The historic Sheridan Inn.
Our nominal HFH work schedule is Tuesday through Saturday, so we had today available to do whatever we wanted/needed to do. The Sheridan visitor center is close by so we went there early to get information and a walking tour map of downtown. Sheridan has more than 50 buildings on the National Register of Historic Places, many from the late 1800’s to early 1900’s.
Buffalo Bill Cody hung out here and interviewed acts for his Wild West show on the porch.
Just coincidently, the Sheridan WYO Rodeo is taking place this week (it’s a big deal), so there is a lot of signage and commerce related to that. Accommodations are hard come by, and a bit pricier, in the area because of the rodeo. Fortunately our spots at Peter D’s were pre-arranged far in advance and at a slight discount. We were asked to contribute $20/day towards the $32 cost of our site, and the local HFH affiliate picked up the difference.
Our walking tour done, we found the local Albertson’s grocery store using the Point Of Interest feature on our Garmin 465T GPS. (This is the GPS we use in the car. We can use it as a handheld unit, but we rarely do. We have a DeLorme handheld GPS that we use for hiking and geocaching. We use a Rand-McNally RV GPS in the motorhome.)
The Mint Bar. “Meet me at the Mint” is what the locals say. Lots of bars in town, not too many wine stores.
Besides a few grocery items, we were looking for some wine. The Albertson’s in Gillette had a separate, attached store, but the one in Sheridan did not sell beer, wine, or liquor. In this county you can only buy alcoholic beverages at a “liquor store.” There was a small one a few doors down from Albertson’s, so we went there.
Back at the rig I continued working on my blog posts until it was time to go to the 4:30 PM social at Steven Gullette’s trailer. A glass of wine and finger snacks with our new(est) friends; RVing is a good life.
For dinner, Linda made a flatbread pizza with caramelized onions, peppers, olives, kale, mushrooms, garlic, and a touch of balsamic vinegar. There were severe storms in the area that we were tracking using several weather apps on our smartphones, but none that appeared to be a concern for us. Before she got the pizza in the oven, the wind came up very suddenly and flipped up the front arm on our large driver-side awning. We scrambled outside to retrieve the ladder and poles needed to stow the awnings, and were assisted by Marvin and Leo from the motorhome just to our west. Linda hung on to the patio awning strap (barely) while we got the driver-side awning straightened out and stowed. We then ganged up on the patio awning and got it stowed. I then stowed the two small awnings. The wind in Wyoming is constant and can get very strong very suddenly. Hot, bright sunshine notwithstanding, we may just leave our awnings up for the duration of our visit.
The potential crisis averted, Linda finished assembling the pizza and baked it using the convection bake feature of the microwave oven. She bought a flexible silicone baking disk at Escapade and has been using it to great success. The pizza was fabulous; another example of how she is developing the ability to improvise dishes based on ingredients (G-BOMBS) that are the staples of our way of eating (WFPB). (Greens, Beans, Onions, Mushrooms, Berries, and Seeds. We also let G stand for Grains.)
It was still light after dinner, so we went for a ride to locate the two build sites and see a bit more of Sheridan. We found the county fairgrounds where the Sheridan Wyo Rodeo will take place and saw a magnificent sunset from there. We also found Kendrick Park, which has a wild animal section with Bison and Elk, but couldn’t find the entrance. The Kendrick family was prominent in the founding and development of Sheridan, and a number of buildings in town bear the “K” which was their mark.