CODY and BEYOND. (change of direction by mutual consent now swinging east then down south in a circle back to LA)   Sorry spell check did not work!

Slipped up with the blog over the last few hundered miles.

CODY stayed for three nights on Ponderosa camp ground and liked the town. As I said earlier it takes it's name form Buffalo Bill, William Cody, who was aresident in the area and who apart from being a showman with his world renowned Wild West Show was also a Government tracker in the Indian wars, a top class backwoodsman and friend of Wild Biill Hitchock, Kit Carson etc. Cody set up the original town of Cody and was the inspiration behind the irrigation project which dug a 30 mile canal through the region and which now, expanded somewhat irrigates an area of some 1500sq miles giving the best agriculture in Wyoming. He was also instrumental in getting the government to build a dam, now named Buffalo Bill dam which houses enough water to irrigate the entire region. Not just a Cowboy.

We went to a country singing show which was good and were introduced as the only English people in the audience of 27.

A nightly rodeo is held for the likes of us and to all intents it is similar to a proper rodeo without perhaps the partisan support of the riders. Dangerous and rough it is riders were hurt, a bull gored his rider before it left its' pen and all riders were tossed off their steeds eventually, tacky but fun.

Buffalo Bill Museum sounds a bit iffy but is infact five museums in one, all built within the last five years and run by the Smithsonium Museum the premier USA museum on par with the British Museum. A day or more could be spent here and it was all of an exceptional standard.

Various mini walks into town and some almost passable meals later we set of for:-

Montana June 13th to a place called Hardin going on a wide loop on the 310 and then the 90 to the little town.

En route we stopped at a camp a few miles outside Cody on the Alt14A, not a camp but a visitors centre on the site, where 14000 West Coast Japeneese were interned after Pearl Harbour and kept there for the duration of the war. Very interesting and moving, 95% were American citizens and were dispossesd of everything in the four years and had to start from scratch when the were released with next to nothing. Trueman and elenor Rosvelt the presidents wife were vehemently opposed to the action but it went ahead, justified on defense grounds but actually caused more by racism than anything else.

Hardin close to the battlefield, area, of Custers Last stand. An interesting visit, I had envisaged vast mountains and sweeping valleys but no large areas yes but mor Downland like scenery with many gullies sweeping down to flat river areas.

In brief Custer was searching ,with others, for Indians to destroy and force them onto reservations which the Indians did not recognise. He came across a camp and fearing that he had been seen, which he had, he dcided to attack straight away and he did in a three pronged effort. He had 275 men, the camp he saw was huge 6000 people with at least 2000 warrior Indians. A curious decision to attack, perhaps an arrogent one as well when he could have withdrawn and waited for reinforcements which were in the area. He did not wait and we know the result. We stood on the site of Custers last stand wher he and the final 30 of his men were killed.

Difficult facts but there is no doubt that the Indian tribes and people were treated very badly indeed but how do you put together two totally different ways of life, probably impossible the Indians a nomadic hunter gather moving with the bison heards over vast stretches of land areas bigger than the UK and holding most of that land sacred with the famers, ranchers miners who create townships and railroads to connect. All present day stuff require limited individual space, profit and food, onlt food relates to the Indian and the buffalo 30 million of them were virtually wiped out in ten years by the profiteers for their skins so no food for the Indians. It all gets so mixed up and impossible to sort out America has not, Australia has not and Canada has its' own similar problem. Today we drive through huge Indian reservations, the land though sacred is of no use to them, their villages are shambolic and sparse being rude there seem to be a aweful lot of car breakers yard around many of the shake like dwellings, this is not integration into modern society nor is it the " Indian way of LIfe" complete no mans land ---I think!!!

Enough enough enough

Oh yes a conversation overheard between a local and an outsider with the local rancher type saying there was nothing typical about the hot weather 88F at the time he had been snowed in for at least two days in every month of the year except August so nothing was typical.

14th JUNE

From Hardin Grandview camp (no view) we continued eastward to Mount Rushmore to view the Presidents carved in the mountain face rock. The carvings are impressive and though a pilgramage of too many Americans they are worth a visit. Following this we went to see the carving in progress of Crazy Horse a carving asked for by Indian chiefs to show that Indians honoured their people as well. Facts I forget but this was envisaged and started some 50-60 years ago, a polish American sculptor was chosen and he designed and worked on it the whole of his life some 40 years or so. To start with for years on his own and then with his children as they grew up. A video presentation showed all this and decribed in detail what the project was and it includes a big university and medical college for the north west American Indians. We were shown the now massive visitors complex and told how all monies for the carving and everything else was funded by donation and visitor entries as the ethos of the whole thing was for and by the people. Huge national and state funding has been repeatedly refused. Not once in this presentation were the Indians mentioned it was all about the Polish American Family. The visitirs centre is the largest and most impressive we have seen but it housed a craft fair of hundreds of Indian stalls, the carving which is the be all and end all of the project is going very slowly and may be completed in 50 years time if they are lucky. Where were the Indians apart from stall holders.

Stayed the night at a KOA site Devils Tower closeish Mount Rushmore area. Devils Tower is a huge piece of rock sticking out of the ground all on its own. The tower was a major feature of the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

15th JUNE

Off again to and I've got it wrong now. We reached Devils Tower the night before we saw the Presidents so after that visit we ended up at Custer a decent sized town where we stayed in a rustic site calledBig Pine Campground on the route 16.

16th JUNE

A days slog of a drive down to Cheyenne capital city of Wyoming but down in the south east corner of the state within a mile or two of Colorado and Nebraska. Went via the 85 vrtually to the town a longish trip through nonderscript scenery, very hot. Stopped for coffee as one does at a wayside town with a Stage Coach museum went in and got caught by an enthusiastic lady! still we learned quite a lot and saw the last stagecoach to run on the deadwood trail between Cheyenne and Deadwood. Gosh the coach was cramped and would today take about six people max. It is said it took up to eighteen people and 5 days to get between destinations. Driver , armed, and shotgun rider with each coach and often a horse rider guard too. I seem to have missed out that we called in at Deadwood, a small town with a big and wid history, it still has lots of cassinos and bars etc.

Why Cheyenne, sounded nice but was average and had a huge railyard which appeared to have a control tower in the middle. Campsite KOA again sais by someone to be the beat KOA ever and quiet. LIAR. Set 150 yards off the interstate 80 I counted an average of 300 lories per hour at 7pm on a Saturday evening same through the night and on Sunday when we left.

SUNDAY 17th JUNE

Left on a windy day down the 85 towards Denver but turned off at Greeley into the Rocky Mountain National Park Colorado, Rockies actualy run Mexico to Alaska 3000odd miles so this was a Southern section. Passed one Forest fire before Greeley. Up narrow gorges with lots of traffic into the national Park