We spent our Tuesday in the town of Cody checking out the sites.  It was windy again all day, so we left all the awnings in this time – even the pull-down’s over the rear windows.  The weather-guessers say it will be nice and sunny again Wednesday.  We’re looking forward to hot weather again.  We had to leave little “Coach” in the Coach again all day – at least it wasn’t for too long, like on Monday.

Here’s a summary of our visit to the Buffalo Bill Center of the West:

I queried my friend wikipedia® for the best description of this place;  “The Buffalo Bill Historical Center, is a complex of five museums and a research library featuring art and artifacts of the American West.  Founded in 1917 to preserve the legacy and vision of Col. William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody, the Buffalo Bill Center of the West is the oldest and most comprehensive museum of the West.”  We spent most of the day here.

The Buffalo Bill section was really interesting and we were able to join a free guided-tour for some extra education.

They had really nice life-size dioramas throughout the museum.  Here’s some from the Plains Indian exhibit(s):

The Natural History portion of this place was really awesome.

Kaan really enjoyed the Natural History section of the museum because they even had some fossils and dinosaur exhibits mixed in with the full-size dioramas.

Here’s a few more pics of our grandson Kaan in front of some animal exhibits:  His mom really enjoys these pics – Kaan not so much 🙂

The Cody Firearms Museum at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West houses the most comprehensive collection of American firearms in the world according to their literature and website.  And man, was it ever huge… our grandson Kaan got bored though, so we didn’t stay in that section as long as I would have liked.

This was a really nice museum, er, I mean center.  Or is it collection of museums?  It was worth the $47 entrance fee for 2 adults and 1 child after a small veteran discount ($2).  Another “must-see” to put on your list if you’re in the area.

After our tour of the museum we stopped back at the campground to check on little “Coach”.  We found a note on the door.  Remember the other Alpine that was in this park?  Well, the other Alpine driver (David) left a note on our door telling us they had stopped by while we were out.  So after walking the dog, we drove over to their Coach and talked for a couple minutes… they (David and Janet?) had already been to the downtown attractions we were going to next, so we told them we’d try to be back by 8 PM, maybe we could get together then.  Alas, we didn’t get to see them again, maybe next time.

We left the campground again and found a parking spot (5 minutes away) downtown and noticed we were near the local Elks Lodge.  We already knew that this lodge didn’t have RV parking because we had checked online several days ago.  We went inside to check it out and see if they had any menu items.  The bartender opened the door for us, checked my card, and asked me to sign the guest register.  There was a large crowd in one of the side rooms, I believe it was a party or service of some sort.  We hung out behind the crowded bar (none of the seats were open) and waited to order a couple drinks and ask about food.  There were lots of empty tables, but we figured like most lodges, that we had to order at the bar.  A couple people sitting at the bar at least talked to us, exchanged pleasantries, and asked where we were from, etc., but the bartender seemed to ignore us.  So we finally turned around and left after 10 minutes or so.  Not our finest experience at an Elks Lodge.  We would have thought the bartender could at least acknowledge our existence and say something to the effect that she’d be right with us, or we’re really busy – have a seat, or something at least…  Oh well, maybe it was just bad timing on our part.  Hmmm… so much for Lodge #1611.  I don’t think we’ll go back, even though it seemed like a pretty nice facility.

We walked on up the street to the Irma Hotel which was our next intended destination anyway.  Buffalo Bill’s Irma Hotel / Restaurant & Saloon was packed with tourists but we found a nice booth and had a good dinner, albeit an expensive one.

Buffalo Bill helped found Cody, Wyoming, in 1895. He also established his TE Ranch in the area. In 1902, he built an establishment which he called “just the sweetest hotel that ever was” and named it for his youngest daughter, Irma. It was built to appeal to visitors from around the world — as a staging point for sightseers headed for Yellowstone, big game hunters, summers tourists, and businessmen investigating the ranching, mining, and other business opportunities. Buffalo Bill maintained two suites and an office at the hotel for his personal use.  (ref. this website)

We even got to watch a gunfight show on the street outside after dinner.

After another quick stop at the local WalMart on the way back to the campground, we relaxed for the rest of the evening and watched some TV while Kaan played MineCraft on the X-Box, and I worked on this blog.

Since Tuesday was our last night at the Ponderosa Campground, we’ll move on over this morning (Wednesday) to one of the state parks that we checked-out on our Monday trip to Yellowstone.  Wish us luck…

If we can get settled at one of those state campgrounds, then we can go explore more of Yellowstone NP!