Friday, July 11, 2008
Day 11: Cody, WY to Wall, SD
When we awoke, my abiding thought was that we could leave this horrid place.
My next thought was getting breakfast and getting this museum expedition started.
Cody has an outstanding set of museums, all comprised in something called the Buffalo Bill Historical Center. The reason we were here was really for the Cody Firearms Museum, which I thought J might like.
And he did. We went to a talk given by the curator on the history of firearms in the old West, and walked around most of the museums. A smattering of pictures for you.
Black bear skull farthest to the left, grizzly in the middle, and the extinct snout-nosed bear skull farthest to the right.
Animals killed in the hunting frenzy of the late 1800's and early 1900's. Note the walrus.
Yes, it's a crossbow.
A tommy gun like the gangsters would use.
A gatling gun.
WWII weaponry.
Sick of guns yet?
This is just a fraction of the pictures that I took.
Teach your children about how guns work. That seems...um...smart. Maybe I'm just too damn liberal.
More pictures here...in case you need to see more guns...
But there was other stuff in this museum too...
A Plains Indian Museum...
A ceremonial mask for a horse.
A necklace made of buffalo fur and bears claws.
A Buffalo Bill Museum...
but most of my pictures there didn't turn out.
We left and turned towards escape.
On the way, however, we stopped at the Heart Mountain Relocation Camp. This is a place were Japanese-Americans were interned during WWII for being ethnically Japanese.
Most of the buildings are knocked down and now only plaques remain.
A heartbreaking place to visit. Thousands of people held here under guard for no reason than they looked different.
Hot and arid, imagine coming here after leaving your home and business in sunny and lush California. They helped bring irrigation to this area, making it farmable. They brought farming in, teaching techniques to local farmers to make growing food work.
They made this place a much better place with their presence, even if it was unwilling.
Soberly, we turned towards the mountains.
J and I decided on taking the northern most route (Alt14) through the BigHorn Mountains, because we'd already done the south route. It was scenic and beautiful, but absolutely terrifying. He was driving and I'd look out the window, feel my stomach drop and snap pictures out of the window with my eyes closed. Please forgive the bug splatters on the windows.
It was during this queasy trip over the mountains that I saw a moose disappearing into the forest and saw a cow and three small cows resting on the side of the mountain road. Of course, the camera wouldn't cooperate, so no pictures for you.
Once J had successfully guided us out of the mountains, I took over driving for a while and then J took over again. The plan was to get a hotel room in Rapid City, SD.
When we stopped there, we found that there wasn't a cheap hotel room left in the city. Seriously. We tried 10 hotels and were eventually told that the entire city was booked. (No one has vacancy signs there...you just have to go into each one. What a pain.)
J drove us clear through to Wall (50 miles east and home to Wall Drug), and there, at 11PM at night, we took the last room that a Best Western had. A family suite with 3 (!) queen sized beds. I was exhausted. J was exhausted.
Time to rest up. Another big day of driving lay ahead of us. Oh. Yeah.
My next thought was getting breakfast and getting this museum expedition started.
Cody has an outstanding set of museums, all comprised in something called the Buffalo Bill Historical Center. The reason we were here was really for the Cody Firearms Museum, which I thought J might like.
And he did. We went to a talk given by the curator on the history of firearms in the old West, and walked around most of the museums. A smattering of pictures for you.
Black bear skull farthest to the left, grizzly in the middle, and the extinct snout-nosed bear skull farthest to the right.
Animals killed in the hunting frenzy of the late 1800's and early 1900's. Note the walrus.
Yes, it's a crossbow.
A tommy gun like the gangsters would use.
A gatling gun.
WWII weaponry.
Sick of guns yet?
This is just a fraction of the pictures that I took.
Teach your children about how guns work. That seems...um...smart. Maybe I'm just too damn liberal.
More pictures here...in case you need to see more guns...
But there was other stuff in this museum too...
A Plains Indian Museum...
A ceremonial mask for a horse.
A necklace made of buffalo fur and bears claws.
A Buffalo Bill Museum...
but most of my pictures there didn't turn out.
We left and turned towards escape.
On the way, however, we stopped at the Heart Mountain Relocation Camp. This is a place were Japanese-Americans were interned during WWII for being ethnically Japanese.
Most of the buildings are knocked down and now only plaques remain.
A heartbreaking place to visit. Thousands of people held here under guard for no reason than they looked different.
Hot and arid, imagine coming here after leaving your home and business in sunny and lush California. They helped bring irrigation to this area, making it farmable. They brought farming in, teaching techniques to local farmers to make growing food work.
They made this place a much better place with their presence, even if it was unwilling.
Soberly, we turned towards the mountains.
J and I decided on taking the northern most route (Alt14) through the BigHorn Mountains, because we'd already done the south route. It was scenic and beautiful, but absolutely terrifying. He was driving and I'd look out the window, feel my stomach drop and snap pictures out of the window with my eyes closed. Please forgive the bug splatters on the windows.
It was during this queasy trip over the mountains that I saw a moose disappearing into the forest and saw a cow and three small cows resting on the side of the mountain road. Of course, the camera wouldn't cooperate, so no pictures for you.
Once J had successfully guided us out of the mountains, I took over driving for a while and then J took over again. The plan was to get a hotel room in Rapid City, SD.
When we stopped there, we found that there wasn't a cheap hotel room left in the city. Seriously. We tried 10 hotels and were eventually told that the entire city was booked. (No one has vacancy signs there...you just have to go into each one. What a pain.)
J drove us clear through to Wall (50 miles east and home to Wall Drug), and there, at 11PM at night, we took the last room that a Best Western had. A family suite with 3 (!) queen sized beds. I was exhausted. J was exhausted.
Time to rest up. Another big day of driving lay ahead of us. Oh. Yeah.
Labels: south dakota, vacation, wyoming
¶ 11:50 AM
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Wow, I'm sorry Cody sucked so much.
I'm also equally as glad we decided NOT to go to Cody. I think we can give it a permanent pass on our next trip out west.
Also. you and Mike ought to get to together and talk about how much you don't like dizzying mountain heights.
I'm also equally as glad we decided NOT to go to Cody. I think we can give it a permanent pass on our next trip out west.
Also. you and Mike ought to get to together and talk about how much you don't like dizzying mountain heights.
No need to apologize, and we LOVED Thermopolis. I am fairly certain that had I just chosen a different place to camp, the experience would have turned out better. Oh well. We were both pretty tired and at the end of our ropes.
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