Cody, Wyoming

We visited the Buffalo Bill Historical Center on Thursday. What a fascinating museum or should I say 5 museums! The Center includes the Buffalo Bill Museum, the Plains Indian Museum, Whitney Gallery of Western Art, Cody Firearms Museum, and the newest wing of the Center, the Draper Museum of Natural History. One of the aspects of the Center that made it so interesting was the variety in the exhibits. We visited most of the five museums but you could easily spend 2 to 3 hours in each one. I can only handle 2 to 3 hours at a time though and the kids are the same. William Cody led quite the life, I will say! The Natural History section was very well done and quite different from the other sections in its design.

After the visit to the Center, we checked out the staged gun battle in front of Buffalo Bill's hotel, the Irma. It went on a bit too long but the kids enjoyed the street acting. It was very LOUD at times!

Had a quick Italian dinner (go figure) on Main St., which was actually quite good. Colin's vegetarianism makes finding a reasonable restaurant difficult, especially in beef country.

No trip to Cody is complete without a visit to the Cody Nite Rodeo and this was a highlight for Colin and Chelsea. They had never seen anything like it before so they got a real taste for the cowboy way that night. Colin got a couple great shots on his camera but we have not downloaded them yet. Here are a few of mine.

Bull Riding (Yes, that is mucous emanating from the bull's nose!)

Junior Bull Rider!

Calf Roping

There were also barrel racing and bronco riding events. The main clown was quite humorous and actually got thrown up in the air once by a bull (while he was in a large barrel/drum). All in all, it was a great event and they really do a nice job entertaining the crowd for over two hours.