Today was our day to enjoy Cheyenne Frontier Days. I got the chance to go when I was with my parents years ago and got to see Chris Ledoux in concert. The Frontier Days rodeo is know as "The Daddy of Them All". It really is one of the biggest and best. First we took a tour of the Cowboy museum and roamed the frontier area checking out the pioneers and activities. While we were there, the USAF Thunderbirds flew over us numerous times putting on an air show. It blasted our ears and rattled your ribs, but it was so cool! Later we saw those pilots up close. it is like "Top Gun" up close. These guys are way tall and thin. They all have sunglasses and crew haircuts. They made me feel short. They day was sunny and warm with a breeze. We got good seats in the shade on the west side. The rodeo began and went for almost 3 hours with non stop entertainment. There were so many big name rodeo contestants there.
We got to see Trevor Brazille, Tuff Cooper, Sheri Cervi, and so many other top names. Very cool!
As we were leaving, we saw friend from back home, the Greene's and also someone from college. It was amazing to run into them with all the people there. After leaving Cheyenne, the plan was to drive toward South Dakota and just find a place to stay. At this point in the trip, we did not have concrete plans. As we left Cheyenne, we drove for miles without so much as a rest stop. It seemed that Wyoming had no civilization. I could not understand how anyone could live out there. You would drive hours to a town or to schools. It was pretty scenery with all the different terrain.
We drove into a town in Wyoming called Lusk and Mark decided he would keep going because he wasn't tired yet. The next town was Hot Springs. I was kind of excited about the town as I have never seen or been to a hot springs and the town sounded like it had a lot of neat things to see and do. We arrived at 10:30 and checked with the two big name hotels in town. They were both booked. We could not believe it! There were a few shady hotels that Mark refused to even check out. I was game to find one that was upper scale. He would only go for the big name hotels. It was late, we were tired, and had been diving for so long, yet we decided to go on. I was disappointed we would not get to see what the town of Hot Springs was all about and we were driving in the pitch dark not getting to see any scenery as we made our way to Rapid City. The town of Rapid has a population of 70,000 people so finding a hotel should not have been a problem. We drove to the first 3 big name hotels and they told us no vacancy. One hotel let me use their phone and I did some calling around. It appeared that every hotel in Rapid was booked. It was nearing midnight and we were without a room for the night. A hotel manager did some calling around and found us a room in a downtown hotel. I jumped and said we will take it! Tired and exhausted we made our way to the hotel. It was an older hotel, but renovated and very nice. Luke had been sleeping since Lusk and we made a bed with his air mattress on the floor. We all were saying prayers, thankful to be sleeping in a bed and not the car.
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