Taming the Wild West

By Meredith Hines-Dochterman/The Gazette

CODY, Wyo. - The horse chews contentedly on grass as the stirrups of her saddle are adjusted. My daughter, Emma, bounces on the heels of her cowboy boots nearby, waiting for a boost onto the horse's back.

“Will we be high enough to touch the sky again?” she asks minutes before our ride to the Blackwater Fire Memorial.

“Touch the sky? You'll be in the sky,” Chance Sandusky, a Blackwater Creek Ranch wrangler, tells her.

Horseback riding to the sky. Check.

In the months leading up to our family vacation, I made a list of everything we hoped to see and do on our trip west. The majority of our two weeks away would be spent at Blackwater Creek Ranch near Cody, Wyo., but our drive to and from the ranch offered multiple opportunities to explore parts of the country we'd yet to visit.

We wanted to see the Mount Rushmore National Memorial and the Battle of Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. Visiting the Crazy Horse Memorial, driving through Badlands National Park and seeing Devils Tower National Monument also made our agenda.

Three days into our trip, I'd made several marks on my mental “Vacation Must-See” checklist.

Then we arrived at the ranch.

We had no cellphone service. Internet access was only available at the lodge. There was a television in the lodge lounge, but it stayed off the week of our stay.

Sitting on the front porch of our cabin, feet propped up on the rail and a book in my lap, I let go of my list and embraced the experience.

It was wanting to capture that feeling you get on vacation that led Johnie and Diana Beale to Blackwater Creek Ranch. Virginia natives, the couple often vacationed in Wyoming and Montana. During their visits to various are dude ranches, they would discuss how they'd do things if they owned a ranch.

In March 2011, their dream became reality. As the new owners of Blackwater Creek Ranch, located just minutes from Yellowstone National Park's east entrance, the couple had less than three months to prepare for the summer season.

It was time to bring a little Southern hospitality to the Wild West.

“We want our guests to feel like family,” Diana says. “We want people to enjoy being out here. We've enjoyed it for years and we want people to enjoy what we have.”

And we did, from the horseback riding and conversations around the nightly campfire, to the delicious meals and a trip to town to attend the Cody Rodeo. We visited River Runners for an afternoon white water rafting adventure on the Shoshone River before returning to the ranch for storytelling around the campfire, courtesy of Buffalo Bill.

“We want to make the guests feel comfortable, let them know they are welcome,” says Connor Bullington, a Blackwater Creek Ranch wrangler. “You get to that point, especially with the guests who stay longer, that you can joke around and kind of tease each other - just like family.”

Life on the ranch is simple. We had things to do, but no itinerary to follow. We spent a day at Yellowstone National Park, taking photos of Lower Falls and watching Old Faithful erupt - right on time, of course.

We went on an early morning horseback ride and had breakfast on the trail.

The wranglers taught the kids how to rope a fake calf. My husband and son went fishing and Emma played in the ranch's heated pool. Without the distractions of computers, television or cooking, I zoomed through my summer reading, announcing each time I finished a book.

The dinner bell signaling breakfast, lunch and dinner was our only schedule. We went for walks around the ranch, keeping a careful eye out for wildlife. Part of me wanted to see a bear, but the other part of me was fine just listening to the Blackwater Creek staff share their stories of bear sightings.

Then there are the views. Every sight in Wyoming is a picture, from the bison rolling in the dirt outside our car at Yellowstone to the sun painting picture on the rocks during a trail ride.

“It's definitely God's country,” says Keithen Andrews, a Blackwater Creek Ranch wrangler from California. “I've seen mountains - California has a lot of beautiful mountains - but this place - there's nothing else like it. The rocks are so beautiful, it's like they are nature's sculptures.”

“It's never the same view twice,” Diana adds. “No matter how many times I drive to Cody, I always see something different. Maybe the sun is hitting the rocks differently or there's an animal I haven't seen before. It's always changing, but it's always beautiful.”

Especially when you are in the sky.