renza, wyoming, and buffalo bill

Its been quite the busy day. Monday, july 12...I loaded my car and cleaned out the cottage I had rented this past week in Missoula, said goodbye and tried not to look in the rearview mirror too much. Approximately four hours and 202 miles later, I found a nice new friend at the Bozeman airport. Turns out, it was long lost Renza Sharpe, here to conquer Wyoming & Colorado with me! Hooray!

Several u-turns, a log-cabin drive-in restaurant (basically Abraham Lincoln's version of Sonic), and 220 miles later, we crossed the state border into Wyoming and wound up in the Wild West town of Cody. It’s named after the Pony Express rider and Bison hunter named William Cody – oh, I guess you can call him Buffalo Bill if you want. (town has a population of 8800. it’s a huge tourist destination in summertime because it’s the east entrance to Yellowstone park.)

So, yesterday, while laying around giving my knees a rest after the Missoula half marathon, I read up on Cody and places to stay. There was a normal, nice looking B&B that had decent photos online. They were the only place in town within walking distance of the main street, had reasonable prices, etc. We show up today and its cute: screen porch, red door, etc. We walk in to meet the owners, they show us to our room, the Mary Eleanor room. It’s named after each of their mothers – Mary, and Eleanor, respectively.

Their pictures are framed above one of the twin beds in the room, and Mary’s wedding dress hangs on the opposite wall. If that’s not creepy enough… turns out they’re both deceased. So basically we have a dead woman’s red velvet wedding dress – I said red velvet, that’s right – and their photos watching over us all night. Creepy? You betcha.

Did we mention we share the hallway bath with another guest room? It was supposed to be empty, so no big deal, I thought. Turns out a German dude in his late forties by the name of Ulrich is staying across the hall. (Could I make this stuff up? Probably. But, seriously, this is all true.)

We got to hear Ulrich Von Lichtenstein's very thick, very real German accent when Renza, without knocking, pushed the bathroom door open. “Ohhh! Jest a moment.”

Clearly someone was occupying the bathroom. I had watched this take place from the doorway of our room, and Renza's facial expresssion... priceless. Before I could find out if she’d seen anything, I threw myself on the bed trying to contain loud bursts of giggles at the thought of Renza barging in on an aging German man. Turns out, he was behind the door and she didn’t cause too much awkwardness, Ulrich was not seen nor too embarassed. But the poor man! Apparently they don’t have locks on the bathroom doors in Deutschland.

We also went to the Cody rodeo this evening – I had to explain to Renza, my environmentalist love, that the way they get the animals to buck is by tying a rope around the things that make the male horses and bulls… well, male. “I’d like to see someone tie a rope around those cowboys balls and see how they like it!!!” She exclaimed more than once in the next hour. Also, did you know Renza is from the steer wrestling capitol of the world? She should be explaining rodeo stuff to me. Sheesh.

Last thing of interest – we bought some locally brewed beer (Missoula Big Sky Brewing Co) and planned to pop a top out on the Buffalo Bill Dam, while watching the sun hover over the horizon, past the giant reservoir and mountains. But, we didn’t think about twist offs or needing a bottle opener.

Don’t worry though. I used the nearby chain link fence to pry the top off of our bottles. Sure, it was messy, and though I didn’t even finish my entire beer, it tasted good as we sat on some boulders off the highway, wind blowing the Wyoming air in our faces, the Wild West soaking into our bones. Or at least the wild part...

Renza’s mom thinks we should refer to ourselves as Thelma and Louise, but Renza objected to that because they set things on fire, stole lots of stuff, and ended up dying at the end of their adventure. So, we’ve come with alternate names. Gertrude and Betty Lou. You can call me Trudy. And this is my friend Lou.

And yes, that's us, cartwheeling and laying in the middle of the highway, across the Montana-Wyoming border.

like i said, it's been a busy day.