Americana: Cheyenne Frontier Days

 

Frontier Days has been a part of Cheyenne since the end of the 19th century. It's not just rodeo, but a full range of activities and performances for the whole family. Uploaded by museevirtuel.ca.

You don’t have to love the sport of rodeo in order to enjoy Cheyenne Frontier Days. But it helps. Billing itself as “The Daddy of ’em All,” Frontier Days has been an annual mainstay of Cheyenne since its founding in 1897. Its rodeo competition is probably the largest of its kind in the country, and draws some 200,000 people during its run.

Uploaded by marriott.com.

But there’s plenty to do even if you don’t know a dogie from a doggie. There’s a large carnival midway with games and rides. There’s an Old West museum, a chuckwagon cookoff, a grand parade, an Indian village, free pancake breakfasts (yes, free), a Western art show, and a performance by Air Force Thunderbirds. And almost every night, a major musical act. The 2011 acts include Darius Rucker, Jason Aldean, Kid Rock, Mötley Crüe, The Charley Daniels Band, and Toby Keith.

The event is usually held over the last full week of July, so if you’d like to attend in 2011, that’s July 22-31. The capital of Wyoming has never become too “citified,” and it revels in everything Western during Frontier Days. So put on your cowboy boots and your Stetson, and enjoy a part of the country that most of us don’t know enough about. Cheyenne. Wyoming. The West.

Related Articles

• MÖTLEY CRÜE To Perform At 2011 Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo (bravewords.com)

Travel: Grand Teton National Park

 

Grand Teton National Park is located in northwest Wyoming, just south of Yellowstone National Park. Uploaded by wallpaper-s.org.

In this roughly 40-mile long range of the Rockies, you’ll see nine peaks over 12,000 feet high, the highest being (no surprise) Grand Teton at 13,770 feet. They aren’t the tallest, but they rise without foothills and are some of America’s most scenic mountains.

The area became a national park in 1929. The park covers 484 square miles of land and water, and like most of the national parks in the western U.S., is a haven for sports enthusiasts. It’s located in northwest Wyoming, just south of Yellowstone National Park (Great American Things, December 28, 2009).

Uploaded by answers.com.

There’s biking, boating, camping… cross-country skiing, fishing, hiking… climbing, rafting, and snowmobiling. You can get a guide to show you the best places to fish. If you enjoy birdwatching, this is an especially diverse habitat for birds, with more than 300 species present. And there are more than 200 miles of hiking trails within the park as well.

By the way, it’s likely that the name “Tetons” was given the mountains by some lonely French trappers. Tetons means “breasts” in French…

Uploaded by recplanet.com.

Uploaded by firstpeople.us.

Uploaded by thundafunda.com.

Uploaded by public-domain-photos.com.

Uploaded by wallcoo.com.

Travel: Yellowstone National Park

Stories of exploding water and boiling mud were dismissed at first as tall tales. Uploaded by cache.virtualtourist.com.

The first American National Park, and arguably still the greatest. It’s located primarily in Wyoming, though it extends into parts of Montana and Idaho as well. Inside the park you’ll find an amazing variety of environments – lakes, canyons, rivers, mountain ranges, geysers, and the largest supervolcano on the continent.

Hikers, boaters, campers, and fishermen all love the park. So do grizzlies, wolves, bison, and elk. With a coverage of 3,468 square miles, there’s room for them all.

This area was so remote that the first serious explorations weren’t undertaken until 1869-70. Till that time, tales of “fire and brimstone,” boiling mud, steaming rivers, and petrified trees were dismissed as fantastic stories.

Interestingly, the new art called “photography” helped convince Congress that the Yellowstone area was a rare treasure. When photos of the region were seen in Washington, DC, it was only a couple of years later that President Ulysses Grant signed the law that created Yellowstone National Park.

These photographs will make you a believer:

Uploaded to Flickr by ixfd64.

Uploaded by hayesphotoweb.com.

Uploaded by realgap.co.uk.

Uploaded by usgs.gov.

Uploaded by kenrowe.net.

Uploaded by majesticmoose.net.