What? Cowboys are arty boys?

The first sign I see in Sheridan is neon.

“Welcome Stranger”, it says.

My heart sings.

I love this place already.

Its backdrop beneath the sunny blue sky is a range of vast snow-topped mountains. Picturebook.

Sheridan, is famously a Wyoming cowboy town. It is proper, official, historic wild west. Cowboys and Indians. It’s where the Indians fought the whites and won initially.

It is the wild west town where all the cowboys wear 10 gallon hats and are really friendly.

On into town I spot the Jewish Bible Centre. Hmm. I’d never thought of cowboys as being Jewish.

Nor had I thought of them as arty farties.

But Sheridan is a cowboy town with more stunning urban sculpture than I have ever seen. This is the artiest town ever.

There are elaborate bronze sculptures on every street corner.

Cowboys and wolves, Indian Braves and pioneer women. It is an open air art gallery where all the works can be touched.

It seems to be a local government project, not only beautifying an already good looking town but giving employment to bronze sculptors, of which the region must have quite a few.

As well as art, the streets are festooned with hanging

flower baskets. Pretty.

There is a lovely old theatre - and a Theatre Festival announced. Soon. Tomorrow’s plays today, it says.

This really is not what I had expected of this part of the world.

How upmarket are these cowboys?

We stroll the main street in the sunshine, popping in

to characterful local art, craft and souvenir shops. I immediately want a sign saying “Welcome Stranger” but funnily enough, there are none and no one has thought of making any. Three shopkeepers I ask think it is a wonderful idea and they’ll get on to it. Perhaps I would like to have one shipped to my home?

We choose the Cowboy Cafe for lunch. It is the proper cowboy thing. We are given a table on the street-side patio and can watch the world go by - lots of fellows in 10 gallon hats. Yes, they truly do wear them.

I order a chicken breast with jalapeño and hot pepper cheese. It is fiery and gorgeous. I ask for the recipe. It is chicken breast with jalapeño and hot pepper cheese.

Contented by good cowboy food and charmed by good cowboy art, we hit the road again. The radio station seems to be called Cowboy Radio.

We settle in to listen as we hum along Highway 90 through the cowboy country.

Wonderful vast valleys with those glorious blue mountains looming large. We are in a spot oft commemorated as part of the exploratory trails of Lewis & Clark.

We pause at a famous scenic point to prove that we have been here. I strike a corny pose.

The scenery is changing all the time. Now it moves into ranges. Broad, undulating, green, dotted by black cattle and the occasional pastures of horses.

There are wooden corrals out there on the landscape, too.

A dead porcupine on the side of the road.

The radio station identifies itself now as Radio Coyote.

A great lake shimmers into view between the slopes of hills.

We are coming into Buffalo, Wyoming where we check in at the Holiday Inn Express. It has a massive portico under which a couple of black girls are lolling and laughing. I soon learn they are Jamaican and here for three months working at the hotel.

I later learn that they are unhappy and planning to return to Jamaica.

It is an interesting issue.

Conspicuous by their absence through this inland western area of the USA are African Americans. This is white man’s land. The girls must feel very isolated.

The reception chap does not impress me. He meets my request for a room with a view in the negative, even though I cited it on reservation. Our sort of room does not get a view, he says. Can we upgrade to one which does, please? No. There are only two and they are already booked. Oh.

The room is perfectly adequate but the view is dire. It is a view of the hotel portico, the awning under which the cars drive for incoming guests to register and unload.

It is a dismal and depressing view. Not even sky.

It makes me very sad.

We unpack and go check out the pool, Closed

until 4.30. I am not having much luck in this hotel. However, I’ve done my homework on Buffalo and I am armed with the knowledge that this little cowboy town brags the biggest free outdoor public swimming pool in the world. Off we go to catch some sun before the weather closes in.

It is a truly immense pool in a lovely parkland setting.

And it is free.

We walk in.

There is a very deep section at the far distant end where youths are taking it in turns to practice diving under the eagle eye of a lifeguard.

Then there is an Olympic sized section of the pool roped off in racing lanes.

Then there is a vast open area of 4ft water.

Then behind a floating rope, there is an extensive shallow kids’s section.

Beside that beside the pool is a high sprinkler area where kids are running and leaping between dancing spouts of water high and low.

People are lolling on rugs on the grass or on camp chairs. Mainly children are swimming.

We find a bench poolside to enjoy the sun.

As I approach a pool ladder, a little boy calls out to me that the water is really cold.

“You should go under the sprinklers before you come in and it is not so bad,” he warns.

I touch the water.

He’s right. Cold.

I walk down and enter gradually from the shallows. I have a bit of a swim and join B on the bench for some much needed sunshine.

When the threatening clouds close in we drive back to the hotel with no view.

Waiting to get some change for the washing machine, I watch the receptionist who told me that he had no rooms with views book in a number of walk-in guests and allocate them rooms with two queen beds and windows looking out at the outside world. The rooms he would not give us. I am beyond commenting on this. I am still feeling scorched by his rejections. Secretly I am wondering if he hates Australians.

I put on a wash and take myself off for a proper

swim in the hotel’s indoor pool. I have it all to myself, so I can do exercises without feeling self-conscious.

Buffalo is not as enchanting as Sheridan but it brags a famous historic hotel called the Occidental.

I chose not to stay there because it looked so over-the-top historic dinky quaint and the online reviews discouraged me. I'd opted for mod cons. This travel blogging business requires good connectivity. And thus did I end up in that damned room with no view.

But the Occidental is on my check-it-out list. Hemingway stayed here. Teddy Roosevelt. Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, Calamity Jane…

they all used this place in its early days. It has changed a lot since then, grown, been destroyed, rebuilt, decayed, now revived.

The place has been restored like a lavish old movie set. It is great fun. Over the top of course. We peruse the hallway of history photos and allow ourselves to wallow in its lush nostalgia. Next door, through an arch, is the saloon bar which is pretty much exactly as a wild west saloon bar should be, all wood

>and bottles, ten gallon hats and wailing country and western live music.

Loud.

We take the gentler, quieter path, of course. We enter the restaurant, The Virginian, where a voluptuous, tattooed and extremely large young waitress leads us to a charming table enclosed in lace drapes and set up two steps in what, we later learn, used to be a shop window. There are brass hand rails around us. It is totally chintzy, extremely romantic and altogether fun. I try a few window dummy poses but they don’t go down. Oh well.

We order. I ordered the Occidental special spicy chicken marsala. I am always after spices. Of

course, salad comes first, American style. Lovely and fresh. It’s a bit of a wait and then, to my surprise, the chicken marsala consists of pan-glazed cubed chicken with slivers of grilled mushroom in a lightly fragrant oily sauce with spaghetti. It is utterly out of this world. It is anarchical fusion cuisine - and perhaps the best pasta dish I have ever encountered.

Bruce has gorgonzola and pear ravioli which is extremely rich, unusual, and delicious. He thinks the balsamic glaze is a bit much but swoons at the sweet cheesy sensation.

Cowboy food?

No, the Virginian is an Occidental add-on, not part of the original hotel. It was the shop next

door and the bank beyond that but it has all been linked up, given a similar lavishly retro decor with lots of lace and old paraffin lamps and heavily sentimental art. There are several rooms and even another romantic intimate space for private dinners - the old bank vault with its heavy door and vaulted ceiling.

After dinner we walk Buffalo’s main street, which is not a big walk. The town’s setting, with those snow-spotted mountains in the distance, is gorgeous. We imagine how simple and rough it must have been in its gun-slinging heyday. There are not a lot of shops but the local sports and souvenir store is huge and the first thing one sees is a wall racked solid with guns for sale. Lovely feather fishing flies also are prominent.

Oh, and did I mention ten gallon hats?

Along the way in the street also is war memorial and some interesting local history museums which we will miss - since we have to hit the trail in the morning.

And so to bed in our room with no view.