What a great vacation for only five days. We put over a thousand miles on the rental car, a few stiff muscles from sitting, but had a great time.

Hubby and I started off in Cheyenne, WY for the rodeo, the granddaddy of them all! The biggest outdoor arena in the states. We watched the Native American dances of the Lakota Arapaho tribes.

These were the women dancers. Their dresses were very colorful and pretty.

The San Antonio, TX rodeo starts off with a gigantic cowboy breakfast, feeding thousands breakfast tacos, biscuits and gravy and all the piping hot coffee you can drink. The Cheyenne, WY rodeo feeds thousands also, a pancake breakfast on Mon, Wed, and Fri. I was impressed as they were mixing bags of pancake mix in a cement mixer and flipping pancakes to the volunteers on their trays, then relaying the hot food to the many other volunteers serving. They had the routine down pat! They also supplied all the hot coffee you could drink.

Of course we had to check out all the vendors, and as usual, buying food items, like dipping mixes and soups that you just add water to. Our yearly supply until the next rodeo.

From Cheyenne we drove back to Colorado. I remembered my great, great, grandfather’s son, Thomas, settled in Laramier County, so we set out to find their burial spot. Thank you goes out to the Greeley, Weld County Library genealogy department. The two ladies there found the cemetery, of which, of course, we were in the wrong county. But, they also found one of his son’s WWII papers.

And, another thank you goes to the caretaker of the cemetery who walked us right to their graves!

From Loveland we decided to drive to Estes Park. Neither one of us had ever been there, so road trip! I’m here to tell you, if you plan to stay overnight in Estes Park make sure you have a room before you go. Summer time is very crowded, but yes, we were able to find one room. A motel ONE as my hubby describes it. Double bed, very basic. Real basic. But it was a bed. We’ll have to redo that trip, but plan ahead!

There were a couple of special trips we took, but that is another story. So will try to get caught up for now and come back to tell you of our Chugwater and Golden trip.

Until then………………