Tag Archives: Cody

Buffalo Bill Center of the West (Ponderosa RV Park, Cody WY)

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:

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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.

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

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Kaan standing on the huge tile-floor ‘map’ in the Buffalo Bill Museum, Cody WY.
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View of the huge tile-floor ‘map’ on the floor of the Buffalo Bill Museum, Cody WY. (As viewed from the upper balcony)

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

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The Natural History portion of this place was really awesome.

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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.

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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 🙂

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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)

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

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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!

 

 

Visiting Yellowstone National Park – Day 1 (Ponderosa RV Park, Cody WY)

We tried to get an early start Monday for our drive into Yellowstone National Park.  But first we stopped by the Ponderosa RV Park office to pay ($46.44) for another night so we didn’t have to stress about finding another spot so soon.  So now we’re good here until Wednesday.  We’ll check on other spots between now and then that are more reasonably-priced (for us) and hopefully not too far away.  We anticipate doing at least a couple more trips into the park to see the sights.  I hope we can find something; while in the office, I overheard the clerk turn away at least three callers that were looking for an RV spot.

The forecast called for wind and possible showers today.  We left our little dog “Coach” in the Coach with both A/C’s set at 70°  We were told we’d have problems taking him on any of the trails or attractions in the park.  This bit of information turned out to be not-entirely true – we saw several people throughout the day carrying their dogs around at pull-offs, and even one inside the Old Faithful Inn … oh well, next time we’ll know.  At least we knew he was ok for the day.

We finally got on the road by 8:15 or so and headed for the east entrance about 50 miles away…

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I was able to use my disabled veteran Golden Access Pass to avoid the $30 entrance fee.

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Our plan for the day was to enter through the east gate and turn south at Fishing Bridge to drive around the lower “loop” in a clockwise fashion and then return back to Cody.  (See map below)  We only made it as far as Old Faithful when the rain forced us to turn around and backtrack.  But it was still a great day 🙂  (map)

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Follow along now for a summary of our days activity:

(Remember that if you see “green highlighted” text anywhere in my posts; these are embedded links to click-on for more info if you’d like) 🙂

Sylvan Pass was very scenic and the grades were manageable.  We could easily take the Urban Escape Vehicle on this route if we need to – or if we so desire, in the future.

BTW – I set up our Road Mate DVR on the dash of the Silverado to record our trip.   I wrote about purchasing this while we were in Gillette WY at the FCRV Campvention Rally.  I used it once before on our drive with my Dad & Stepmom in their Jeep when we drove through the Black Hills in South Dakota, but haven’t been able to download the video clips until recently.  I had to buy a card reader (at the BX in Ellsworth AFB) for the SD card because the device didn’t download thru its USB cable to my MacBook Pro Laptop.  Anyway – I hope to be able to share some of the 2-minute clips that it records sometime soon if my blog hosting service allows.  First, I have to edit the hundreds of files to see if there’s anything good to share.  So far, the video quality looks pretty good and we even got some amusing clips of us standing around in front of the truck when we got out at a couple scenic pull-offs to take pictures when I forgot to turn it off.  More on this RoadMate DVR and its video clips in a later post maybe.

We saw lots of evidence of fire damage along our route into the park from the eastern side.  Read more about the 1988 “Summer of Fire”  HERE.

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We passed Sylvan Lake and then reached Yellowstone Lake, which were both beautiful.

We stopped at the Fishing Bridge RV Park to double-check availability. This is the first campground located inside the park from the east entrance. You may recall from my previous post that I called the reservations number and was told they didn’t have anything for a week. This was still the case – but the nice lady behind the desk was very helpful and shared a list of campgrounds outside the park. She recommended trying a couple of the small state parks that have hook-ups outside the east entrance. We promised ourselves that we’d check them out on the way back if it wasn’t too late, and that’s exactly what we did – we saw several open sites. Hopefully, we can score one of them on Wednesday.

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We stopped at several pull-offs along our route for pictures and when we got to West Thumb, we parked, put on jackets and walked the boardwalk:

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It was around 59° and getting windy by this time.  We could see clouds rolling in.

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Our grandson Kaan posed with a ranger hat at the small ranger station/visitor center.

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These really cool old buses are still running tourists around the park.  According to the National Park Service website; “A total of twenty-seven 1936 Model 706 buses were used in Yellowstone, and by 1939, a total of ninety-eight Model 706s of various years were in use (the largest number of National Park Buses operating anywhere).”

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When we reached Old Faithful, a light rain had started.  We had driven about 115 miles to get here from our site in Cody.  We waited in the visitor center for the next eruption and caught a nice documentary in the theater.

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‘Old Faithful’ in Yellowstone NP.

After about an hour wait, we got to see ‘Old Faithful’ erupt.  Stilla and Kaan watched from the visitor center while I braved the light rain and heavy crowd to walk a little closer for some pictures.

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I took lots of pictures of the eruption and even some video, but if you want to see some really good pictures or video taken by professionals, just click HERE or HERE.

We were getting hungry by now and wanted to check out Old Faithful Inn.  We remembered it from our first trip here back in 1993.

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According to this website; “Old Faithful Inn is the most requested lodging facility in the park. Built in 1903-1904 with local logs and stone, the Inn is considered the largest log structure in the world. The towering lobby features a massive stone fireplace and a hand-crafted clock made of copper, wood and wrought iron serving as focal points.”

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We found some sandwiches at the Inn and I tried their Old Faithful Ale while we checked out the cool balconies at the Inn – hey, we’re only here once, right?

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View from the upper (outside) balcony.

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View from one of the inner balconies looking down on the lobby.

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View of the inner balconies.

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View of the dining room from balcony above.

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By now, it was raining a little heavier and it was a bone-chilling 38° – believe it or not!

We took a few more pics on our way out of the massive ‘Old Faithful’ parking lot that was packed with visitors and started heading back to Cody.  It was now 3:30 PM and we had 115 miles to back-track.  It was too late in the day and too rainy now to stick with our original plan to do the whole loop.  It was shorter to just go back the way we came.

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We stopped once more along Yellowstone Lake to check out the steam coming up from the geysers along the edge.

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Kaan and Stilla alongside Yellowstone Lake. Geyser steam in background.

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We’ll be back… we only scratched the surface of this beautiful national park today.

It got warmer as we got closer to Cody – around 50° if I remember right.  As I mentioned earlier, we stopped at a couple of the small state park campgrounds on the way back once we were outside the park, and the outlook for getting a spot looks good.  There were quite a few open sites and some even had full hook-ups.  We’ll try to score a new site on Wednesday at one of these campgrounds.

We also stopped at Pahaska Tepee on the way back to stretch our legs after the long drive.  This is supposed to be “Buffalo Bill” Cody’s old hunting lodge and hotel back in the day.

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Kaan trying on another hat… we have a theme (for pictures) going on here I think.

When we got back to the Urban Escape Vehicle, we noticed it had rained and some really bad wind gusts must have come through… our larger pull-down window awning on the living room slide out was rolled up; the small american flag was ripped that we had hanging on one of our mirrors; and the chairs we left out were knocked over and wet.  But the important thing was that little “Coach” was OK, and boy! – was he ever happy to see us after being cooped up for almost 10 hours.

The weather-guessers are calling for more wind but sunshine today (Tuesday) as I write this post.  We’ll stay here today and check out the attractions in Cody.  We’ve heard that the Buffalo Bill Center of the West museum is a “must-see”.

We Scored a Campground near Yellowstone NP in July! (Ponderosa RV Park, Cody WY)

We left the Shell Campground located in Shell, WY by 11 AM on Sunday and continued heading west on 14 towards Yellowstone NP.  As I mentioned in my last post – the campground had a very weak WiFi signal thru Verizon and absolutely no AT&T coverage for our iPhones.  I tried to do some research online to find possible RV spots in or near Yellowstone.  This is the height of the tourist season here and therefore very difficult to score sites that can accommodate a 38½ ft Coach without advance reservations.

I was able to get quite a few tips from folks on the RVillage.com® website for possible places to stay, in or near Cody, WY which is about 50 miles from the east entrance to the park.  And I was also able to get some phone numbers for campgrounds near the west entrance to Yellowstone from our good friends Orman & Suzie Claxton, who are currently in a park there.  (Thanks Orman!)  However, all these tips were no good to us without cell phone coverage.

We stopped at a rest area near Greybull, WY when we finally had an AT&T signal and made a bunch of phone calls… absolutely no sites were available inside the park according to the number I called from the park website.  Apparently most of the campgrounds within Yellowstone are operated by a single entity; Xanterra Parks & Resorts.  I then tried some of the numbers for RV Parks in Cody and also a few numbers for parks on the west side of Yellowstone… everyone said they were full.  A couple of the numbers I dialed just went to voicemail.  So, we decided to just drive on to Cody and try our luck in person.

About 70 miles later, we pulled into Cody, WY.  I passed up a couple of the parks that I had called earlier and drove almost to the west side of town when we saw the Ponderosa Campground.  We pulled in and stopped behind another rig in the registration lane.

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Stilla and I went into the office and “Whad’Ya Know” – they had a spot!  We reserved two nights with an option to extend if we let them know as soon as possible and if they don’t get more reservations.  We were told to go park and come back to settle the bill, which was $92.88 for two nights – ouch 🙁

We apparently just beat the rush too – campers were blocking the street behind us in the registration lane…

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But we had to wait for the rig in front of us to move before we could clear the lane and go to our new site…

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Little “Coach” watched us through the Coach window as we checked into the park.

We finally pulled in near our site and disconnected the Silverado from the Coach.  I walked back to the office to pay the bill.  And guess what!?!  Another Alpine Coach pulled into the campground!  I spoke briefly to the driver and gave him our site number, so we could maybe get-together later.

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And here’s our spot… who says you can’t find a campground near Yellowstone without a reservation? 🙂  As a matter-of-fact, later on as we drove around town, we noticed a bunch of rigs parked at the local Walmart.  Hmmm… maybe we’ll have to keep that in mind if we can’t get an extension here…

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Our site at Ponderosa Campground, Cody WY.

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We were originally assigned to the spot to the left of where we’re now parked, but as you can see, in the pic (below), the trees at the front of the site surrounded the satellite dish!  So getting a signal was impossible.  I went back to the office and asked to change to the next spot over at the end of the row.  They were very accommodating and simply switched the reservation with someone who was still due-in but hadn’t yet arrived.

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After we got settled into our site, we walked through the park and stopped to talk to the Alpine driver I saw earlier.  They were already set up on the opposite side of the park and were inside their Coach.  I knocked on the door and we introduced ourselves.  His name is David (we didn’t meet his wife yet) and they are with the NoWACA group which stands for NorthWest Alpine Coach Association.  We talked for a short time and I left an open invitation for them to stop by our Coach later for refreshments and more conversation.

Then we drove around town to check out the area and find someplace to get dinner.  We ended up at La Comida.   They had some pretty good fish tacos.

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We got back to the park pretty late.  A 5th Wheel Trailer backed into the spot next to us (our original site);  a couple from Utah with 5 kids.  I used the last remaining daylight to clean the bugs off the front of the Coach since it was finally cooling down from a high today of ~90°

We didn’t see the folks in the other Alpine again… hopefully, we’ll be able to get together sometime over the next couple/few days before we move on.

On Monday, we plan on getting an early start for visiting Yellowstone NP.  We’ll leave our little dog “Coach” in the Coach with the A/C on since we’ve got 50 Amp hook-ups.  We’ve been told dogs aren’t allowed in many places within the park and it would be cruel to leave him in the Silverado while we visit ‘Old Faithful’, etc.,

Check back in to see how our day turns out… I’m sure we’ll have some awesome pics of what is known as the world’s first national park per wikipedia®.  We (Stilla and I) last visited Yellowstone in the very early 1990’s and look forward to seeing it again and sharing the experience with our grandson.