Yeehaw: Taking a ride at the Ranch at Ucross.

Travel is nothing if not learning about people and places. Sure, you can soak up a lot of information about Wyoming from Wikipedia. But  there truly is nothing like being there to gaze at the wide open landscape under the big sky, mount a horse, watch a bison lounging by the parking lot,  and hear a cowboy’s drawl.

In all honesty, I had not given much thought to Wyoming or South Dakota before this trip. Oh, I knew Mount Rushmore was in South Dakota and I had long wanted to visit Yellowstone National Park, but its location in Wyoming made little difference to me.

I was looking forward to this journey from Rushmore to Salt Lake City in a general way. I hoped to see buffalo and geysers, but had not fully anticipated the immersion into cowboy culture I would receive. Cultural immersion is something we often mentally reserve for travel to foreign lands.

A buffalo lounges near the Lake Yellowstone Hotel parking lot. (click to enlarge)

But we live in a big country with distinct subsets of American culture.  Our visit to South Carolina and Georgia a few years ago exposed us to the courtly ways of the South. Granted, this was not as different from California as, say, Germany, but it was clearly different.

The Western culture of the plains also is distinct.  We had not left the country, as evidenced by the singing of the national anthem prior to Cody’s rodeo, but the display of patriotism was considerably lengthier than at an Angels game.

Flags flying at the start of the Cody rodeo. (click to enlarge)

Plus, it was accompanied by prayer for country and the safety of the athletes. Between the play-by-play and corny jokes, the announcer invoked the cowboy code in asking for applause as consolation for riders whose efforts had fallen short and prayer for a young girl who sustained an injury.

You can read about such things for academic knowledge, of course, but being there gives you the feel of a competition that is at once violent, with riders being thrown of bucking broncos and raging bulls, and kind of genteel, with the crowd bowing in prayer and giving it up for those who had fallen short on this day.

While these are not huge contradictions,  I find them in a way symbolic of the complex web that continues to forge the great American West. As we traveled through breathtaking and diverse landscapes, we learned of overcoming  extreme hardships, betrayal and reconciliation, and difficult balancing environmental stewardship with economic needs. We heard of the collisions between native peoples and the Euro-descended from a tour director with blood from both camps.

Susan and I might have seen Rushmore and Old Faithful traveling by car and guidebook, as we had experienced other national parks and monuments,  and we surely would have witnessed their ingenuity and splendor. We would have missed some of the dramatic backdrop, color and context provided by Jan George, our Tauck guide, and filmmaker Ken Burns, via video aboard the coach that carried us across the Cowboy State.

Old Faithful: Dramatic evidence that you’re Yellowstone is a camouflaged volcano. (click to enlarge)

We would have snapped the requisite photos at Old Faithful and picked up a few interesting nuggets of information from our Lonely Planet guide book and visitors center exhibits. On our Tauck tour, we also were able to gain a deeper understanding of this land, its people, the battles of the past, and present-day issues. 

In future posts, I will share some highlights.

You can check out Tauck’s itinerary for this trip here. Simply comment on this post to request more information about any of your travel needs.