Saturday, July 2, 2022

2022 July Cheyenne Frontier Days

  Having to return to Denver to pick up the title for the motorcycle I continued on to Cheyenne, WY for "Frontier Days". The first weekend the Air Force Base where I stayed had their own demonstrations of historic military items such as tanks, jeeps from WWI and WWII, Vietnam. Also 1800 village in period dress, blacksmiths, EOD demonstrations (EOD- explosive demotion detachment). I enjoyed this so much I spent the entire weekend here.

I especially enjoyed the historic homes tour. They are actively being used by active-duty military who open their homes for the tour! These homes were built in the late 1890's early 1900's and are still in use today. Originally with slate roofs, as they were in need of repair a substitute was difficult to find, so they changed up to terra cotta similar to Spanish tile roofs except the size of each panel was the same as the original slate - 1' wide by 1 1/2' long.

Each home was decorated by the family who lived there and try as I could some items stuck out for me. One common theme was small strips one under the other frequently by chain that listed each military base they had been assigned to. One home in particular had a world map with different colored push pins. Each color represented: Location the entire family lived, location where Dad was deployed to, vacations.

Last on this tour is the Base Museum. Historical items unique to the Fort (this based used to be an Army Post) then its current use as an Air Force Base is for ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missiles). No wonder I could not find a flight line on base!

This picture is a profile of an ICBM facility.


Yep, that's me in period dress for Frontier Days! 

Monday was practice for the Air Force Thunderbirds and Wednesday was the actual demonstration. Because there is no flight line on the base and an accident in the 1940's over the city of Cheyenne it was held over the prairie on base. This was so close to the campground, you only needed to walk up the hill alongside the train tracks to see it. Very impressive! I had seen the Navy-Blue Angels many times, this is my first for the Thunderbirds. Great show!



I have stayed at many campgrounds that had "resident wild animals" here it is the antelope! 

The Rodeo for Frontier Days is a little pricy for me so I am electing that once Tanya returns, I will find a small-town Rodeo for us to share seeing it together. It will have multiple events as well rather than trying to pick one event at a time here. I feel it is a good time to be here for I was really interested in what the AFB had to offer.