Saturday August 21

Ok, here goes. The horseback ride was the most stressful thing I did all summer. It was pretty horrible. Here’s the story. The horse in front of me bites the horse in front of it which belongs to Ian. Ian’s horse does the double back kick and wheels around and they square off, both horses pawing the ground. In all the commotion the horse in front of me backs up causing my horse to get crushed into the one behind me. All the horses are spinning around and the dust is flying. This all happens 2 minutes into the ride. Sweet……only 2 more hours to go.

5 minutes later it all happens again. The wranglers are yelling at people and everyone is freaked out. It was scary. Personally I don’t know how Ian kept going on the ride. I would have been freaked out. The kid’s horse was angry and he was on it.

For some reason the horse I was on wanted to walk with his head over the back of the one in front of it. I spent most of the 2 hour ride looking at the back of the horse in front of me and pulling on the reigns to back him off. It was torture. I think there was some nice scenery on the ride but I wasn’t looking. I still don’t like horses.

At one point even one of the wrangler's horse was freaking out rearing up on hind legs. She was screaming for help and yelling for the leader to slow the group down. These are the people who are supposed to be in charge.

It took us at least an hour to de-stress after the ride. We were all completely freaked out.

On our way out of the park we saw something you don’t see every day. A huge grizzly bear crossed the road in front of us and then swam slowly across the Yellowstone River. It was cool to see his neck and head moving as he paddled with the rest of his body under water.

Got out the chairs and watched the bison jam up traffic at fishing bridge. Some people sat in their cars a long time waiting for the road to clear.

Headed out of the park for Cody, Wyoming. Visited Wayne's Boot Shop and strolled around town before hitting the rodeo at night. The rodeo is always great. I still can't believe that they run it every single night in June, July, and August. After the show I met a little girl who showed me how to throw the lasseau. Her dream was to own her own horse, so her family uprooted from New Jersey and headed west. She was granted her wish by the "Make a Wish Foundation" and now gets to ride "Snow" every day.

After the rodeo we hit the Silver Dollar Bar and Grill in town where we were treated to some amazing drunken antics by the locals as well as some pretty mean 2 steppin'.