We took a whole day to spend in Cody WY. I can't imagine that there's much going on in Cody during the winter months sans tourists. Unfortunately, there is not Target in Cody. There is a Wal-mart, but it is weird and has a green outside. Try as they might to try to trick you into thinking that an interesting exterior means an interesting interior, it was still just a Wal-mart with all the regular Wal-mart things. Shannon would be thrilled. We stocked up on s'more supplies and picked up monogulars (you can surely figure that one out) for each of the kids for better viewing of wildlife.
We ate a late lunch at a Maxwell's that had all the requisite kid food. Corn dogs! as well as some remarkably good tea. Tea is terrible outside of the South. I ordered tea everywhere we went to try and figure out what was going wrong and I came to the conclusion that only Southern people can make iced tea. Must be genetic (all that inbreeding). Please just stop trying Western people! Your tea is terrible! The picture above was our favorite cowboy painting.
The Buffalo Bill Historical Center was one of the best museums we saw. It's really five museums in one. There is an art museum, a museum dedicated to the American West, a Natural Science museum, a firearms museum and an Indian/Native American/First Nations/Aboriginal Peoples museum. As a side note, in the West, the preferred term is Indian. When I was talking to the children about Indians, I used the phrase, "feathers, not dots" to help them know which Indians I was talking about. This is a terrible phase to teach your children, I would discourage you from ever saying such things. Especially in a crowd of "feathers not dots" Indians.
They call this museum the Smithsonian of the West with good reason. We could easily have spent another day here.
This picture is for Dana. This is a stuffed yellow-bellied Marmot. We saw some of these that were still un-stuffed running around along the side of the road. They look like giant! hamsters. We didn't see any marmots with mini skirts or fish net stockings, so I guess we didn't see the infamous Hoary Marmot.
There is a big debate raging in the West. It's the great "Tipi v. Teepee" question. Sometimes you see a tipi, and sometimes, it's a teepee. Personally, I can't tell them apart.
There were guns! Lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of guns. More guns that anyone has a right to have collected in one place. Connor wanted to look at every gun. I wanted not to look at guns.
There were lots of stuffed things and dioramas. I've never seen so many life-sized dioramas. Creepy. See how good the kids were being? That's Connor in the middle.
So after a long day of learning all about cowboys, we figured that we cap off the day with a trip to the Rodeo! The Cody Stampede (or more appropriately the Buffalo Bill Cody Stampede, everything in Cody is the Buffalo Bill Cody this or that) is the longest running rodeo in the world. This year marks the 89th year that there has been a rodeo in Cody.
Take a good look at the picture above, do you notice anything weird about the little cow? Like that the little cow is supposed to be fenced in? Someone should tell the little cow.
We loved the stylish headgear that some of the cattle sported. I didn't know what these horn protector things were for, so I asked, "Hey, what are the horn-hats for?" Nobody around me knew because they were all stupid tourists too. The best we could come up with was that they somehow protect the little bulls horns. These were junior strength bulls.
Oh, boy! A tract! I haven't seen a proper tract since I left home. The one is entitled "The Last Ride" and is all about cowboys and Jesus and it wants me to go to cowboy church. I didn't go since I'm not of the cowboy denomination, but I appreciated their tract.
We sat behind the weirdest! family at the rodeo. There was a mom and a dad, and two kids. When we took our seats, we did so very loudly. You see, it's outside, and it's a rodeo and there is loud music and lots of people and beer and things are loud. I promise, it wasn't just us this time. So these kids keep turning around and staring at us. Really staring. Like there was a contest that we didn't know about.
We were talking about stuff and looking at things and the kids just kept STARING at us. The family never talked to each other and when they didn't stand up for the national anthem (who doesn't stand up for the national anthem at a RODEO for goodness sake? That's just asking for a whoopin') it crossed my mind that they must be foreign. That satisfied me for a while because foreign people have a good excuse for being weird.
They turned out not to be foreign, just an American family having a bad time at the rodeo. They left before the bull riding. Weird. That's like, the main event. The best part of the night was that Belly and Willa got to go down into the arena and chase a baby cow with about 100 other kids. I always knew that Belly would be running with the bulls!
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