For 10 years, I drove right past Cheyenne, Wyo. As you speed toward it on the interstate, billboards advertise hotel and restaurant chains, gas stations and truck stops, offering little incentive to stop.
When I finally exited the interstate and visited downtown -- with a walkable 23-block commercial core lined mostly with historic, two-story brick buildings -- I fell in love with its rough-edged folksiness. In Cheyenne, the Wild West hasn't been entirely tamed. This is especially true during the annual Cheyenne Frontier Days (July 19-28 this year), which was founded in 1897 and today is one of the largest rodeos in the world.
Here are some attractions worth visiting in Wyoming's largest city (population 63,000), which is accessible in less than 2 1/2 hours via direct flights from D-FW Airport on American Airlines.
Garden scene
Visit the state's only tropical rainforest at the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens in Lions Park. In the gardens' 50-foot-tall, domed Grand Conservatory, a 34-foot-tall palm tree happily lives alongside orange crownshaft palms, a torch ginger tree, coffee plants and a strawberry guava tree, among several dozen types of plants and flowers that love heat and humidity. A corner of the conservatory is home to a "fairy garden" that kids often crowd around.
A memorable Capitol
Lawmakers and residents complained about the $300 million price tag of restoring the 131-year-old Wyoming Capitol until the finished product was revealed on Wyoming Statehood Day, July 10. Now it's all congratulations and celebration that Wyoming's might be the most gorgeous state Capitol in the country.
Meet bison (or eat bison)
Charmingly hokey, the family-run Terry Bison Ranch lets you feed bison out of your hand or ride a horse, ATV or train near a herd of the shaggy bovids. Its Senator's Steakhouse serves fresh bison burgers and short ribs. (If you can't eat bison after recently meeting some, the menu also offers beef, chicken, pork, seafood, pasta and salads.) Turkeys and peacocks roam the grounds, and exotic animals like ostriches, camels, alpacas and llamas are in fenced pastures and corrals.
Hipster hangout
Originally built in 1904, Paramount Ballroom was formerly a hotel, theater, another theater, a millinery and a movie theater. Today, it and the adjacent Paramount Cafe are Cheyenne's first true dose of hipster. The ballroom serves small plates like deviled eggs with Calabrian chile oil and microgreens, and a three-cheese mac and cheese. All are served at a 12-seat communal table made from the old marquee sign, as well as mid-century modern tables and a marble-topped bar. Craft cocktails use spirits from Wyoming distilleries, housemade juices and syrups, and some beers are from Wyoming breweries. The cafe has a curated selection of sweets from local bakeries and knowledgeable baristas.
Cowgirl culture
A big part of the fun of rummaging through the mostly Wyoming-made miscellany at Cowgirls of the West Emporium is knowing that anything you buy supports the Cowgirls of the West Museum, which is free and immediately next door. A turquoise necklace, leather purse and the "Cowgirl Up in the Kitchen" book of recipes published by the museum are nice souvenirs, but even better are the pioneering Western women you learn about.
Historic hotel
The Plains Hotel opened as Cheyenne's first luxury establishment -- and the world's first to have telephones in every room -- in 1911. Its glory days are long past, but locals and history-loving guests still enjoy it. Everyone appreciates the two-story lobby's solid marble front desk, mahogany detailing, intricate black-and-white mosaic tile floor and colorful, coffered stained glass ceiling, all of which are original.
Outdoor fun
Southeastern Wyoming doesn't have the national parks that draw millions of visitors to the northwestern corner of the state -- Yellowstone and Grand Teton -- but it has Curt Gowdy State Park and Vedauwoo Recreation Area. Curt Gowdy is equidistant from Cheyenne and Laramie and has three reservoirs stocked with fish, a two-mile, 28-target archery course, and a network of almost 40 miles of trails recognized as "epic" by the International Mountain Biking Association. These trails, especially the four-mile Stone Temple Pilot Loop, also make for nice hiking. Vedauwoo is several miles from Curt Gowdy via scenic Happy Jack Road and was formerly visited by Arapahoe men on vision quests. Today, rock climbers from across the country test themselves on more than 800 technical climbing routes up the area's outcrops of 1.4-million-year-old Sherman granite. Want to keep your feet on the ground? The three-mile Turtle Rock loop completely circles its eponymous rock.
Dina Mishev is a writer based in Jackson Hole, Wyo.