Understanding the Secret of Happiness with Wyoming Cowboy

Overland travel is a way of life, on the tracks of the pioneers who crossed the country one and a half centuries ago. But while it’s temporary for most of us, the cowboys of Wyoming live this active outdoor life with their family all year long. Responsible for feeding the American people, they’re still some of the freest persons you’ll ever meet. After one week off-roading through the vast plains of Wyoming, where bald eagles, pronghorns, and cattle were the only visible life, we’re ready to drive our Ford Rangers FX4s back to civilization. The green grass turns golden as the sun sets and we reach the small town of Pinedale. The initial plan is to stay in town for a couple of hours, just enough to fill the tanks of the trucks and get some groceries. The plan is quickly forgotten when the friendly cashier tells us about a rodeo this same Friday night. In the summertime, there’s plenty of touristic attractions labeled rodeos that we would avoid at all cost, but this one is a real contest, with local cowboys and a local crowd attending. We might be the only ones in the public with neither hats nor boots, and we stuck out like Twinkies in a health club. Yet everybody is very friendly and, while horses and bulls try to get rid of their impudent riders, we chat with everybody around. The show is intense, and the competition fierce, with big prize money on the table. Yet we see all these athletics cowboys joking with each other, sharing the same enthusiasm for their sport. Unlike many other mainstream events, the women are competing at the same time as the men, and with the same skills and determination … and that’s quite refreshing. At the end of the night, Wade Tibbits, a cowboy from Arizona who helps a lot of ranchers here in summer, invites us to see more of a rancher’s life next Monday. That’s the kind of once-in-a-lifetime experience that you can’t refuse, and our initial two hours stay in Pinedale is quickly rescheduled to last two more days...MORE