Monday 25th
After a farewell cocktail party and dinner last night,
there was a performance by a singer/songwriter, Lance Brown, who was great. He
also taught guitar, so I asked him if he would take mine and donate it to some
needy student, which he agreed to do.
Blount had organized a shuttle to take us to the airport,
and we got out there in plenty of time to get trouble free to our
very-full-again plane.
We arrived in Denver at 1.30pm and went straight to the hotel
in its airport shuttle as it was too early to get the rental car at that time.
So at 4.30, I took the Hotel shuttle back to the airport and then the Hertz
shuttle to the off-airport rental lot – leaving Carolyn at the hotel having a nap.
And …Yup…Hertz declined my credit card again. I insisted that my card was OK,
having used it dozens of times in the past few weeks in the USA, but was told
there was nothing they could do so “go away and check with my bank”. As Carolyn
was not with me, we couldn’t do the same trick as Houston, so I tried to get to
another rental company, but the lots are huge and separated by barbed wire
fences. So I took the Hertz shuttle back to the airport and the hotel shuttle back
to the hotel and rang the bank in NZ. They informed me that there was nothing wrong
with the card and there was no record of Hertz trying to authorize a payment
with it.
So, armed with this information and with Carolyn for backup,
we shuttled our way back to Hertz and confronted them with this information.
The agent gave it a go, and the card was declined, however he then told me
(rather reluctantly) that Hertz were having a lot of problems with Mastercard
transactions being declined b y their new system– and accepted it was their problem, not mine. So
they persisted and after 3 attempts using different methods, they could not
break through the Mastercard barrier. So I said; “how about you bill my wife’s
card but waive the fee for me being the extra driver”. “Can’t do that”, they
said – but then another lady came over and told the agent to “just do it”. So, after some creative accounting, we finally got our rental car from Hertz for
the original contract price - a mere 2½ hours and 4 different agents asking the same
questions. We were given a choice from the “full size” lot and selected a mini
van for ease of luggage handling. We didn’t realize until we got to the exit,
that it had 2 miles on the odometer!
Love Hertz!!
Tuesday 26th
Early –ish (8.30) start for Casper WY, but half an hour
out of Denver, the traffic came to a halt on the freeway. We followed a few
cars that turned off heading for the boonies, and finished up at a place called
Firestone, where there turned out to be a large shopping centre. So we stopped
at a supermarket (not Walmart) and got the makings of a cut lunch, and by the
time we got back to the freeway, the traffic was flowing again.
Casper was a long drive and we were a bit weary to start,
but the van is quite comfortable and easy to drive. Not only does it have
cruise control, but collision avoidance radar – so almost all you need to do on
the freeway is steer! Tons of room and the seats recline – Carolyn found a
relaxing position
However, we arrived at the hotel before check-in time so
we visited the “Trail Interpretive Centre” which was much like the one we went
to in Nevada 2 years ago except it chronicled the settlers journeys up to
Casper and Fort Laramie, whereas the other one was for the continuation to Oregon
and California. It wasn’t quite as good as the Nevada one, but still pretty
interesting.
We also found that there was a dinosaur museum (The Tate)
attached to the local College, so we went up and took a look before going to
the hotel. They are presently working on a T-Rex that is encased in stone, but
is a full skeleton and will be the only one in existence when finished – the next
most complete T-Rex being “Stan” at 65% complete and parts of him are on
display here also.
Wednesday 27th
Our hotel room had a door that backed onto the indoor
pool area and dining room where a buffet breakfast was served from 6-9am. I
woke at 5.40 and looked out the window to see a queue from the buffet lining
out the corridor. When we went over at 7am, the buffet was wiped out –
absolutely nothing left. Apparently 2 busloads of tourists had checked out
early and dealt to everything that didn’t move. The kitchen began to refill the
dishes after they left, but we couldn’t wait that long and headed off for Cody
and the Wild West.
The route took us over some rolling hills covered with
oil wells and buried pipelines…and not much else. I had noticed that we only
had 93 miles worth of fuel left, but figured (this being oil country) that
there would be plenty of gas stations along the way. Wrong. Halfway to the next
town, I calculated that we should make it with 12 miles left in the tank…but no
guarantee. Then we flew past a small hotel in the middle of nowhere and Carloyn reckoned she saw gas pumps
outside. So we turned around and, sure enough, they had a battered petrol and
diesel pump – with petrol at 3.259/gallon. So I opted for $10 worth to last us
till the next (cheaper) stop. She duly worked it out on the calculator and out
in 3.7 gallons and off we went. We carried on to Shoshoni and then through a
spectacular gorge to a town called Thermopolis, where we stopped to refuel. On
the way I got to thinking that $10 worth of petrol should only be about 3
gallons at $3.25 and got out my phone and calculated that it should have been
3.07 gallons, not the 3.7 she put in. That meant we paid 2.70 a gallon for it,
which was a whole lot better that the $2.95 we paid in Thermopolis. However,
honest as I am, I wasn’t about to go back the 73 miles and tell her of her
mistake.
Thermopolis, apparently, is famous for its hot springs
(hence the name). However, it also is a Dinosaur dig site and has a very large
museum – they just don’t make it easy to find. But find it we did, and we could
have gone on a 2 hour tour to the dig site, which would have been neat, but we
didn’t have the time. So we took more pix on dino bones, (some of which were a
bit different and pointed out defects caused by disease, injuries and just
plain old “old age”), bought the T shirt, and headed off to Cody.
Where we arrived at 1pm and were able to check in
straight away. This gave us time to go to the Buffalo Bill Centre of the West,
which is truly awesome. It has 5 separate galleries and is huge. One is for
Bill (of course), one for the plains Indians, one for art, one for natural
history and one for guns. There was too much too see and too many pics to talk
about here. I stopped taking pix of the gun gallery as there are over 7000 of
them on show, so I will just post up a selection of the more interesting ones
Before we got back to our hotel, we checked out the Cody
Cattle Company two doors down. Here they have a live concert and a dinner and
for the “Trifecta” price of $47, you get those plus tickets to the night rodeo
just down the street. So that’s what we did. The Show was a group named “Triple
C Cowboys” and the leader, Ryan Martin, is one of the most amazing flat picking
guitarists I have ever seen. I got video, but the acoustics sucked, and I see
he has stuff on you tube – so check him out. The food was basic “Chuck Wagon”
stuff, but delicious and plenty of it.
Then on to the rodeo (and another T shirt). It was very
showey and a little tacky with the advertising, and the commentator sounded
like a cross between Billie Graham and Michael Buffer (the guy that announces
on heavyweight boxing). But it was a bit of fun and Carolyn was right into it,
until the young boy on the penultimate bull ride got stomped by the bull right
in front of us and was stretchered off after10 minutes to a waiting ambulance. It
wasn’t so much the sight of the guy being worked on as it was the near eulogy about him that our commentator was giving us – including a somber “Amazing Grace” in the
background!
However, the kid waved to the crowd as he left – so he
weren’t daid – and apparently it’s the most common way these guys get injured –
trying to ride around on something that don’t want to be rid!
Enough for now - we did Yellowstone today and more tomorrow, but that's another posting.
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