"Buffalo Bill" & Cody, Wyoming

Visited July 13-18, 2021

 

By Janell

 

 

 

Cody, Wyoming definitely has an old west feel to it. It was named after William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody, who helped found the town in 1895. So it's appropriate that it stays true to its western roots. (Much more to come on Buffalo Bill! It is his town after all.)

Our first outing however, was not a "western thing". We visited the Heart Mountain Interpretive Center. Heart Mountain is a WWII National Historic Landmark located just outside of Cody and was the site of a WWII Japanese American confinement site. Over 14,000 Japanese and Japanese American people were unjustly incarcerated at this site. While only a few of the buildings remain, the center does have a very informative museum which documents the period and includes many firsthand accounts of internees' experiences. The museum was very well done, and we learned a lot. (No photos were allowed inside the museum.)

 

After seeing Heart Mountain, we now also plan to visit the Manzanar National Historic Site in California once we're back home. More than 110,000 men, women and children were incarcerated at Manzanar. Heart Mountain and Manzanar are just two of ten "relocation centers", as they were called, where the United States held Japanese and Japanese Americans, regardless of their U.S. citizenship status for 3+ years.

 

 

 

 That's Heart Mountain in the distance, through the smoky haze.

 

 

 We strolled around downtown Cody:

  

Buffalo Bill in front of The Irma

 

In 1902 Buffalo Bill built "The Irma", named after his youngest daughter, and called it "just the sweetest hotel that ever was".

 

We spent a very relaxing evening listening to Aaron Davis & the Mystery Machine at the local Concert in the Park. The hoola-hooping kiddos were a bonus!

One of the main attractions in Cody is the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. This is actually five museums under one roof. The tickets are good for two consecutive days, because you can't really do it all in one day (without your head spinning, your vision blurring, and your legs crumpling underneath you). Seriously though, it was a really worthwhile experience, and we learned a lot!

The five museums: Buffalo Bill Museum (of course!); Whitney Western Art Museum; Plains Indian Museum; Draper Natural History Museum; and Cody Firearms Museum (No surprise about the last one, right? We are in the Wild West!) We visited just the first three, and we spent the bulk of our time in the Buffalo Bill Museum.

Do I even need to tell you that this is Bill again?

Before we even went into the museum we spotted the chuck wagon out front. How fun is that?! But it gets even better. The chuck wagon cook, Ron, was fixin' up some cowboy food: black coffee, baked beans and sourdough biscuits! Delicious! What an unexpected treat! (I don't think you can see it here, but Ron had an impressive handlebar moustache to complete his look.)

The biscuits in the dutch oven weren't quite done yet, so we popped into the museum and came back for them. They were worth the wait!

 

Before getting down to the nitty gritty of the museums we headed straight to a show about raptors that the girl at the entry said was just about to begin. We saw two of the museum's raptors: a peregrine falcon and the turkey vulture, below. The gentleman on the right was very entertaining as he told us all about these two raptors. Did you know that a peregrine falcon can fly up to 243 mph in its dives? Did you know that turkey vultures can smell their food a mile away? Of course, we all know that vultures eat roadkill; but while they may prefer fresher food, they can and do actually eat rotting meat. Umm ... yum??

WARNING: I hope you're not reading this while eating breakfast! Wait till later to read it, or skip it all together if you're particularly squeamish. (I have a grimace on my face just trying to type it.) As bacteria decompose a dead body, they excrete toxic chemicals that make the carcass a perilous meal for most animals (including us). But vultures often wait for decay to set in, giving them easy access to dead animals with tough skins. Here's the worst: vultures will often pick at a dead animal through its back end -- the anus -- to get at the tasty entrails. Their diet may be filled with toxic bacteria and putrid feces, but vultures are apparently immune to these deadly microbes. Nice, huh?

By the way, the raptors here at Buffalo Bill Center of the West have all been injured in some way and cannot be released into the wild. It seemed as if they have a very good crew looking after them.

The raptor show was over, and guess what: the biscuits should be done by now . . .

"Come an' get it!"

 

Inside the museum:

William Frederick Cody (1846-1917) (aka Buffalo Bill Cody), was a buffalo hunter, a U.S. Army scout, an Indian fighter, and a showman; the latter is what brought him the greatest fame. In his heyday he was arguably the most recognized and celebrated person in the world because of a very popular show he created in 1883 called "Buffalo Bill's Wild West". His show contained wild animals, trick performances, theatrical reenactments, and shooting exhibitions. He and his show, which included hundreds of performers and crew, toured all over the United States and Europe as well, even performing for Queen Victoria. The show ran for 30 years. Sharpshooter Annie Oakley was featured in the show for 17 years; Lakota Sioux chief Sitting Bull, Apache leader Geronimo, and Wild Bill Hickok were all also in the show for much shorter periods of time. 

We learned that buffalo roll in the dirt to deter biting flies. We had witnessed a buffalo rolling in the dirt in Thermopolis and wondered about it. Now we know why they do it. I can't say I blame them; I'd rather have dirt than biting flies any day!

"Flooded Cascade, Yellowstone Dawn", by Stephen Hannock

 This is a bust of Buffalo Bill, and the painting next to it is of Wild Bill Hickok and Buffalo Bill.

(I'm sorry, I didn't get the artists' names for these two pieces.)

 

Crazy Horse

We went to The Cody Cattle Company for a "chuckwagon dinner and live cowboy music show". It was great, and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves! First of all, let me say that there were a few hundred people attending the event, and yet it was so well organized . . . we were very impressed. We were seated at big long communal tables, where we got to know the couple across from us -- who ironically happened to be our next door neighbors in our campground! We didn't know it until we started talking about where we were both from and where we were staying etc. Talk about a coincidence!

Anyway, we were admitted into the serving room table by table, so there was no mad rush. As you can see from the photo below, they were all set up to serve us quickly and happily too. But the most important thing: the food was deeee-licious! They served BBQ brisket, BBQ chicken (both were very tasty and tender), six different side dishes, plus brownies and ice cream for dessert ... and you could go back for seconds of anything!

After dinner the Triple C Cowboys band came on stage to entertain us with some western tunes, some retro rock, and some good-natured humor thrown in every now and then. In short, it was fun!

 

So, this was my first rodeo, literally ... and my last

Being a California girl, I never envisioned myself going to a rodeo, but we did just that.

Cody, Wyoming is the self-proclaimed "Rodeo Capital of the World". Okay, if you search Google about rodeos, you'll find that there's a lot of controversy out there: animal abuse vs sport. And I'll come right out and say that I'm leaning heavily left on this one. Enough said.

Last but not least, we went to the Yellowstone Beer Fest right there in Cody. Over 60 breweries from many different states came to Cody on a very hot afternoon. We sampled several beers, and we listened to music from Kiss the Sky-the Jimi Hendrix Re-Experience and The Mirage-Visions of Fleetwood Mac. We were surprised and pleased to find music from our era despite the fact that probably 3/4 of the attendees were under 40. A fun time was had by all!