Posted on 07/26/2004 7:43:44 AM PDT by Theodore R.
Yes, free flapjacks at depot 'You can bet your bippy I'll be there'
By Ty Stockton Outdoors@wyomingnews.com Published in the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle
The early bird may get the worm, but the early human gets the flapjacks.
Today is the first pancake breakfast of the 2004 Cheyenne Frontier Days, and you can bet your bippy I'll be there. Few things motivate me more than food, but free food is certainly one of those things.
From 7 to 9 a.m. today, Wednesday and Friday, the Cheyenne Kiwanis club dishes up flapjacks, ham and coffee at an average of 10,000 people each day.
But pancakes aren't the only attraction at the breakfasts. There's also plenty of entertainment.
The flapjack flippers themselves are well worth getting out of bed for an hour or so early. While you're standing in line, keep your eyes open or you may wear one of the "samples" the flippers fling to those waiting. They also sling pancakes to the youngsters waiting with trays to take the food to the serving lines. As a matter of fact, I don't think I've ever seen a single pancake transferred from the griddle to the diners in a traditional manner.
As you'd expect, these antics leave some food for the critters that call the streets and vegetation of Cheyenne home. But not nearly as much as you'd expect. I don't know when these folks practice, but I'm sure they do. There's probably some secret warehouse somewhere in town where they hold training camps, but I can't get any of them to admit to it.
There's also music and American Indian dancing. The Chugwater Philharmonic String Quartet Plus One provides the breakfast music. When they're not on stage, the Wind River Dancers put on one of the most colorful shows you'll ever see. They perform fancy, jingle, grass, traditional and hoop dances.
Today, there's a pretty good chance the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds will pass through. They'll be a little too high for even the very experienced pancake flippers to deliver flapjacks to them, but they'll be low enough to give anyone with an eye on the sky a good view of the fancy paint jobs on the F-16 Fighting Falcons. Wednesday morning, before the Thunderbirds air show, you sit down to eat next to one or more of the pilots.
As they say on TV, "but wait, there's more."
The pancake breakfasts have a new home. There's a brand-new plaza just north of the former Union Pacific Depot, and that's where the breakfasts will be served. The Cheyenne Depot Plaza is between north/south Central and Capitol avenues and east/west 15th Street and Lincolnway.
On your way to the breakfast, keep in mind that some street sections will be closed. Capitol Avenue between 15th and 17th streets, Lincolnway between Carey Avenue and Central Avenue, Pioneer Avenue from Lincolnway to 15th Street and 15th Street from Pioneer Avenue to Warren Avenue will be closed to vehicular travel.
You can park in the parking lot on the south side of 15th street between Bent Avenue and Pioneer Avenue, or in the new city parking garage between Pioneer and Carey avenues and Lincolnway and 17th Street. There are entrances to the garage on Carey Avenue for northbound traffic, and 17th street for east- and westbound vehicles. The clearance in the garage is 8 feet 2 inches, so large pickups can park in the garage: even long vehicles can navigate through the garage as I did in my longbed extended cab.
Once you get your vehicle stowed, get in line on 15th Street. Don't be discouraged by long lines - the servers move people through the gates amazingly fast. Even if you can't see the entrance to the plaza from where you get a place in line, it won't be long before you're sitting down to a good, free meal.
After you've eaten, take a moment to check out the giant boots in the plaza. There are six of the city's 26 boots in the Depot Plaza. You can see the "Red Bandana," "Where the Deer and the Antelope Play," "Springtime in Cheyenne," "Governors of Wyoming," "My Wyoming" and "Downtown Cheyenne."
I hope to see you at the breakfasts. I'll be the guy going back for seconds. And thirds. And fourths .
Ty Stockton is the outdoors editor at the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle. He spent much of his childhood on the back of a horse in his hometown of Riverton. He left home and realized he was a lousy bareback rider, so he decided to pursue his fall-back profession of journalism. His column will appear here during Frontier Days.
Our family drove cross-country from the East Coast to Cheyenne thirty years ago for Frontier Days. It's a lot of fun (esp. for kids).
Ride 'em cowboy.
Hey Teddy what's the best website in the net for keeping track of the rodeo results and news? I can't find a good one.
I spent a week roaming around Wyoming two weeks ago, and was totally impressed, outside of the fact that I smacked a deer and my jeep was in traction for a week. We used to go to Frontier Days every other year when I was a kid, always a great time.
http://www.cfdrodeo.com/
I suppose this site does not meet your needs.
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