Buffalo Bill's Museum

Thursday, July 29, 2010

First, I want to say, YES we heard all about the bear attack in Yellowstone. And yes we camped in that very same park 2 days ago, but we are in a motor home, not a tent. And there is NO WAY I would have not shot her (weather or not I hit her would be another blog, but I would definitely emptied the clip!) I find it amazing that since we have been here - Yellowstone has been in the National news twice. Weird!!!

Today we went to the Buffalo Bill Historical Center. It is a museum that has five separate parts. Its so impressive. The displays were incredible. It is very interactive. They have it set up so that every part of history is separated.

The first part we entered was 'Firearms'. It housed 1500 guns. These guns were made and manufactured from the early 1800's. It was incredibly set up and even for a girl it was not boring. (Kinda). There was also a section dedicated to Annie Oakly who's real name is Phoebe Moses and toured with the Wild West Show.

The second part we entered was regarding William F. Cody - aka - Buffalo Bill. He was so much more than I ever knew.

William F. Cody was born in 1846 in Iowa. After the death of his brother, his family moved to Kansas. His family was often persecuted because they believed in fighting anti-slavery. His father was stabbed while giving an anti-slavery speech. He never fully recovered.

Bill later joined Johnson's Army as a scout. His job was to help guide the Army in Utah. Here is where he got his reputation as an 'Indian fighter." Sometime between the age of 12 and 14 he killed his first Indian. From there he joined the "Pony Express." In 1863 , after the death of his mother, he enlisted with the Union Army and entered the Civil War. During this time, he would scout for the Army and kill bison for the railroad. He killed over 2300 buffalo.

Congressional Medal of Honor: He achieved this honor on April 26, 1872 for gallantry in action at Platte River, Nebraska.(Battle of Summit Springs) On July 11, 1869, Cody killed Chief Tall Bull and rescued a captured white woman. Tall bull was the leader of the Cheyenne Indians.

William Cody (Buffalo Bill) was a freight driver, Buffalo hunter, Indian fighter, Army Scout, Pony express rider, stagecoach driver, Civil War Vet, Wild west show manager, and a congressional Medal of Honor recipient. He was the 'man'! Everything and anything in Cody, WY is a dedication to one man, Buffalo Bill.

The next section we toured was 'The American Indian". I did not want to see this part because it infuriates me how badly we treated them. But it was remarkable. The way they expressed the Indians and all the different tribes was mesmerising. The life that they lived and the talent behind the clothing and bead work that they did for survival is inconceivable. I left this section with more respect than I had after reading Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. (Awesome book, btw). There is a picture of Red Clouds outfit and a quote from him in the book that struck a cord with me.

The 4th section was dedicated to all the 'Nature of Yellowstone'. It was fun to explore since we just left that area. We recognized a lot of the photos and watched a short film explaining the changes of the years in the landscape.

The last sections was all about artists. It had sculptures, and paintings of artist's interpretations of all kinds of animals and different elements during all the seasons that the earlier pioneers experienced.There were massive amounts of heads on the walls. Some of the animals I would have never guessed to be so huge.


If you ever get to Cody, WY - this is a must!

We might go back tomorrow because we did not see it all. It is on my top 5 list of museums.

We extended our stay here in Cody for 2 more nights because we are having such a good time here. They truly respect and protect the 'old west' and everything around here is preserved as it was in the 1800's. Cowboys are everywhere!

More tomorrow, thanks for reading.

Mish Mosh

Okay,

This is a mixture of pictures that I forgot to tell you about from Yellowstone. We hiked our butts off. We walked down over 300 steps to the top of a waterfall. It was worth it but it was hell climbing back up!

Yes, the rainbow is real. (I'm not that good to impose it).

There are four entrances into Yellowstone and we visited the visitor's center at all four points. I purchased a 'passport' from the first National Park we went to in Moab. Arches National Park. With this passport you get a cancellation stamp at the visitors centers of all National Parks. So far I have 14. It also comes with a map of the US and a listing of all National Parks. Its interesting and the best thing about this passport is there is a date on all the stamps so you can keep track of where you have been and when.

Thanks for reading and again, sorry for all the mix ups in days...

Cody WY

Wednesday, July 29, 2010

Today was a traveling day. We are now in Cody, WY. This town is so cool. I cant wait to explore more of it tomorrow.

It is the home of Buffalo Bill and they preserve all the buildings and surrounding areas to remain the way the were in 1860. Its all original and its all so very interesting.

Tonight we witnessed a street gunfight amongst, Wyatt Earp, Butch Cassidy, Buffalo Bill Cody, Doc Holiday, Maverick and several others. (Including the guy from Blazing Saddles, lol).It was silly, but it was entertaining. They closed the street and pulled out props such as a bank (that was robbed), a saloon (with ladies of the evening), and a jail,(where they arrested one of the bad guys) . They actually shot guns, filled with blanks but they were loud and looked very real. The story was typical. The bad guys come into town and rob and cause trouble and Doc Holiday and Buffalo Bill save the day.

After the show we went into a couple of stores and I finally found my red cowboy boots. I'm so excited. I cant wait for a day to come where I need to wear jeans so I can wear them also.

Tomorrow we plan on visiting the Buffalo Bill museum, its supposed to be spectacular. Okay, enough for today. Sorry if I confused you with all four blogs at once. Ill try to stay on top of them.

We are not sure how long we are staying here, we have 360 miles to Custer SD. Its is about 30 miles south of Sturgis, where we will be for bike week and meet up with Kyle. I cant wait for him to fly in. It should take us 2 days to get there so we probably will meander through WY. But for now, we are staying here for atleast 3 days.

Thanks for reading.

Yellowstone National Park #2

This blog might be mixed up with other days because its been a while since we have had access to the Internet and phones. There were three full days we were completely out of contact with everyone.

The scariest part of it was the fact that the 'Fishing Bridge Camp Ground' that we stayed in, inside Yellowstone was a corridor for the Elk and the Moose and the Bears. And there was no signal in case of anything. Just across from our spot, not more than 15 feet was a leg of an Elk that was eaten by another animal.

We did have some Elk walk by at night but no bears. The park is okay. Nothing that we expected. We expected to be in fields of green and instead we were packed in like sardines. Yellowstone offers 12 RV parks, but only 4 of them can support RV's bigger than 40 feet long.

We tried all 4 parks and the only opening was Fishing Bridge. All of the National Parks have extremely cheap overnight prices. Anywhere from $ 5.00 -25.00 but of course Fishing Bridge was 'privately' owned and it was $55.oo a night. They would not allow us to run the generator at all and did not offer electric, but Tommy - what a surprise - found an connection to their electricity and he plugged us in with out any one knowing. Our neighbors thought we were using our 12 volt batteries. hehehehehe.

We drove one half of the park on the first day and the other half the second day. It is beautiful.
We saw, Elk, Bison, Bears, Wolves, Moose and alot of chipmunks. After a while when the people would slow down for the Bison, we were like - c'mon, its just a buffalo - move on! We did see several bald eagles. They are truly beautiful birds. And very very big. The picture wasn't so good because they were moving at a fast pace.

We also witnessed alot of geysers. The mud holes were the most impressive. It was as if you were blowing bubbles into chocolate milk with a straw. The colors were amazing. The oranges around the water hot springs is actually bacteria that grows from the inside of the earth.

I have more pictures that I am going to put on the next blog and share more about the park.
Thanks for reading.

Yellowstone National Park

e



Monday, July 25, 2010

We spent two nights in Lionshead RV park in West Yellowstone and had a great time. We drove the Polaris along with another couple us into the woods and to the summit of Lionshead.

The weather was perfect and the ride was great. We were out for almost 7.5 hrs.


From where we were on top of the mountain you could see the outskirts of Yellowstone.

The trails we took were for mostly ski mobiles and they are marked with sticks that state where the trails are. You can see from the picture of Tommy, the snow can get over 10 feet high.

Thanks for reading.

Yellowstone National Park

Monday, July 25, 2010

This blog might be mixed up with other days because its been a while since we have had access to the Internet and phones. There were three full days we were completely out of contact with everyone.

The scariest part of it was the fact that the 'Fishing Bridge Camp Ground' that we stayed in, inside Yellowstone was a corridor for the Elk and the Moose and the Bears. And there was no signal in case of anything.

We did have some Elk walk by at night but no bears. The park is okay. Nothing that we expected. We expected to be in fields of green and instead we were packed in like sardines. Yellowstone offers 12 RV parks, but only 4 of them can support RV's bigger than 40 feet long.

We tried all 4 parks and the only opening was Fishing Bridge. All of the National Parks have extremely cheap overnight prices. Anywhere from $ 5.00 -25.00 but of course Fishing Bridge was 'privately' owned and it was $55.oo a night. They would not allow us to run the generator at all and did not offer electric, but Tommy - what a surprise - found an connection to their electricity and he plugged us in with out any one knowing. Our neighbors thought we were using our 12 volt batteries. hehehehehe.

We drove one half of the park on the first day and the other half the second day. It is beautiful.
We saw, Elk, Bison, Bears, Wolves, Moose and alot of chipmunks. After a while when the people would slow down for the Bison, we were like - c'mon, its just a buffalo - move on!

We also witnessed alot of geysers. The mud holes were the most impressive. It was as if you were blowing bubbles into chocolate milk with a straw. The colors were amazing. The oranges around the water hot springs is actually bacteria that grows from the inside of the earth.

I have more pictures that I am going to put on the next blog and share more about the park.
Thanks for reading.

Yellowstone National Park

Lionshead Trail

Saturday, July 25, 2010

Today we rode on the Polaris for several hours. It was completely, without a doubt, the scariest trail ride I have ever taken. The trail was called Lionshead Trail and is known for having big game. It was deep into the woods and extremely remote.

Tommy was assuring that we would be okay and wore his pistol on his hip, for easy access. About 2 hours into the ride we became very high on the mountain and it was after 5:00 pm. I was getting nervous because all the signs that were posted (and there wasn't many) stated - 'no motor vehicles'.

But my husband ventured on. As it was getting colder and colder and later and later I knew it was becoming closer and closer to feeding time for all the animals. I started to freak. (but silently). I started yelling out loud 'STAY AWAY BEAR!" every 10- 15 seconds. I think Tommy thought I was kidding. Until I didn't stop.

Then we came to a fork in the road, not marked. We looked at the map and it made no sense. We were lost. I was freaking out, (silently of course). We went to the right about 1/2 a mile and Tommy stopped. He said he 'thinks' its the other way. I'm really yelling now for the bears to STAY AWAY!!!

We turned around and found the fork again and took the other path. I was so scared that we were going to come across a moose or a bear in the middle of the path, like we did in Yellowstone. What would we do then? You cant back up, you cant go forward, all you can do is cry.

Finally, we came across the main path and made it back to the RV park. I have never been so scared in my life. Well, maybe once, when I was 12, and in Kings Dominion, VA. I begged my grandma to ride the loop to loop ride with me. It went backwards and I freaked out. They had to have people literally pry my hands off the ride because of shock! (my grandma, btw, laughed her butt off!)

Anyway, we are safe and home and tomorrow we will be going back to Yellowstone, the other parts we haven't seen yet.

Thanks for reading.!

Yellowston National Park

a




Saturday, July 24, 2010

Yesterday we spent the day in Yellowstone. The park is everything everyone has ever spoken about - outstanding! The weather could not be better. High of 73 yesterday and 45 last night. The skies are vast with deep blue backgrounds and large puffy cumulus clouds. It seems you cannot take a bad picture here, even if you were using a 1970"s Polaroid.

The park sits on a fault line and they have since January of this year experienced over 3000 small earthquakes. The biggest one recorded was 3.8.

Yellowstone is tremendous and after 7 hours of driving and stopping and seeing things. I was afraid we saw it all. We are dry camping for 2 nights in the actual park starting Monday and I didn't want to be done with all the scenery already. Come to find out, we saw less than a 1/4 of it. It is magnificent. It is very diverse from one side to the other. Parts of it has hot bubbling, boiling mud holes that are impressive and smell like rotten eggs, parts of it is all - as thick as can be - pine tree forests, and parts of it is wide open plains. The volcanic mud holes are similar to the ones we saw in Costa Rica, but they are not nearly as hot. There is also a huge lake in the middle called Yellowstone Lake. We saw private vessels on it and want to inquire about renting a boat.


The first stop we did was 'Old Faithful'. Its a bit of a hike from the parking lot to the actual spot to view it. They have benches and boardwalks set up all around the volcanic eruption sites and everyone of them was packed. They list the times old faithful goes off everyday up until around 5:30, after that, it becomes sporadic. It is, and was, spectacular. The wind was blowing the steam towards us and you cannot see the magnitude of the water spout from some our pictures but it was at least 60 feet tall. We got wet from the steam but by the time it hit us it was cooled down. I hope we have time to go back and view it again from the other side so the wind is behind us.

The second stop we did was a campground. They have 4 in the park. All of them have water and sewer hook ups but no electricity. We are self contained so the water and sewer are not a problem for us, but no electricity is being too close to home during a hurricane, and I hate it. Oppps, I'm not supposed to say hate - I dislike it very much! I inquired if we were allowed to run the generator at night (alot of parks do not allow this), and they told us that the generator was not allowed and ANY time of day. The park is natural and the animals need it to stay that way. I agree, but damn.......Anyway, Tommy booked us for Monday and Tuesday night in a park called Fishing Bridge. We drove through it yesterday to scope it out. Its okay, nothing to write home about - but - we are in the middle of Yellowstone.

We also stopped at a trail where you can hike down one side and up the other, across a waterfall. There are 2 water falls in the same area. We did not do the hike but observed the look out points. We plan on doing the hike while we are staying in the park.

Everywhere you go, there are signs of bears and elk, and moose and bison. It seems the bison are the most plentiful. They come and go, and do what they want, when they want to. Its really neat. They cross the road in front of you and take their sweet time doing it. (The other day on the news, the lady that was charged - it was not her fault. Some idiot threw a water bottle a the hind end of the animal and it spooked and all he saw was her and he charged. ) OH, and yes, also on the news - about the hikers on the Grand Tetons, we were there 4 days prior. It wasn't us! (Alot of you have text us and we couldnt answer because of the signals out here).

Today we are heading out on the Polaris on some trails. I am a bit nervous being in uncharted territory and wild animals everywhere, but Tommy promises the noise from the razor will scare them away. (I'm not sure if I believe him because we have seen plenty of animals on trails before.)

If I don't blog tomorrow or the next day, send out troops to scour the bellies of all the local bears.
LOL

Have a great weekend, and thanks for reading,

Catching up

Friday, July 23,2010

Since Tuesday, it has been totally CRAZY for us. First we drove from Salt Lake City to Jackson Hole, WY. The drive was fine, very scenic. We passed where the 2002 Olympics were held and saw some ski jumps and the Olympic village.

We drove the Grand Teton Mountains and the clouds were low. It was beautiful.

Once in WY we had a hard time finding our RV Park. We had to turn around 2 times. Which is not easy when you are 75 feet long. We have a GPS in the RV, a Garmin GPS stuck to the window and Tommy and I both have GPS with Google Maps on our phones. Tommy's phone was non working at the time so we had not used his. All the GPS's gave different directions. But finally we found where we had made reservations for the next 2 nights.

We pull in, and check in at the office. Things are good, we are there early in the day, and looking forward to cooking out and being lazy. We drove down to our spot and realized it was too narrow. We could not open our slides. (We have four of them.) So while Tommy waited with the RV I walked back to the office and explained that the spot they gave us - we could not fit into, but the spot next to that was perfect. The check in lady said the spot next to us was 'reserved'. Okay, well, then can you find us another spot? Sure, she says. Go look at spot # 45. Okay, I go back up to spot 26 (the one too small) and tell Tommy to come with me to see about fitting in 45. He walks to the back of the park with me and says, yes, we will fit. I go back in the office and say - okay 45 is good. With that there is another couple checking in with another associate and the women checking in says, 'you cant have spot 45, we just took it'. Shit! Now what? So I go get Tommy - again. Now I'm really frustrated. Tommy walks back in the office and says, look, we paid already, we need a spot. The second associate (the one with the women who took 45), says, Sorry Sir, but its first come, first serve. And Tommy responds with - well, we were here first! And you already charged us $85 a night for a spot. $85 a night does not sound expensive but add it times 30 days in a month, it becomes very expensive. The average RV park is anywhere between 35 and 60$.

Anyway, our lady that was checking us in, handed us a map and said here's a list of all the RV Parks around here, have a nice day! WHAT?!?! We already paid you! Goodbye, she says! We were fuming. It took Tommy 2 full days on the phone to find an open spot. There was nothing available. Anywhere. For any amount of money.

So now, we pull out and into an empty parking lot and scramble on the Internet to try and find something, anything. Its close to getting dark and we are homeless. Well, homeless with a home on wheels. I'm on the laptop, Tommy's on my phone and we get a knock on the door. Its the Sheriff. He explains to us that there is no overnight parking. We already knew that. We told him what happened and he was the nicest guy. He told us of a National forest over the mountains and into Utah. If that was full, he told us of another one beyond that. The mountain was big and had alot of switchbacks and we did not want to negotiate it being so long. So we disconnected the truck and I followed behind Tommy in the RV.

We found Targhee Nations Forest. They only have 11 sites and we were lucky enough to get # 11. The funniest thing about this was it only cost $5.00 a night. We dry camped and it was a good test because Tommy is going to have us deep into Yellowstone starting Sunday and we will be dry camping there too. The forest was really pretty and we ended up driving back over the mountain the next day into Jackson Hole. That is a great little town. I hope we go back through there on our way to Stergis. SD.

Oh, and for everyone who doesn't have facebook, Tommy dropped his phone in the river in the forest while he was chilling his Coors light, (because we had no electric and he had to have cold beer.)


We spent 2 nights in Jackson Hole and then drove to West Yellowstone.

Okay, enough for today... We went into Yellowstone today and I will blog in the morning. Thanks for reading.

Traveling Day!

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Yesterday was spent mostly, for me, in the Family History Library. I am becoming completely addicted to the research. It is unbelievable how much history the Mormons preserve. I have on my Dad's side - gone back to my Great Great Great Grandfather and my Great Great Grandmother. On my Mom's side - I have gone back to my Great Great Grandfather and am at a dead end on my Grandmother. But I am not giving up. There are census records, marriage licenses, death certificates, draft papers, immigration lists, name of ships that your relatives came over to the United States on...it just goes on and on. It is so cool.

Today we are hitting the road - 360 miles north. We are heading to Jackson Hole, WY. We have been in and out of Utah for over 2 months and absolutely, without reservation - LOVE this state. It should take us most of the day to get up to WY. Normally in a car you can do the trek in about 6 hours, but when you pull 40 tons it tends to take a bit longer. (And ALOT more fuel!)

All the animals are still doing wonderful. King Arthur actually has become more social living in the RV than at home. We think he feels more secure in the little space as opposed to the huge house. Sire makes friends everywhere we go and Sir Lancelot is still my lover....

We hit Costco the other day, and I was loving it. I replenished so many goodies. We also visited this place called Sugar Post. We first saw them at an art fair in Moab. Go online and check them out. shop@sugarpost.com. That is where Tommy purchased his flaming skull. They create very unusual iron works. It should make a good addition to our bar out back when we get home. (If the bar is still there after the hurricanes, lol).

Well, that's about it for now. I am including pictures that I could not fit on other blogs. They will be a miss mosh but some that I'd like to share.

Thanks for reading and have a good day.

The Great Salt Lake

Sunday, July, 18, 2010

Yesterday we started out late in the day. We extended our stay here yet another night and took our time getting out. It was hot and we wanted to go to the lake, but did not want all the heat of the day.

Around 6pm we headed out. The Great Salt Lake is about 40-45- miles North West of where we are staying. We drove to Antelope Island and accessed it from there. We saw almost 100 Bison just doing their own thing. It was awesome. We also saw Antelope, but they were skiddish and kept their distance. On the way back from one end of the island we ran into baby coyotes. They were the cutest things, and no where near the scary creature we encountered in Moab.

We first drove to the South end of the island and visited Garr Ranch. It is one of the oldest ranches in America. Parts of it has been modernized due to the fact that it was a working, lucrative ranch up until the 70's. Now it is part of the State Park and can be toured. They family that lived and worked this ranch must have been wealthy because it is huge and they have alot of different buildings, including a house for the hired help. There is an underground fruit cellar and another underground building used as the refrigerator in the winter.

After seeing the ranch we then heading West. There was a bit of a hike to the shoreline from where we parked the car. (It reminded me of how long the trek was on Cedar Beach to the water). We both changed into our suits and headed towards the water. The Great Salt Lake has 10x's the amount of salt as the sea. Tommy tried to swim but all he could do was float. I did not venture in that far. There are no fish except brine shrimp that live there. The birds, which are abundant, love the shrimp. There are several little islands in the lake and when the sun sets they start to roost. Its is the neatest sound. Very loud. The sunset was beautiful. As good as Key West, if not better.

Its still very warm here, today is expected to be 100 degrees so I will be running to Macy*s - I have to - while I'm in a big city! I'm having withdrawals. It will be fun to see what kind of style clothes they sell because the Mormon women do not wear shorts or pants. They wear only ankle length skirts. And whomever cornered the market on the footwear was a genius, and a millionaire. They all wear the same exact flat shoes with one strap over the arch. The only difference is in the color they choose.

After my shopping experience I am getting a mani/pedi, and then heading over to the Mormon Family Research Library for more lineage on my family tree. Tommy will hang around camp for the day. Tomorrow we leave for Yellowstone. (If we don't decide to stay - again.)

Thanks for reading and have a good Sunday!