Rene's Take On The REAL Cody...

Wind.  Four letter word or just a good weeder-outer?

Be advised:  The wind doth blow.

Some people like it, most people hate it, but the fact of the matter is;  wind is a regular occurrence around here.  It's part of the reason we have 300-plus sunny days a year.  Blows it in, blows it out.  It helps keep our air clean.  It's the reason you can never "dust" enough.

I'd never lived anywhere this windy prior to moving to Cody.  It's a phenomenon, for sure, and one to embrace if you're going to spend any significant time here.  The first Winter we lived here I distinctly remember taking my one-and-a-half year old toddler outside in his little snow suit on a particularly windy day.  We were unloading groceries from the car and he was standing on the sidewalk literally doing battle with the wind.  It would push him back and he would physically throw his little, toddly body forward into the wind in order to compensate and avoid being blown over.  It was the funniest thing to watch as he learned right then and  there how to fight back the wind - a skill he has used readily his entire life, whether he liked it or not.

People around here tend to refer to it as the 'W-word' as if the mere utterance of the word 'wind' will make it start blowing.  (You really don't want to risk it.  Frankly the only reason I feel safe using it today is because it is wailing outside - darn-near gale force!)

In the summertime wind works like air conditioning, which is welcomed because most people around here do not have AC.  And, the truth is, most of the time you don't really need it.  Sure, there will be those couple of weeks where it gets super hot and dry and even the wind can't cool your sweaty body...but, for the most part, the natural weather cycle around here caters really well to those without AC.  The evenings cool down, the windows get opened, fresh breezes enter and voila!  You've got air conditioning.

In the Winter, it's regarded a little differently.  Brrrrr....

Winter winds tend to bite.  Sometimes though, they feel more like balmy caresses when the warm (by comparison!) breeze blows in, cleans up the snow, dries up our trails and streets and makes it all like new again.

They say we live in a banana belt.  I attribute that designation to the four-letter word that needs-not-be-named and that big fiery ball of light that blesses us with its presence 300-plus days a year.  Without those two there would be no banana belt, no moderate days of Winter sunshine or respite from the Wyoming harshness that can rear its ugly head in the dark days of Winter.

For this we can thank that-which-can't-be-named and his friend, Sun.

It's what escorts a new weather system in and helps melt the snow - or bring it - depending on which side ofr the system you're on.