Chuck Wagon Dinner

Enjoying a drink at the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar, a Jackson icon, before going to the Chuck wagon dinner.

Elk antlers in the middle of Jackson square.

How many of you have played Oregon Trail on the computer, back in the day? Remember fording the river, breaking an axle, needing more oxen, and shooting buffalo? On Thursday, the 24th, the Martin family + Laura (soon to be an official Martin) took a Chuck Wagon ride through the Wyoming wilderness. Our canvas-covered wagon, led by two horses, not oxen, took us to a cowboy dinner and country show up in the mountains. Luckily, none of us caught Scarlet Fever on the way, however, we were attacked by minimum wage-paid "Indians" with walkie-talkies attached to their costumes. Caitlin was almost scalped, but dyed hair is worth a lot less so she was safe. When our wagon reached the cowboy tent, Brian Martin was chosen to ring the dinner bell out of the entire group- around 70 people total all came on different wagons- and we ate bbq chicken, roast beef, baked beans, salad, rolls, and lots and lots of butter. We were especially happy because it was buffet-style. Throughout dinner, four cowboys in a country mountain band sang traditional songs while playing a fiddle, guitars, and a bass guitar. The band was great, and the jokes they told were quite a few steps up from corny, so we all got to laugh a lot. The highlight of the show was when a non-English-speaking man from Japan was chosen to help sing a song. If you can imagine a short, awkward but happy Japanese man in a cowboy hat trying to sing country, you've done your job in imagining how much we were all laughing- with, not at. I hope for everyone's benefit the video and/or pictures of Mr. Wong are posted. After the show and dinner, the wagons took us all back to base camp. We truly had a great night filled with laughs, good food and music, and a new appreciation for the first American pioneers who made it all the way to the wild west on chuck wagons.

-Jonathan Martin