WILD HORSE

Now my car needs a battery. And a headlight. And I just had it in the shop again for an ongoing clutch cable issue. Funny how it waited until I got it home to burn out. Ok, I can do the battery...but the light??? That's just out of my league. (incidentally, New Jersey Bob calls a battery a "bat tree", you know, like the bat mobile or the bat channel. I make fun of him). So I decided to take a trip up to Sheridan Wyoming to meet up with the Bob part of me( he had the weekend off) and let him be the man. Mister fix-it. So, here we are, vacationing in the town of 12,000 with the bucking horse logo everywhere you turn. Here's the top 10 things to do in Sheridan Wyoming. We're going to try and see some of this today. We already did number 3, but didn't see any trolleys.
The first night up here, not really a night, I left at 11pm Friday after closing the shop down and arrived at 5:13am. The Bob part of me was 20 minutes behind coming from Montana. I booked our room in advance and decided the Best Western would be a safe bet. I would have picked the Holiday Inn except they wanted $109.00 an night! In Sheridan. Wyoming. In the middle of nowhere. A town of 12,000.
My first clue that I made a mistake...I would have arrived at 5:03 am if it weren't for the train I had to wait for. The train that was just one block away from my destination. The train with the really loud air horns that they blew liberally. The train that comes through every 30 minutes between 9pm and 2am and again between 4am and 9am. Blowing his horn. Waking me up. Geology Bob sleeps on an oil rig, so this was more like a lullaby to him. Don't think for a second I didn't let him know it was keeping me up. Why should he sleep in peace when I couldn't?
Later that day we decided to go for a run to see historic downtown Sheridan. Main street of course. Here are a few points of interest. The Rainbow Bar where strangers are welcome.


It says so in the window. I wonder how many big city outsiders would go in there for a beer. We didn't. By the way, everybody here smokes. It was hard to stay in any bar for very long. I guess they missed the health warnings. Since we couldn't breathe we decided to get dinner. This badger was hungry too. He's having a chipmunk. You could buy that if you wanted to. I though it would look good on our fireplace mantle. Frugal Bob was emphatic about NOT letting me bring it home. He said it cost too much. But if it didn't we could buy it? Right. I think he secretly wants it.


We found a Chinese buffet. In Sheridan. Wyoming. Town of 12,000. In the middle of nowhere. They had lots of choices. Sticky rice. String beans (they were pretty good). Broccoli that tasted like chicken. Lots of deep fried things that were indistinguishable from one to the other. They even had cottage cheese. Yes, you read that right. Canned peaches to go with the cottage cheese and Licorice ice cream. Interesting color. Grey ice cream. Cowboy Bob found many things he thought he'd try.

(if you look closely, you will see the bandana he has tied cowboy style around his neck while wearing an IBM e-business shirt). He's embarrassing to go out with but I love him anyway. I think he just wanted to fit in with all the other tight Wrangler jeans wearin' cowboys.
Now for the wine. I brought a bottle with, DaVinci, but we decided to support the locals and chose the much more appropriate,WILD HORSE, 2003 Merlot. $16.89. Alcohol 13.9%
We didn't have wine glasses, so we used plastic hotel cups with the Best Western logo. You aren't supposed to have drinks in the hot tub...but oh well, we're on vacation dammit! Rules are made to be broken, right? (don't tell my kids I said that). The Bob part of me didn't really like the wine, although he couldn't put a finger on exactly why. I thought it was smooth, a little too sweet, peppery, oaky, full flavored and not too bad, but probably not worth the $16 price tag. I would drink it again I just wouldn't consider it a great value wine, unlike Protocolo at $5.99 a bottle. By the way, if you ever get to Sheridan Wyoming and visit Buffalo Bill's Chop and Steak House for dinner, DON'T order the stuffed crab appetizer OR any of the fish entrees. They manage to turn the fish into fish jerky. It's not very good. If you complain, they will take something off the order and charge extra for something else to make up for it. I guess they don't think you will look at the bill, or remember the prices. Back to Denver in the morning and back to reality.