hotel, the Irma Hotel. The Irma was built in 1902 by none other than Buffalo Bill Cody himself, and named after his daughter. The hotel is a bit of a maze and the rooms weren’t great, but the dining hall is a sight to behold, with a grand cherrywood bar that was a gift from Queen Victoria. Buffalo Bill headed up a wild west show, if you’ll recall, that traveled far and wide, introducing the world (including the Queen of England) to cowboy sharpshooters and Indian caricatures.

The town of Cody, as you might expect, is rather enamored with Buffalo Bill. Our guidebook said that the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, with its five museums, was not to be missed. So we skipped it, opting instead to spend the morning horseback riding. I’m thinking the Cody Firearms Museum would have been entertaining, but we made the right call. Our trail ride up Cedar Mountain was a highlight of the trip.

Two years ago, during our trip out west, Hannah got to ride horses in Sequoia National Park. Lily was too young (only five then), so she and I had to stay behind at the barn. Hannah had a blast; Lily got jealous. This year, I made finding a family trail ride a priority during trip planing. Seven-year-olds can’t ride in the national parks in Wyoming, so that meant riding horses either before we hit Yellowstone, or after we left Grand Teton. After reading a bunch of reviews on Trip Advisor and making a few phone calls, I figured Cedar Mountain Trail Rides in Cody was our best bet. They didn’t take reservations, but they had a reputation for easy rides, well behaved horses, friendly trail guides, and great views along the trail. That sounded promising!

We arrived at the stables as early as we could, since I didn’t know how long we would have to wait without reservations. Not too long, as it turned out, maybe twenty minutes. That gave us time to walk around the stables and pet a few horses, and get situated for the ride. I have to admit, I was a little nervous. I hadn’t been on a horse since grade school, and, back then, my uncle the farmer just led the horse around the barn area. How hard would it be to ride a horse up the side of a mountain? And what about those Trip Advisor reviews that warned of “fairly steep inclines”? I don’t do too well with heights.

As it turned out, I had nothing to worry about. The trail was steep at times, sure, but my horse, Big Dan, was sure-footed. (That’s a thing you say about horses, right?) He was so well trained that it took all of a minute to learn how to communicate with the horse, mostly through the reins. And seeing the world from ten feet up was a lot of fun. I don’t know how I would do with a horse with a bit more spirit, but me and Big Dan got along great.

The girls absolutely loved the trail ride, as I had hoped and expected. Hannah rode a horse named Domino, who was (shocker!) black and white, while Lily rode Blue, who was not actually blue. All of our horses were easy going and took commands well. Neither Blue nor Big Dan were in a hurry to get anywhere. Hannah rode up ahead with our friendly guide, Trey, while Lily and I kept falling behind on our pokey horses. It probably didn’t help that telling the horse to speed up involved kicking his sides — my tiny seven-year-old doesn’t exactly generate much force with her kicks.Every few minutes, I would ask Lily, who was riding ahead of me, how she was doing. She would turn around and give me a big grin, not saying anything, which meant she was loving it. (Lily’s other method of expressing joy is skipping, which wasn’t an option on the back of Blue.) We didn’t make it all the way to the top of Cedar Mountain, since it was only an hourlong ride, but we went up a ways and enjoyed the sweeping view of Cody and the surrounding landscape. Taking photos while holding the reins was a little tricky, but we managed. And, just before we returned to the stable, each of our horses broke into a trot, for a little more bouncy fun.

Riding horses was number one on the girls’ list of things to do in Wyoming, so we were in good spirits for our afternoon exploring Cody. On the way to the rodeo the night before, Hannah had noticed Old Trail Town, a collection of historic buildings and wagons brought in from all over the state for preservation and display. Driving through Cody, with its traffic lights and gas stations and restaurants, Hannah said that Old Trail Town was how she imagined Cody back in Tennessee, like a town from a Western. So we spent an hour at the museum, getting a feel for life in Wyoming circa 1900. After looking at wagon wheels and firearms and fur coats and hunting trophies, we made a mental note never to time travel back to Wyoming circa 1900.

For lunch, we headed back to downtown Cody. Peter’s Cafe provided tasty sandwiches and a waitress with Totoro earrings, which made Hannah very happy. They had a fun conversation about their favorite Studio Ghibli films, and the waitress managed to talk Lily, who did NOT want to have a sandwich, into trying their french toast, which she loved. Properly nourished, we spend the next little while shopping, because we were traveling with an eleven-year-old girl with money to burn. She didn’t have much luck, but I picked up a new coffee mug decorated with brands from cattle ranches from all over Wyoming. We also managed to find hiking shoes for Lily, since, as I’ve mentioned a couple of times already, the ones I ordered for her from REI arrived too late for our trip. We didn’t get a jacket for Hannah, since outdoor clothing stores in Cody, Wyoming, apparently don’t cater to pre-teens.

After a quick stop at the Wild Sheep Foundation for a photo op with their giant sheep statue, we said good-bye to Cody and headed west to Yellowstone National Park. The short trip to Yellowstone’s east entrance had two highlights. First, the Buffalo Bill Dam, just west of Cody,  explained why the town of Cody looked so dry. All the water was just on the other side of the dam in the Buffalo Bill Reservoir. From the dam, the view to the west across the reservoir was beautiful, and the view to the east, looking over the Shoshone River as it trickled through the canyon, wasn’t bad, either. Cody was sunny and dry, but on the dam, on the other side of the mountain pass, it was cool and windy. Lily and I had a great time running to and fro to take photos, the wind either at our backs or blowing into our faces.

The second highlight of the Cody-to-Yellowstone drive? The exceedingly random Bob’s Big Boy statue in the middle of a field near the town of Wapiti, Wyoming. I knew it would be there, thanks to a tip from Roadside America, but I wasn’t prepared for just how out of place it looked! Prime Instagram material, as far as I was concerned.Not long after we passed Big Boy, we entered Yellowstone National Park. Teddy Roosevelt, who doubled the number of national parks while president, called the eastern approach to Yellowstone the 50 most beautiful miles of road in the US. I can’t dispute that. With the sun shining on wildflowers and the valley opening up in front of us, we were in awe of the natural beauty of northwest Wyoming. We learned over the next two days that Yellowstone is an amazing place, with mountains and rivers and wildlife and geysers and more in one fairly compact region. Our drive in from Cody was just a glimpse of the sights to come.

Driving through Yellowstone, you soon realize that when you see a dozen cars parked by the side of the road, you should pull over and see what animal everyone is looking at. We had our first opportunity to do this about thirty minutes into the park, after taking Sylvan Pass (8530 feet above sea level! Drink more water!) and driving along the edge of Yellowstone Lake. After hopping out of our car, we ran up to the cluster of tourists looking across a large meadow. There, near the edge of the forest on the other side, were two elk having a little dinner and a drink.

The tourist with the massive zoom lens probably got a good shot of the two, but Hannah and I struggled with our consumer-grade cameras. Lily was completely out of luck, given her new camera’s limited zoom. That caused a little frustration until I figured out how to turn on her digital zoom. Digital zoom doesn’t actually yield a better photo — it’s just like zooming in and cropping a photo on your computer — but it made Lily feel like she was getting some close-up shots.

We stayed for a few minutes, marveling at our luck seeing wildlife so soon during our Yellowstone visit. Little did we know that we were just getting started for the evening! Not long later, while turning onto the road through Hayden Valley, we saw a bison not ten feet from the side of the road, digging himself a hole in the dirt. We didn’t stop this time, given all the traffic at this intersection, but we took a few blurry photos as we passed. Ten minutes later, we did pull over to see some buffalo, but these were far off, on the other side of a pond. Even so, we stood and watched for a while, impressed with the massive creatures, who were settling in for the night, just like the bison at the intersection.

Elk and buffalo were cool, but we weren’t done yet. Soon after the buffalo, we saw a long line of cars parked on the side of the road. Maybe twenty or thirty, and those were just the ones we could see before the road curved. There was a cluster of maybe a hundred people not far from the road, all looking at something. There wasn’t any place to park, so we kept driving. As the road curved, we caught a glimpse of what the onlookers were looking on: a family of grizzly bears! Momma bear and three cubs were enjoying a buffalo dinner, maybe a hundred yards from the road. I started looking for a place to park. I ended up at least a quarter mile away, maybe more. There were so many cars! Everyone wanted to see the bears.

These turned out to be the only wild bears we saw in the park. Next to wolves, which are almost impossible to spot outside of winter, bears are the rarest of wildlife sights in the park. That didn’t used to be the case, back in the days when tourists were encouraged to feed the bears (and some bears fed on tourists), but since the park rangers instituted sensible bear feeding rules, the bears have become harder to spot. When the girls and I reached the cluster of tourists watching this family of bears, we noticed at least two park rangers there, answering questions and making sure everyone kept their distance. And the cameras! I don’t think I’ve ever seen zoom lenses like I saw that evening! There were some serious wildlife photographers there, likely having the highlight of their trip to Yellowstone.

The girls and I stayed as long as we could. The sun was going down, and Wyoming gets cold fast when the sun’s not out. We were in our t-shirts and shorts from earlier, having left our jackets in the car a quarter mile away. And poor Lily couldn’t see the bears without someone holding her up, so I alternated between helping her and snapping a few shots myself. Momma bear and one of the cubs wandered away from their meal for a little while, and I snapped a photo of the cub sticking his tongue out. They were fascinating creatures, and it was a real treat to watch them, with the beautiful Hayden Valley spread out behind them.

Eventually, we had to move on. It was cold, and GPS told me I still had almost two hours of driving to get to our hotel in West Yellowstone, on the far side of the park. We made a beeline for the hotel, with just one more wildlife stop: a bull elk not a hundred feet from the side of the road. We probably got a little closer than we should have, but the light was good and we were ready to take photos. I realize that jumping out of a parked car, surrounded by other tourists, isn’t exactly a wilderness safari, but we found the evening exciting, never knowing what animal might be around the bend.

We had dinner that night in a little restaurant in West Yellowstone, Montana, two blocks from our hotel. They had buffalo burgers on the menu, which wasn’t that uncommon in Wyoming, but they also had elk burgers. I was dying to try one, but my two little animal lovers wouldn’t let me, having just seen those burgers wandering around Yellowstone earlier in the evening. That was fine, however. Dinner at 10pm with my two favorite people, after a day of adventure and wildlife, was perfect anyway.