A Day in Cody, Wyoming

The miniature models

We decided that we would stay a couple of days in Cody, Wyoming which has great historical significance around Buffalo Bill Cody.  Because we knew we would be arriving late (last night) and accommodations in these parts we challenging we booked our hotel for two nights.  When we got up this morning, we hit the tourism information center and were given information on what we can do and found that this community really chases the tourist dollar.


The options they had given us were all very costly and didn't seem to have near the substance that many other activities we had done on the trip so we took some time to dig deeper into things to do.  If you search long enough you can usually find lots of neat, educational and fun activities and that was the case today.  We visited a museum that had admission by donation and had a number of miniature models of the Wild Wild West with a narrator telling about the history of the area.  There were a number of model trains that you could "drive" by pushing a button and the kids really enjoyed this.


In the front of the museum was a gift shop that had a number of treasures that the kids just couldn't pass up.  It also had the largest display of taxidermied animals I have ever seen in one place.  It not only included Wyoming animals but it also had a number from Africa including an elephant and a water buffalo.  The owner was telling me that many of the mounted animals were his sons trophies and he travels all over the world hunting them.

Wild Bill Dam

Natalie on the structure

Highlight for kids: Shuttle service

After the museum we headed out to the Wild Bill Dam which was a very impressive structure and was the first concrete dam in the US.  On one side of the walkway, the water was only 20 feet below but as you looked on the other side it was a very long way down.  One of the highlights for the kids was that they had a free shuttle service from the parking lot to the information center and so the kids got to drive on some extended golf carts.

After lunch we played some softball at a park, did some running around and then headed back to the hotel.  The kids swam in the pool while Tanya and I researched the next leg of our trip.  After supper we headed to the Irma Hotel, named after Buffalo Bills daughter where we were going to take in the nightly free gun fight.  It is an event used to depict life when the West was Wild.  It only took one gun shot for Andrea to realize that she didn't want any part of the show so she and Tanya decided to go and walk the streets and do some shopping.

Waiting for gun fight to begin

David poses with the Sheriff

Natalie, David and I watched the show with about 500 other people which involved a lot of gun shooting (they were using blanks).  Eventually the good guys won and the bad guys who had stolen money and booze, and disrespected the women were jailed or killed.  Natalie and David enjoyed the show but thought it was a bit loud.  Since we've spent a lot of time doing historical activities on this trip, we have had the chance to learn a lot about cowboys and native people.  Because of this David has been pestering us to get him a gun and a bow and arrow set.  A few days back at Cherry Hill he purchased a plastic pirate dart gun and today he got his bow and arrow set.  The kids had fun shooting both of those at the park today.

Andrea relaxing in the hotel room

Tomorrow we will make our way through Wyoming on route to Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.  We hope to head to church for an 8:00 am service and then hit the road.  Looks like it is going to be another great day for traveling.


Francois