Buffalo Bill Center of the West (Day 1)

Cody, WY

On Wednesday and Thursday we visited the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, WY.  For anyone who has ever been to this "museum complex" you'd understand why it took two days to see.  The Center contains all things western and is beautifully designed.  It is comprised of 5 different areas of interest to include: Cody Firearms Museum, Draper Natural History Museum, Buffalo Bill Museum, Plains Indian Museum, and the Whitney Western Art Museum.

Because this facility encompasses so many things to see I've decided to break this blog into two parts.  It would be far too long to attempt to squeeze everything into today's blog.  The museum used to be called the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, but the name was changed in recent years in an attempt to broaden the scope of the center.  Still, "Buffalo Bill" Cody's influence is still very strong throughout.

We first visited the Cody Firearms Museum.  The museum asserts that it houses the most comprehensive collection of American firearms in the world.

I would certainly not disagree.  I will say upfront that I am not a "gun nut" and and not that well versed in the history of firearms in this country, but all I can say is "WOW"!  This place holds the entire Winchester collection of firearms which was moved from New Haven, CT back in 1975 and has now become a permanent home for this collection.

There is everything here from entire makers' collection of guns as in this handgun display of Smith and Wesson models................ to

displays of Commemorative and beautifully inlaid works like this shotgun made by James Purdey and Sons of London, England in 1978. It is said to possibly be one of the most exquisitely decorated shotguns ever made.

The gold inlay work and engraving was done by English master engraver Ken Hunt. .........to

a very impressive display of both air handguns and long guns.  If anyone remembers the movie "A Christmas Story" where Ralphie couldn't have a Red Ryder BB gun because "he might put someone's eye out", here's the Red Ryder.

The firearms are displayed in cases depicting the growth of the United States from the Colonial times up through present day.  Special displays depicting weaponry used in different war times were very well done.  This collection is very impressive, even for those who are not well versed in the history and evolution of firearms.

The latter part of our first day was spent in the Draper Natural History Museum.  This section deals with much of the wildlife found in this portion of the country, and within Yellowstone National Park in particular. If you haven't gotten a chance yet to view the animals in the wild, then you can certainly find them somewhere in this gallery (even if they are stuffed and not too mobile anymore).

Top (L): Grizzly Bear and Wolverine  Top (R): Marmot
Bottom (L): Elk  Bottom (R): Pronghorn Antelope

The design and layout of the displays is very well done.  The wildlife and natural land features were grouped in different "zones" beginning at the bottom floor (which dealt with elevations below 5000 feet) and worked its' way upward (literally) until you were examining features which occur above 10,000 feet.

The center is designed to be educational in ways other than just static displays.  Tours and special interest discussions are given throughout the day.  Just select one you're interested in and show up at the appropriate time and location.  We attended a very informative talk given by a member of the US Forest Service on "Hiking in Bear Country".  Because we were "easterners" for many, many years we never encountered bears as you might in this part of the country.  Be learned two essential things when hiking where one might encounter a bear.   Number 1:   Make lots of noise.  This will greatly lessen the chance that you will have an encounter with a bear to begin with and Number 2:  Carry bear spray with you and make sure it's accessible for quick deployment.

Well, we can definitely handle #1, but we have to buy some of the bear spray as we intend to do some hiking in Yellowstone Park next week.

That's it for the first day of our visit to the Buffalo Bill Center of the West.  I would advise anyone who comes to Cody to try and make time (preferably 2 days at least) to see this wonderful display.  Tomorrow, day 2 at the center.

Thanks for stopping by to take a look!

First Trip to Yellowstone NP (Part1-East Gate Entrance)

Cody, WY                      (CLICK ON EACH PICTURE TO ENLARGE)

This was our first trip to Yellowstone National Park ever. The only comment that I think is appropriate is that if you don't like what Yellowstone Park has to offer, then you just don't like the outdoors! Period!

We are still in Cody, WY which is approximately 53 miles from the East Entrance to Yellowstone.  Because of this we decided to take an initial trip to attempt to visit some of the thinks on the east side of the park before we move next week closer to the West Entrance (where we'll be only about 14 miles from the entrance).

Since we'll be breaking posts to Yellowstone into several blogs, I've decided to call this Part 1.  I'll also be including a highlighted map of our travels for that day's travels in each blog.

Here is an over view map of Yellowstone National Park.

(Courtesy of NPS.gov)

 

Here is our travel for today's blog.

 

(Courtesy of NPS.gov)

 

I've decided to keep the commentary to a minimum and show a lot more pictures than I normally do. Starting west from Cody, WY the road is relatively level and quite easy to drive in a MH. (We're still debating our route to get to Idaho and the West Gate area.)

Getting a bit closer to the East Entrance.

Our first stop was at Lake Butte Overlook.  This gave us our first glimpse of Yellowstone Lake. At an elevation of 8348 feet we were able to see some of the peaks in Teton National Park to the south.

Looking a bit toward the northwest toward Fishing Bridge.  We learned that Yellowstone Lake is the largest freshwater lake in North America above 7000 feet.  It has a maximum depth of almost 400 feet.

Our next stop was at Fishing Bridge Visitor's Center to eat lunch outside and to obtain general information about the park. There's a small rocky beach area adjacent to Yellowstone Lake in this area.

Same area with mountains in the background.

There are a multitude of pullouts, picnic areas, and viewing areas for wildlife throughout the park. (That's a good thing as "critter backups" are quite common when wildlife is spotted.)  We left the Fishing Bridge area and heading north.  We saw a sign for LeHardys Rapids and the lot of stopped cars, so naturally we had to investigate. The first thing we saw was this Yellowstone Touring Bus. I learned later that this was one of the first ways folks toured the park in years gone by. Today, anyone who has the appropriate amount of cash can take a tour.

 

LeHardys Rapids is a favorite location to view native cutthroat trout spawning this time of year. If you look carefully in the calmer pools of water you might see a view.  It's also quite common to see them jumping above the water.

Here's another viewing looking upstream.

I decided to check out the water temperature.  Afterall, it is early July.  Diagnosis:  Still pretty chilly!



Dragon's Mouth Spring

 Yellowstone Park is not only known for wildlife, but also for its' many hydrothermal features.  We encountered the first of these at an area named Mud Volcano. We discovered that this area experienced a series of nearly 500 earthquakes between July 1 and 15 of 1995. Most of the signs here indicated that his area will most certainly change when visitors come back in the future.

Black Dragon's Caldron

"This mudpot roared into existence in 1948, blowing trees out by roots....For several decades it erupted in explosive 10-20 feet bursts of black mud. Over the years it has moved 200 feet to the southeast and become relatively quiet."   NPS Sign Posted at Black Dragon's Caldron

 

We continued north and came upon a road leading to the "Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone". There are two areas where the Upper and Lower Falls can be viewed.  We continued on to Artist's Point to first view the canyon and the Lower Falls. The Lower Falls actually has a higher drop at 308 feet versus a mere 109 feet for the Upper Falls.

This picture really does not give you a true "feeling" for the canyon.  The steepness of the canyon walls are quite impressive and very colorful.

 

Oh, wondering why it's called "Artist's Point"? Because there actually was a true artist on site painting.

 

Let me add one picture of those unimpressive Upper Falls.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We stopped at Canyon Village Visitor and Education Center to view an introduction to the park film and browse a very nice center.  By now it was almost 5:00 PM.  We were getting hungry and we knew we had a long drive back to Cody.  We ate dinner in the dining area and then began re-tracing our route back toward the East Gate.

 

Midway enroute to Fishing Bridge is a beautiful area named Hayden Valley.  This is usually a very good spot for wildlife viewing.

With evening closing in, several forms of wildlife were a bit more active.  This meant "critter jams" along the way as folks pullover (or sometimes just stop in the road) to view buffalo, elk, bears, deer, and possibly coyote or wolves.

We only saw a few of the above mentioned this time, but they certainly are a sight to see.  Here's a large elk grazing and not really paying much attention to anyone watching him.

Here's an instance where I would like to have my older camera with the nicer zoom lens again.  Hopefully you can see momma and baby buffalo in the distance as the little guy tries to keep up.

Thank you for hanging in their and reading about our first trip to Yellowstone National Park.  To say that this is a BIG park is an understatement.  We spent all day there and barely scratched the surface. We probably won't be making anymore trips to Yellowstone until we re-locate next week to just south of the West Entrance.

 

Thanks for stopping by to take a look!