The Celebration Continues

Yesterday morning was the first of three free Frontier Days Pancake breakfasts and it was amazing.

The breakfasts are sponsored by the Kiwanis and are used as federal emergency management exercises in feeding large amounts of people in a short time, as in around 10,000 people in about two hours – each day.

I’ve always wanted to come to the pancake breakfast, but it starts at 7 a.m. and that would have made for a really early morning in Laramie.

Several news organizations had live shots planned from what I’ll call “Pancake Plaza” outside the historic Depot. I was assigned to a news crew, but they had to back out at the last minute to cover the wildfires in Colorado.

That left me as a rover and I pretty much got to enjoy, rather than work the breakfast.

The breakfast runs like a well-oiled machine. As you move through the line you are handed a plate and napkin by one team, three pancakes at the next person, and two pats of butter at the next. The next stop is a person with a jug of syrup, then a gigantic silver bowl from which two people serve you a slice of ham. Moving on is a coffee station, juice station and water station – then you’re out! And it all took just a couple minutes.

The numbers are crazy: 5,000 pounds of pancake mix, 100,000 pancakes, 3,000 pounds of ham, 9,200 cartons of milk and 520 gallons of coffee, along with 630 pounds of butter and 475 gallons of syrup.

Here are some pictures from the day. The rodeo wasn’t as exciting, so I don’t have much from that.

The chuckwagon the cooks flip the pancakes from. The guys in maroon are Navy from the U.S.S. Cheyenne...

The cooks flip their pancakes to Boyscouts who are ready and waiting with their trays to catch them...
Out of the chute right next to us...
Boots and chaps...
The chute next to us. Haha...
I thought these little cowboys were cute...