Hole-in-the-Wall Gang

There they are, folks, the only known picture of The Violet Storm, Eli "Rustler" Wiebe and Ava the Scalper, Butch Cassidy's toughest gang members. You can tell by their hardened looks, their haggard appearance and the blood stains on their hands just how tough they were.  These three, in their time, were not to be messed with by the toughest of lawmen!

While traveling Wyoming we spent a day exploring the town of Cody, Wyoming.  It was a blast!

We visited the most run down, thrown together museum I've ever seen, Old Trail Town, where they had the actual cabin that Butch Cassidy and his Hole-in-the-Wall gang actually stayed. It was there, as I was signing the guest book, that I realized that Jared and I were celebrating our sixth anniversary. That's right, six years!  Should I be embarrassed that it took seeing the date at the top of a dusty guest book that made me remember?  No, I think I'm okay with it. Happy six years to us!

We saw the worst gunfight ever, but entertaining nonetheless.

We found an obscure LDS visitors center, The Cody Mural, (obscure because I've never heard of it before and the website has no reference to the church, and the missionaries didn't even bare their testimonies, but cool regardless.)

The best part of all, we went to the Cody Nite Rodeo, a full rodeo that began at 8 pm.  I LOVED it!  I was pretty much the expert on all things western, as Sarah had never seen a rodeo before, and Tyler only when he was a boy. The competitors left a little to be desired (very few actually got qualifying times/scores in their events) but they had five year olds competing in steer riding and barrel racing, so I wasn't complaining! The best part of it all was when they called all the children under the age of 12 to go down into the arena to pull bandannas off calves tails, who were running wild.  Eli and Ava went down.  Ava ran straight in and lined up with the other 100 or so children.  When Jared let go of Eli's hand at the gate, he went running toward the throng of children, but when he realized that he was the last child there, so all eyes were on him, even the rodeo clowns, he got a little scared and stopped dead on his run.  The clown, over the microphone, told him to come along, that it would be okay.  He was so scared!  Jared ended up having to walk him over to the other kids.  As soon as he found Ava's hand he was happy, but I was sure he would burst into tears up until that point. The two of them were the youngest for sure, and they just kind of followed blindly behind the older kids, chasing after the calves.  It was the cutest thing in the world!

Next time I happen through Cody, Wyoming, I am definitely going to go to the the Buffalo Bill Historical Center.  Like the Calgary Stampede, Cody has a rich history that media images of Buffalo Bill just don't do justice to. Next time I'm going to ride in the rodeo, too.