7/13/2013–Thermopolis to Cody, WY–Buffalo Bill Center Visit

We only had 100 miles or less to get to Cody from Thermopolis today, but we got an early start to avoid the heat of the day.  Almost immediately, we were held up in a construction area.  It wasn’t too much of a wait though and we were soon on our way again.

It looks like there is still some snow in the higher country.

West of Cody, we had a few tunnels to go through near the Buffalo Bill Dam.

After getting set up in our site at Buffalo Bill State Park in the North Fork Campground, we ate lunch then headed back to Cody and the Buffalo Bill Center.

Ken spotted this nice looking Woody and teardrop trailer in the lot.

After admiring the Woody for a while, we continued on to the parking lot and went in for our tour of the Buffalo Bill Center.

We’ve been here before, so we split up with Ken heading off to the gun museum while I toured other parts of the center.

The two air rifles in the center of this next photo have been researched and it has been determined that one of them was a part of the Lewis & Clark Corps of Discovery although they don’t know which one it is for sure.

Another of the exhibits of guns.

While Ken was looking at guns, I went through the western art museum.  I especially enjoy the artwork of Frederic Remington and Charles Russell.

It seems like the last time we were here there was so much more of their art on display, but looking back there may have been a special exhibit room at that time.

I really enjoyed seeing the Charles Russell exhibits of letters he wrote to his good friends as they included watercolors in the header of his personal letters.

After an afternoon of touring, we returned to the RV.  Before getting there, we stopped at the check-in area and made arrangements to move to another site within this campground tomorrow instead of having to backtrack 5 miles to a much smaller site that we didn’t really like.

So back at the RV…it was our usual evening of dinner, tv and computers.  We should be able to move to our next campsite before noon tomorrow and then we’ll be heading into town for more touring.

7/12/2013–Thermopolis, WY–The Wyoming Dinosaur Center

When we left the RV this morning we first headed over to the Visitor’s Center to pick up any literature we may have missed at other locations.  Once done there, we drove to The Wyoming Dinosaur Center in Thermopolis, Wyoming.

The following photos are just a small sampling of what is there.  They have some very large displays, but we found the lighting in the exhibit very difficult to work around to get any decent photos.

There were several pieces similar to this one with many of the same types of fossils in one clump.

This one looked like a predecessor to an alligator.

This looked like a sea turtle.

This is the only known Albertaceratops on display in the world.

After visiting the museum, we decided to drive back out to look at the bison range and look for another possible range area in town.  We couldn’t find the other area, but the same bulls were hanging out close to where we found them yesterday.

We drove north of town and stopped at an overlook looking down at the World’s Largest Mineral Hot Spring.

We continued a little further north to a historical marker for the Bridger Trail – Bighorn River Crossing.

We turned back toward town and stopped to get a photo of this deer with some pretty impressive antlers.

We stopped in town for an ice cream treat before heading back to the RV.  Tomorrow we will be driving about 100 miles to Cody, Wyoming for a couple of nights.