Jared was lucky enough to get Friday off over the weekend. We decided to make a spontaneous trip two hours north to Sheridan. To be honest, being trapped in a car with a grumpy, teething Jack for four hours over the course of the day sounded less than fun, but summer is going to be over before we know it and we won't be able to do fun day trips for another 8 or 9 months after that. We never regret it when we do stuff like this.
The car ride was pretty rough trying to keep Jack happy, but when we drove around the final corner and saw Sheridan spanning out in front of us with the beautiful Bighorn Mountains as its backdrop, we were immediately glad we came. Sheridan is bigger than we thought it would be. Definitely not as big as Casper, but still pretty bustling. The fact that we were there over the Sheridan Fair and Rodeo weekend made it seem even more happenin. There's a really cute old main street and some very cute old homes, too. Our first stop was Kendrick Park--the best park in town. It was hot out and pretty crowded, but Jack didn't care. (I should point out that "crowded" in Wyoming isn't like "crowded" anywhere else we've lived. Even on the most "crowded" day of the year, parking, driving, and getting into a restaurant was a breeze.) Jack was so happy to be out of the car. He climbed straight up the stairs to the tallest slide, and then promptly chickened out and Jared had to carry him back down.
There's an adorable little ice cream shop in the middle of the park, and a lovely little river cutting through, too. Jared waited in line and got us a huckleberry ice cream to share by the river, where Jack mostly ignored the ice cream because he was too content throwing rocks in the water.
We tried to walk back to the car at this point, but there was a little baby hill on the way that we couldn't pull Jack away from, so we walked up and ran down it a few dozen times.
It was fun to be a real life little family giving our cute, angry toddler the time of his life.
Next we stopped for an early dinner on the cute little downtown strip. We ate at 3:30 to avoid the rodeo crowds, which was a good choice. Mom and Dad will be happy to hear that the place we ate at was Cowboy Cafe. They have a couple other locations in Wyoming, and the food was SO. GOOD.
We used to just split a meal every time we'd go out, but now that Jack eats us under the table, we usually get a larger entree and a smaller one, and then share everything. I got fried cod and sweet potato fries (yum), and Jared got a meatloaf sandwich (YUM). Jared and Jack enjoyed watching the slideshow of Wyoming pictures going on behind me. Next time we go back to Sheridan, we'll bring our swimming suits to float in the river, and we'll eat at Cowboy Cafe again.
Fed and happy, we made our last stop of the day at a hike on Soldier Ridge. I was hoping we'd be able to do a hike in the Bighorns, but they aren't quite close enough to Sheridan to make that an easy stop on a day trip. You have to drive an extra half hour to get up in the mountains, and we weren't up for that. But this was fun and beautiful too! It was a little hike through some rolling hills above the city, with nice views of farmland and the mountains off in the distance.
Jack was very tired by now but we were able to keep him happy enough by handing him a constant stream of sticks and flowers to play with (ok, to throw).
We saw some really pretty birds, including a huge golden eagle. Jack's favorite thing we saw was an airplane flying overhead. His least favorite thing he saw was when I hiked down a side trail by myself for maybe a hundred feet to enjoy the quiet sounds of nature. It turns out that is NOT ALLOWED. Yay mom life. After the hike, we grabbed a slushee and headed home. Jack slept most of the way so it was actually a really nice drive. Hopefully we'll be back for Sheridan again next summer!
