28. Wyoming

     Traveling in the summer can get a little tricky for us non-revers. The flights to Denver weren’t looking so good for Thursday morning so while Dennis was at work, I was home on the computer looking for other options. We were checking both American and Southwest options.  It was 4:30, Dennis was off at 6:15, and there was an open flight to Vegas at 8:30pm on American and then Southwest had an early morning flight to Denver. Could we make it? Luckily, I was just about packed, but we hadn’t planned on Vegas so we had no room or car reserved. Oh well, we’ve traveled many a time without knowing where we would stay, that was the fun and adventure of it all. Luckily, we have friends in Vegas who are more than willing to shuttle us to and from the airport, make a casino stop (you can’t go to Vegas without one), allow us to sleep in the extra bedroom with no advance notice (impossible at my house), and introduce us to a fabulous donut at 4:30 in the morning. Dennis did have an ulterior motive; he had not seen the finished product on the restored Pepsi machine and could not wait another few days to see it. I have to admit, it does look fabulous. Thanks Mike and Casa de Champion!

    After finally arriving in Denver we drove north to Wyoming. Right on the border is the Terry Bison Ranch. It is on the list of “must-dos” while in Cheyenne so of course we had to stop. The one thing not on their website is the train tour schedule so we just missed the noon train tour.While we waited for the 1:30 departure we moseyed on down to the Brass Buffalo Saloon and Senator’s Restaurant to chow down on some midday vittles. The restaurant is

located in a barn-like wood building. The building has a few leaky spots when it rains and I sat down in probably the only chair that was still wet from the rain the night before or the only one that didn’t get dried off. “I’ll have a towel with my sarsaparilla, please.” .  I ordered the buffalo burger which was served with thick cut fries. Dennis ordered the buffalo meatball sub. Bison meat is really quite good. I thought it might have a gamey flavor but it doesn’t. It is also leaner than other red meat. After eating lunch and drying off, we were ready for our train tour. We boarded a train pulled by a locomotive built by the ranch’s owner for the hour long tour. The ranch and track extend into Colorado and we saw many animals on this working ranch. We saw horses, goats, chickens, alpacas, camels, prairie dogs, and of course a herd of bison.

     Bison are known as American buffalo but they’re not really buffalos at all. They do belong to the same family but buffalos live in either Asia or Africa while bison live in North America. Whether you call them bison or buffalo, they are still massive animals. We had purchased food to feed them but when the train whistle sounded and they came running towards us, I wasn’t so sure. It was quite obvious who the dominant bison were. As smaller ones would try to approach the train to be fed a few of the larger ones would push them away with their massive head and horns. There was one bull in particular that was quite large but willing to be hand fed. He stayed next to the train the entire time eating the large pellets placed on his long tongue. He was so spoiled that if it fell to the ground he would leave it for the others and only eat what was placed on his tongue. I finally managed to get one on his tongue. The bison were shedding their winter coats so they looked a little mangy.  After feeding the bison the train returned back to the ranch while passing the trout stocked pond and “Chicken Bus”.  

     We wanted to reach Mt. Rushmore before the evening lighting ceremony so we headed north to South Dakota. We missed our intended exit but decided to keep going to the next one instead of going back. We should have gone back. The rural highway took us out of the way but through the grasslands. The only sights along this rural highway were grasslands and a few coal-filled trains. Yes, there is coal mining in Wyoming. There was a constant reminder of how bad it gets when it snows every time we passed a sign that said road closed if lights flashing. Thankfully there were no flashing lights but we did hear how just a few days before there had been some road closures to the west of us and it was the end of June.

     Cheyenne has a number of things to see and when we passed back through it on our way back to Denver we paused to watch the beautiful sunset.  The largest steam locomotive is in Cheyenne  but we were a little disappointed to see that it was not spotlighted at night.

http://www.terrybisonranch.com/