Dubois, WY 1981

Dubois,WY...I have a good story about that place in regards to my Mexico - Canada tour in 1981. 

A rangy cowboy with a broken nose and his buddy walk into a bar where a couple of stink'n cyclo tourists in funny pants are drinking beer. We start talking, swapping tales of adventure (the cowboy got his nose broke because his horse, a barely broke mustang, ran him under a low hanging tree branch). My cycling buddy, Bruce, a bit inebriated, bragged that he could ride anything because he ridden his bicycle from New Mexico by gawd! 

After a few more rounds we go out back behind the bar where the horses are tied up and there's the semi-broke mustang! Bruce gets up on the saddle and the horse goes wild, bucking like a saddle bronc! The cinch strap breaks and off goes Bruce and the saddle ends up on the horse's belly. The cowboy with the broken nose fetches his horse while Bruce lays flat on the ground, the air knocked out him, staring up at the twilight sky. He eventually gets back up, the horse is tied back up, and we go back into the bar for a few more beers.

We close down the bar and another guy meet says we can camp in his backyard and gives me verbal directions. I finally get Bruce out of the bar, he is hurting and very drunk, and is wondering where we are and where was the rest of our crew. I informed him they left, they went to a campground up the road towards the Tetons, but I assured him we had a place to stay. 

I actually found the guy's house at 2:00 AM and he answered the door. He was surprised, his wife was pissed, but he kept his word and let us sleep in his backyard. In the morning we used his bathroom, brushed our teeth and got on our bicycles, but as we were leaving, our host came out and offered us some frozen moose steaks. We took the steaks and headed up Togwatee Pass to catch the rest of our group. 

We finally caught the rest of our crew at the Tetons (I have a great photo of Bruce climbing the pass). At the general store at the national park all we could find to eat was cream of mushroom soup...but we had the moose steaks. We ate pretty good that night.

Dubois was one of the best towns of the tour.