American Made

Buffalo, Wyoming has a charming downtown with lots of chichi shops mixed in with the usual tourist fudge and ice cream stands. Since I don’t want to add Western art to my tiny house nor extra pounds to my non-so tiny waistline, we passed on doing the sidewalk stroll.  We’d hoped to get Clara into a children’s art class at the museum, but it was full. On towards Yellowstone.


On the way out of town, we stopped by the Mountain Meadow wool factory where they start with local sheep fleece which they spin and dye into beautiful yarns. We watched the process from a second floor balcony which had good placards explaining the process. They also machine knit knit small quantities of high end woolen products. 

University of New Mexico and other colleges that raise wool sheep send their fleece here to be made into custom blankets. 

Beautiful yarn, but my shoulders hurt too much to consider knitting, especially after a rough ride into the parking lot with a couple of unexpected deep potholes  I settled for some dryer balls made from NOIL, nothing over one inch long, i.e., lint. A clever use of something that used to be discarded. We also didn’t buy any of their gorgeous sweaters or hoodies, remembering we do live in Central Florida and do not need heavy clothes.


Cody, Wyoming is not particularly charming. The downtown has a 4-lane road with parking on both sides and a turn lane in the middle. I doubt it was that wide when Buffalo Bill established the town in 1898. I wanted to see the Irma Hotel and the $100,000 bar Queen Victoria had given him. We also needed dinner, but the all you can eat prime rib buffet there didn’t strike me. While dithering, we happened on the nightly gun fight production, cleverly staged in the side street, with chairs for rent for viewing. We watched from the Irma’s porch and had a couple of beers. Ordered IPA, got stouts; tried again, and got lagers. 



Moving on. Most of the restaurants are closed on Monday, so dinner salad and pizza at the Millstone with another stab at a local IPA. It seems craft brewery has just not made it to Wyoming. We did get to see Florida State University women’s softball team beat Alabama in the semifinals on the TV. 

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