Friends & Fun

 One of the happiest aspects of workamping is that we get to meet wonderful people! While we were working at the Denver East/Strasburg KOA we had the privilege of encouraging Tom and Leah to become workampers, and they began their journey at the Strasburg kampground. Two weeks into our new job at the Cheyenne KOA they came up for a 2 day visit. Our first stop in showing them around Cheyenne was the historic Depot, several times slated to be torn down and as many times rescued from destruction. It now houses a tourist center, a gift shop, a museum, and a restaurant. Cheyenne has these beautifully decorated cowboy boots all over town, several at the Depot. Here are Tom and Leah posing for us. This boot was displaying the names and dates of all the former governors of the state, artistically arranged.

 

 Once again we drove by the majestic Wyoming State Capitol without going inside. We'll do that eventually! I loved the view of the dome through the blooming tree. The Capitol is right downtown, easily seen from many viewpoints.

 "Oh! There's a billboard advertising a Sanford's Grub & Pub! I thought the only one was in Rapid City. Let's try it!" We did, and, sure enough, it was just like the one in Rapid City, which we frequented while working at Bear Country. This restaurant is jam packed with junk all over the walls. Junk of all kinds, old car parts, license plates, old pictures, tin cans, bicycles, you name it, it is on the walls. Our table was right beside this sign, "Garth Brooks Rd". The menu is huge and all the items have unusual names. I knew I should have copied some of them down, because as soon as we left I couldn't remember any of them. This darn "oldtimers" disease! Leah and Tom are from Mississippi and were delighted to find that sweet tea was on the menu. They said they hadn't had any good tea since they left MS, and it was very good here. We all had it except Mr. Keith who loves his Pepsi.They also had deep fried pickles, which is a southern delicacy. I had mine with peanut butter. That's a memorable taste!

 When Tom's dish came, a chicken fried steak, he was astonished, as we all were, at the size of the plate! It could have fed a family of 4! He doesn't know where to begin!

Well, dig in, Tom! He did, and he loved it. Needless to say, he took home over half of it. We all loved our meal. Mr. Keith had a big plate of deep fried mushrooms, and took home most of it. We had a great time with our friends, and were happy they took the time to come visit us. We're hoping for more visitors from our former home down in Strasburg Colorado, not far to come!

Day One in Cheyenne

 This is the setting for the Cheyenne KOA. We looked back as we set out to tour the town and could see our 'house'. It's the one just in the center with the fir tree sticking out above it. We decided to have a quick drive-through in downtown Cheyenne so we might see places to investigate in detail during our summer here.

We chanced upon the park where the Frontier Days Rodeo is held yearly, and found the Botanical Gardens there as well. The grounds were not yet blooming, or even planted, but inside the greenhouse I was intrigued with this jade tree, a bonsai. I've had jades most of my life, and never saw such a healthy one with practically no room for roots! How do they do that?

A Bird of Paradise! How beautiful!

This is the majestic Wyoming State Capitol building. We photographed it from different angles and got pictures of some sculptures and statues outside. We will save an inside tour for another day. Can't wait!

In my advance reading about the town of Cheyenne I discovered that there are many sculptured cowboy boots in the downtown area. Here is one outside the old Railroad Depot. It's about 6 or 8 feet tall and there were several in the courtyard at the Depot. It looks like the Depot is used now mostly for a museum, gift shop, restaurant, etc. I'm not sure if it's still used for train business. There is a huge complex of tracks right below the street and I'm thinking there may be a newer building for passengers down there. We'll see! This is the first place we want to really visit and tour. Get ready for photos!

Right across the freeway from the KOA we found the Wyoming Hereford Ranch. I've read it's the oldest working cattle ranch in the U.S. We'll find out more about that later. We did see a herd of Herefords, red cattle with white faces. This is the lane leading up to the beautiful ranch house. This place is definitely on our list to tour later. I want to see this lane when all the trees are leafed out!