July 2016, Wyoming, Day 11

Day 11

There are three things between Great Falls, Wyoming and Battle of Little Bighorn National Battlefield monument. They are, in no particular order,  grass, wind, and casinos. However, our most recent book on tape about the medical care provided to the wounded soldiers at the Battle of Little Bighorn put the kids straight to sleep!  We toured Little Bighorn and learned how not to conduct an attack on a bunch of ticked off Natives. I think I'll call it Custer’s cluster.

                                                    

It was about a 3-hour drive to Cody, Wyoming. We got there just in time for the Shoot-out!  We’d reserved our seats and had a front row viewing of the street spectacle. 

Buffalo Bill et al

Pow! Pow!

                                    

It was totally hokey and Miss Kitty was a little long in the tooth, but there was shooting, so it quickly became the trip favorite of Thomakazi. 

Their idea, not mine. 

The shootout takes place in front of the Historic Erma Hotel that was opened in 1902 and named after Buffalo Bill Cody’s youngest daughter. I am sure it was a legitimate cowboy hang out back in the day. But, now a days it is home to lots of tourists. 

We couldn't resist the signs that lead us down a side street to the Cody Dug Up Guns Museum. Up a narrow stairwell we discovered quite a collection of stuff that people have dug up, mostly guns but also other implements of destruction. 

      

They were displayed in little dirt filled dioramas so that you wouldn't forget they'd been dug up. It was quite a collection of dug up guns from the Revolutionary War up through WWII. If you've dug up a gun and don't know what to do with it, they are currently taking your dug up donations!

Next, we had to check into our lodging for the night. Now, I LOVE A THEME! And,  I thought we could continue the day’s theme of Native American domination by making everyone sleep in a tipi!  I had reserved it in advance but I didn’t know too much about it other than it was a part of the Ponderosa Campground outside of Cody. We discovered when we got there that while it was a real tipi, it sat along side a busy road next the Dairy Queen, so not exactly like sleeping in a Native American village. But, easy access to an Oreo Blizzard made sleeping on the ground a little easier!

Young braves settle into their humble dwelling place

We observed that the floor of our tipi was covered with a substance that I liken to kitty litter. We made the executive decision to purchase a tarp large enough to cover the floor of the tipi so that our stuff wouldn’t get all dusty with Fresh Step.  My chief concern at this point is that there is at least 6 inches of space between the ground and the bottom of the tipi. If I wake up nose to nose with a critter, I might faint.

 

Did you know that Cody Wyoming is the Rodeo Capital of the World?  Well it is! 

The kids had never been to a rodeo so we thought this would be the perfect place for their first!  It was definitely a highlight of the trip! Everyone loved it and the head rodeo clown was from Toccoa, Georgia! Excellent people watching was on tap and the all three kids participated in the "round up" Where they had to chase a calf around the arena trying to retrieve a flag from a its tail! It was a hoot! And, the city kids were at at a clear disadvantage.

Time to go sleep in a Tipi!