DAY 6: Tuesday 11th May 2010 - Sheridan, Wyoming to Cody, Wyoming
This morning we set out to cross the Little Bighorn Mountains. It was a murky day with low cloud but I wasn’t expecting to find quite so much snow on the way up the mountains. Driver Paul handled the drive expertly, on pretty icy roads. Apparently, it does’t really snow this late into May but we must have struck ‘lucky’. This was the third vacation in a row that I had encountered unseasonably bad weather. Must be me.
At the top of the Little Bighorn Mountains are plateaus – flat areas where catlle are brought to graze in the summer. In the winter it’s popular with snow mobilers, skiers and hikers It all sounds a bit too energetic for me – well, except for the cows.
As we descended the mountains, the snow cleared. At the bottom, we made another stop at a place called Dirty Annies. A worrying number of our group came out of the store wearing Davy Crockett-style raccoon tail hats…oh yeah, and there was one pretty realistic bison hat. Very fashionable (not).
Our next stop was Cody, Wyoming, for lunch. It was raining by this time but we never let that stop us. There were a few places to eat, and shop, but we took the time to recce a few restaurants for later that evening.
After the lunch stop, we were dropped off at the Buffalo Bill History Center. Again, the problem with ‘tour grouping’ is that we only had allotted 2.5 hours at the museum. Personally, I’d have preferred to skip the lunch stop as the museum was – we now knew – only about 5 minutes drive down the road. There was a café at the museum, but some bus folk get cranky without their lunch stops and too many museums! (I once overheard someone at Gettysburg saying “Why are we stopping here when we could go shopping?” Arrghhh!!!!)
The museum was an optional extra, at $15, so not everyone was interested, I guess, but they could have asked if anyone wanted dropping off before lunch (probably Jack used the lunch break to pick up the hotel keys so there wouldn’t have been time, but I would have preferred it). As I say, those are the breaks on a bus tour – you have to go with the flow or you would end up very annoyed…but never hungry!
We did okay, though. We’d already sussed that the hotel was only about three quarters of a mile from the museum so, rather than dash back to catch the bus so some of us (not me) could dress for dinner, we asked Jack if we could be left at the museum instead. We said we'd walk back on our own (well, some of us would be carried back!) We don’t eat places where we have to dress (we don’t like to waste baggage space with clothes) so we figured we could walk back on our own. Jack agreed and left us to it. David left on the bus as he was going on an optional white water rafting on the Shoshone River (crazy – it was cold and wet, before he even got near a river, and I have to look after my fur) but we stayed and spent 4.5 hours at the museum, which is split into five parts.
We started (big surprise) in the Buffalo Bill Museum. There were artifacts from his childhood, his scouting, pony express and ranching days and finally his Wild West Shows. There was a little black and white movie of the show which I found interesting, however, it was shot on a single, static camera, so it wasn’t always easy to see what was going on. It was presumably shot sometime in the early 1900s which makes it pretty remarkable.
I was disappointed there wasn’t more information about where the shows had played – we already knew they’d played Dudley back in 1903 (the town nearest to where I live, when I’m not travelling) but more information about the tour would have been cool, so I dropped this museum a Ted. Oh, and that last picture below right actually is the Deadwood Stage.
The Native American Museum was next. There was an insight into the different living arrangements of Native Americans – the Tipi, the earth lodge and later wooden cabins. The transportation method comprised of a travois, initially pulled by dogs and later horses. There were exhibits of the clothes they made and wore. There is a ‘show’ which takes you through the seasons which is effectively done. Overall, though, I found this museum to be a little lightweight, although I guess it's only been recent years where there have been museums dedicated to Native American lifestyles.
Then we entered the Natural History Museum. There were a couple of scientist lodge exhibits that were presumably used by school groups, but then we hit the proper exhibits. We started up in the mountains, with habitats above 10,000 feet, then descending. There were taxidermy exhibits combined with interactive movie clips but this was a much smaller museum overall.
My biggest issue with this museum was a lack of direction. I like a museum to have a flow to it, and this museum, using altitude as it’s theme was a little bitty, doubling back on exhibits from dead ends, and also incongruity of reverse chronology now and again. That said, this museum is recognised by the Smithsonian, and it’s easy to see why as the exhibits themselves are excellent and if you read everything, it would take you a couple of days to complete.
The fourth museum of this collection (now do you see why two hours would not have been enough?), was the Cody Firearms Museum. There was way too much information in here for me, especially after three previous museums, but the introductory Coors video about the museuem gave us a little context.
They have about 1500 handguns, rifles and other weapons on display, so it was fun to spot familiar names such as Winchester, Smith and Wesson, Remington and Sharps among the exhibits. After a while though, one firearm starts to look very much like another.
A real gun enthusiast, however, would have a field day. Forget the other museums. Having seen the upstairs collection, we headed downstairs to see another 1200 firearms. That’s a lot of guns. They even had some British Enfields down there, and a few quirky commemorative rifles. They even had a Gatling Gun, one of the first machine guns.
The final of the five museums was the Museum of Western Art. There were some cool statues by Remington, of whom I’d heard, and some by guys I hadn’t. There’s a huge painting by Allan Mardon called The Battle of the Greasy Grass.
Overall, the five smaller museums combine to form one great museum, worthy of a Smithsonian reputation, especially in a small town. Mind you, four and a half hours was enough for me. You could stay longer though, if you read more or catch a few more movies. There was a coffee bar, but we didn’t try it, and a nice gift shop.
Once again, the weather in the US was unseasonably cold – a common theme for 2010 – but we walked (or got carried) back to our hotel room, which turned out to be our cabin, fairly quickly. The Buffalo Bill Village cabins are set up as log cabins behind the Holiday Inn and Comfort Inn hotels. Our cabin was pretty big – again, my reputation as a travel writer probably secured us the best cabin. As we entered we met Billy, a welcome buffalo (bison). He gave us a tour around – we had a room with two double beds, another room with a day bed and a connecting bathroom – although they lost a Ted for having no lock on either door of the bathroom – could be interesting for sharers! Each bedroom had a TV so overall, these were pretty good rooms (on the not very posh end). From the smaller bedroom with the day bed, you could even pick up the free Wi-Fi from the Holiday Inn. There were tons of towels too.
Dinner tonight was at the Irma Hotel. This hotel was built by Buffalo Bill back in 1902. The restaurant is famous for it’s huge cherrywood bar that was given to Buffalo Bill by Queen Victoria - it was sent from England apparently and it was huge! Must’ve cost a fortune, although I guess Queen Vic had a fortune to spend. The bar is now listed in the National Register of Historic Places by the National Park Service.
This restaurant was a popular spot for our fellow passengers and we found out why. The average entrée came with a choice of potatoes, plus vegetables, plus a salad bar (no wonder Americans are fat – well, and Di). Paul’s favourite part was that the wine – and it was a good vintage at that – was only $13 a bottle. Bargain!
Weirdly, when we returned to the cabin, we were surprised to find Newsnight (the UK late night news programme) so we got to see all the new Conservative-Liberal coalition government stuff with Dave and Nick. Very helpful that, thanks USTV. Now I was up to speed for when I got back.
