The day opened sunny at Pahaska Tepee but cool, 35 degrees. A Red-napped Sapsucker, woodpecker to non-birders, was gleaning small insects from the pine trees outside our door. The wranglers were at the corral with their string of horses. The wranglers were from Colorado and Kentucky, got to Pahaska in May to work with the horses, which winter in Powell near Cody. They found plenty of snow and cold weather in May, but June has been nice. We can still see snow in the mountains around Pahaska.
Seems like most of the help are from the somewhere else—wantin
g to find out something of the history of the place, we asked the waitress if she had been here long and the answer was “since April”. Not much use asking the staff about the history of the lodge. By the end of summer they will be experts, but not yet.The front door of the gift shop opens and a guy comes out with a life-size wooden carved Indian in his arms. He sets it beside the door and Pahaska is open for breakfast. Breakfast was the Western: eggs, hash browns and toast plus juice, good. Ready for the trip to Cody.
Telephone still out? I asked the cashier about the phone as she manually filled out a credit card form: “as long as the box is under water things don’t look to good.” The worst flooding is closer to Cody, but the river behind our cabin is running to its banks and the water is brown from the run off-- no fishing here.
Cody is preparing for the Cody Stampede Rodeo, which is held the same days as the Red Lodge Rodeo. This is a little competition between Cody and Red Lodge that has been going on for some time. Some of the cowboys fly between cities and compete in both rodeos the same weekend. On this Wednesday, however, there were more bikers than cowboys, but both breeds were visible. The Irma Hotel founded by Wild Bill Cody was taken over by bikers. The other side of Main Street was a little more typical of what I remember.
The Cody museum is worth a trip in itself—five museums connected to a center court. We saw first the Buffalo Bill museum which has momentos and pictures from his life, the West and the Wild West Show. The photo at the right is a stage coach blanket made of skins. Our visit was interrupted by a power outage—the building literally went dark after a pause that seemed long two backup lights came on but they were far apart. Later a guard came and let us to the lobby where there was light from the street.We ate lunch on left-over sandwiches from yesterday that happened to be in our cooler. Since the blackout was city-wide it didn’t make much since to look for anything better. When the light came on we went back and saw 1500 rifles and pistols on display in the Winchester museum. There were many exhibits
and old photographs so it wasn’t as boring as it may sound. There were an additional 1200 weapons in the study area, which we encouraged to visit—we skipped that part. Opting instead to quickly visit the gift shop. Where you could buy this Indian loom project. Maybe a photo will do for now.Finally we visit downtown Cody, where we found used cowboy ropes for $15 and strawberry sherbet and oatmeal cookies for $6.00.
The trip back to Pahaska was scenic but uneventful. It’s time for dinner.
Tomorrow we return to Yellowstone Park.
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