Day 12: GOALLL!!!

The cabin

My dad and I woke up somewhat early to go for what would be our last run of the trip. We found a park trail that traveled parallel to a thin creek and weaved behind many different styles of Jackson homes. We saw a group of people behind the town high school training for cross-country skiing on those long roller blades that mimic skis.

When we returned back to the cabin, my mom and sisters were still asleep. I immediately turned on the U.S.-Algeria match, a game that the U.S. had to win to continue in the World Cup. For those of you who missed the now-famous game, I will provide you with this video and short description of what happened (though the game is indescribable). The score was 0-0, and the U.S. would not advance if they did not win. They had countless opportunities to score, but they did not. Then, in extra time..in the 91st minute, Landon Donovan, the American soccer hero, scored to win the game. It was unbelievable.




After recovering from the shock and ecstasy of the U.S. win, we packed our bags and checked out. We had a few hours to kill before we had to head out of Cody, so we decided to do a little shopping. Our first stop was at our hotel gift shop, which had a huge selection of western memorabilia and souvenirs from Cody. My mom and sisters shopped their hearts out, picking up last minute gifts for friends and family.

When we were finished at the hotel, we went into town to find some breakfast. The first place we checked out was a teahouse, where we did one of those awkward step-inside-to-see-if-it-would-be-a-good-place-to-eat-then-realizing-it’s-not-so-you-slowly-walk-backwards-out-the-door. Luckily, we found a great place called Peter’s Café and Bakery across the street.
Before crossing the street, though, we had to stop at a few more gift shops and find some Native American souvenirs. We found a few gifts, which the shop owners wrapped in deer hide with a feather for good luck, and we were finally, finally done shopping for the trip. However, as fate would have it, we still had one more obstacle to overcome before we could have our breakfast.

We crossed the street and began heading towards Peter’s when we were approached by what appeared to be Buffalo Bill reincarnate. A tall man, in a full cowboy get-up, with long curly blond hair and a curled blond mustache, Buffalo Bill walked straight towards us.

“Excuse me, folks, where are you from?”

“Oh, we’re from Virginia.”

“You all going to see the rodeo tonight?”

“Oh, no, probably not, we are leaving today.”

“Well that’s a darn shame. I’ll tell you what. In high school, I was in a play and I was the only one who could play Buffalo Bill because no one else in my school could grow a mustache.” With every word he said, he moved about an inch closer to us. “Now my name is William Thomas Cody, that’s the name that appears on my birthday certificate.” We slowly moved towards Peter’s, but it was no use.

“I’ll tell you what, folks, I’m going to give you a couple of these,” he said, as he pulled out two coupons for a local restaurant. “Now you go there for a great meal tonight, then check out our rodeo.” He handed us the coupons, then walked away with his son, who was also dressed like a cowboy.

He looked almost identical to the real Buffalo Bill.

“I did not like that,” Emily said. “He was standing waaay too close to me.”

“Yeah, that was a little strange,” we all agreed.

We stepped inside Peter’s and immediately noticed that every male in the restaurant was wearing a huge cowboy hat (Dumb and Dumber huge).


Thankfully, Peter’s looked like it had an amazing selection of breakfast food. Their pastry section alone was something to stare at. We each ordered our food and sat down in the back of the restaurant.

I had just begun texting Liz about Buffalo Bill when we heard the door open. And there he stood. William Thomas Cody. Buffalo Bill 2010.

He walked past us to where the soda fountains were and stayed back there for an unusually long time. I got up to get a drink of water and noticed that Bill was working on a color photo printer. It turns out that Bill makes money by letting Cody tourists take pictures with him and then printing the pictures out in the back of Peter’s for a mere $35.

I sat back down, relieved that he had not followed us into the restaurant. My relief immediately ceased when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“Son, I’m going to give you a chance to be a hero,” Bill said, as he slowly pulled his pistol out of its holster.

When I saw him pull out that pistol, I admit that my first thought was that he was going to rob the place and everyone in it. Maybe he really did think that this was the Wild West.

My family and I relaxed (not completely, of course) when he started spinning the pistol around on his finger. He spun it over his head, onto his other fingers, and around his back. Then, he handed the pistol to me. “If you can do that, I’ll let you all take a free picture to me.”

The pressure was on. I knew how much my family wanted a free picture with this stranger and I knew how upset they would be if I didn’t succeed in Buffalo Bill’s challenge. In other words, I simply could not fail.

Well, I probably should have practiced my pistol-spinning skills a little more before this trip, because fail I did. I got one or two decent spins around my index finger, then handed the gun back to Bill. He looked disappointed in me. “I would have been happy if you just did this,” he said, giving the pistol a good spin on his finger a few times.” I shrugged.

Our food came and Buffalo Bill went back outside. The meal was fantastic and so was the coffee. The lack of cowboy interruptions was also kind of nice. We ate quickly and headed out, making sure we took a picture in front of the café before we left. We drove through Cody, past the Buffalo Bill museum, which our hotel concierge said took about eight hours to go through. My dad had wanted to go but we didn’t think we had enough time for an eight-hour museum stop, so we continued on.

Our plan was to return to Jackson by the end of the day. We had an afternoon flight out of the Jackson airport the next day, so we were not really in any rush. The drive we wanted to do was back through Yellowstone park so we could get one last look at all the beautiful Yellowstone scenery before returning home.

Immediately after entering the park, we saw something we had to pull over for: big horned sheep climbing along the top of a rock shelf. This was the closest look we had of the animal.



We drove a little further, stopping every now and then to look at some animals or take pictures of nice scenery, like these charred remains of trees from the fire of '88:

Our next stop was at a gift shop, where my mom and Allison had to find some last minute things. Emily, my dad, and I were all burned out on shopping, so we sat and read on a bench outside the shop. When they were finally finished, we headed out to get some lunch.

We stopped at a small diner near one of the Yellowstone campgrounds. My sisters weren't hungry for real food so they each got an ice cream cone while my mom, dad, and I ate a meal. The people working at the restaurant had name tags that said their name and where they were from. Several of the people were from Taiwan, so, naturally, my dad began speaking to them in Chinese, which they got very excited about.

When we were finished eating, we headed out of Yellowstone and back to Jackson. It took a while, but the drive through the rest of the park was wonderful as usual. When we finally arrived in Jackson, we had to find a hotel, We went back to the Lexington hotel, where we had previously stayed, but they were all full. So we drove through the rest of the city, eventually finding a nice little place called The Point, which had free breakfast and a pool.



Our next mission was to find a place to eat. We once again drove through Jackson, looking at restaurant after restaurant just as we had looked at hotel after hotel. We found a Thai restaurant that looked great, but just before we went inside, we decided that we were too tired to do a sit-down restaurant. We went to Domino's instead.

When we got our pizza, we took it back to the hotel and turned on the TV. Afterwards, we repacked our bags so that they would be ready to go for the plane the next day. Finally, we fell asleep.