Day 3 - Buffalo Bill Museum

We took a break from the park on our third day to go see the Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody.  We had so many people tell us this was a must see and it was.  The museum is very well done and we spent half a day there.  On the way to the museum we stopped at the Buffalo Bill Dam.  Here are some fun facts:

• It was originally called the Shoshone Dam
• Drilling to find bedrock for the foundation began in the spring of 1904
• 82,900 cubic yards of concrete were used to build the dam
• 7 men were killed during construction
• Daniel Webster Cole was the engineer
• The final cost of the dam was $929,658
• Buffalo Bill Dam was the tallest dam in the world when completed in 1910

We noticed a bunch of logs floating up against the upper dam and found out that they scoop them out in the spring and trucks haul them away.  The process takes several days.

After seeing the dam we moved onto the museum.  They had Buffalo Bill's boy hood home there and I think it probably looked better at the museum that it ever looked while he was living in it.  It was located on the Mississippi in Iowa and moved to Cody by train. 

 

They also had five live raptors there that will be in permanent captivity now due to injuries that keep them from surviving in the wild. They have come in from all over the country and are well taken care of at the museum.   There is a red tailed hawk, great horned owl, peregrine falcon, turkey vulture and a golden eagle.  Can you pick them out?

 

Among their display of old wagons and I think we saw an early RV. Check out the inside of this wagon. That's a heck of a wood burning stove that heated it up very nicely I'm sure. I think I could spend some time in this fairly comfortably!

 

They also had some great displays of stuffed wild animals.  We also came across a nice gentleman who shared his prairie rattler with us - yes, it was alive.  He assured me that in 50 years nobody had every been bitten when he showed these rattlers off - but then he was originally from Texas and we are from Oklahoma -- I might have been his first victim.  I had to think seriously about how close I was going to get! 

 

After we got back to the RV, we rested, a bit and then took the girls down to the river.  We enjoyed relaxing by the water and the girls played a bit on the rocks and in the water.  The water was pretty cold though.  Bailey was the wettest and we had to bundle her in a towel to warm her up.  John's toes were tingling from the cold as well but NO - I did not wrap them in a towel!