Cheyenne

Oct 27 Monday Cheyenne

Another sunny day we drove (450 miles) to Cheyenne Walmart. It was a long drive: we went through canyons, up mountains, past forests, to flat country. We saw lots of antelope.

Oct 28 Tuesday Cheyenne and Denver
We are having such great weather we went sightseeing. We looked at the outside of the state capital and Governor’s mansion (which was closed) and 2 museums. Then we drove (120 miles) to near Denver.

us in carriage

Cheyenne Frontier Days Old West Museum
There were many unique carriages including, ambulance, wagon for selling popcorn, Conestoga covered wagon and hearse, etc. There was lots of rodeo memorabilia from the Cheyenne rodeo dating back to 1800’s. We watched a video of scenes from the rodeo that were excellent. There were many beautiful bronze statues and paintings. We bought a nice bronze like ornament of a cowboy scene for Ches.

Wyoming State Museum
There were lots of historical artefacts showing early settler life and Indian life. There was a collection of silver bought almost 100 hundred years ago for $7,500.00. I enjoyed the collection of dolls with period costumes. (couldn't take pictures inside)

State Capitol

Governor's Mansion

Salt Lake City

We were up and gone by the crack of dawn, I mean literally, the sun was just coming up as we left and the sky was a beautiful bright red. It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day. It was a short drive (165 miles) to Salt Lake City. We booked into a campground, Pony Express RV Resort. After we settled in we drove downtown to Temple Square. We did not go into library (it was closed) or convention center (it was huge, looked beautiful in pictures). It was very enjoyable walking around in the sunshine and looking at the nice buildings and gardens.

Temple
We took some pictures of the Temple, which is beautiful, but is not open to the public.

Tabernacle
We listened to organ music in the tabernacle the acoustics are unbelievable. The organist did a demonstration without a microphone she tore strips of paper, dropped some nails, and dropped a penny and you could hear it so clear and loud. The building is huge and the organ takes up almost whole wall and a couple stories high. It was interesting listening to the organ music but most of it was classical and not really to our taste. Would have been nice to see the choir but we were not there at the right time.



South and North Visitor’s Centers
These are two large buildings with different exhibits. They had wonderful paintings, dioramas and statues.

Beehive House
Built in 1854 it served as the official residence of Brigham Young and his family. It has been restored and there are many rooms, bedrooms, parlours, music rooms, dining rooms, kitchens, pantry, etc. The tour was interesting but interspersed with information on Mormon religion and at the end cards were handed out, but I did not fill in our name or any other personal information.

granddaughter's birthday party

We attended my granddaughter Melissa's 11 birthday party. She did not have too many friends for the party but they had a sleep over.

Her teacher stopped by for a while and is fantastic with Melissa and brought some wonderful and thoughtful presents, including this jean jacket, which she is going to help Melissa do some embroidering on.

We had some pizza, watched the treasure hunt, opening of presents and had a piece of cake and left, by then the noise was getting very loud.

gingerbread house party

Gingerbread House

A few days later 2 of my grandchildren and a friend came over and decorated 2 of the houses that we had made.

Melissa went for color coordination

the boys went for maximizing the amount of candy they could get on a house



Sept 3, 2008
Gingerbread House Party

I have reinstated the annual gingerbread house party. A little history of the origin is that 2 friends and I used to car pool and study together while we were taking the registered nurses training. This went on for 3 ½ years of studying and looking after the house and kids. We thought there must be something besides studying and working something that would be fun. It was December so we decided it would be fun to make gingerbread houses. Apparently it was since I have been having it for 24 years. There was a 3 year break when I retired and was gone for the winter, but solved this problem by having the party in the Fall instead. Elsie is one of the friends that I studied with and has been to all of them except one when I was living in Vancouver for a year. We even have the next generation with Elsie’s and Donna’s daughter usually attending. The next day Elsie’s granddaughter (5 years old) was so excited that she got dressed in the morning and got in the car to go to grandma’s house and see the gingerbread house before her mom was even dressed. This year’s party was attended by Donna P, Donna E, Elsie, Maureen, Evie, Anne, and Mary (new member). Unfortunately a lot of the regular attendees were unable to come and were missed. Everyone enjoyed making the houses and visiting. We had the usual problems of keeping track of how many ends, sides and roofs we had and the count did not come out exactly right (still lots of houses). It is amazing how all the same houses look so different when they are decorated.