We left Yellowstone National Park and headed toward Cody, the town Buffalo Bill Cody founded in 1896.

There is a lot to do in Cody, they have a world class museum, the Buffalo Bill Historical Center. It encompasses 5 different museums; the Buffalo Bill museum, the Whitney Gallery of Western Art, the Plains Indian Museum, the Cody Firearms Museum, the Draper Museum of Natural History and also the McCracken Research Library.

Artifact in the museum of Plains Indians —————————————————– and in the Buffalo Bill museum

It takes at least 2 days to go through all the exhibits.

There is also a Trolley tour which takes you all over town, while a guide explains the history and shows you just about everything Cody has to offer. Combined tickets for the trolley and the museum are available.

The first night, we went to the movies, we were tired and decided that we had done so much sightseeing in Yellowstone, we deserved a break. To our delight, we ended up at the Cody Theater, built in 1936, it still has the “art deco” feel, only one show room, one movie only and they specify that they won’t play the movie unless at least 6 people show up, it was like stepping right back in time.

Bufflalo Bill’s Irma Hotel, named after his youngest daughter and built by the man himself in 1902 is still in business today. It also features the original cherrywood bar given to him by Queen Victoria, we had lunch there, the food was great (especially the bread pudding with whiskey sauce) and the prices were reasonable.

The cherry wood bar inside the Irma Hotel

From June to September, Monday to Saturday at 6PM, there is an Old West performance by gunfighters in the street next to the Irma Hotel.

Tecumseh’s Trading Post Old West Miniature Village and Museum offers a 7, 000 sqft diorama depicting scenes of the Old West, like buffalo hunts, Indians communicating with smoke signals etc. etc. etc. Portrayals are historically accurate.

The Old Trail Town actually sits on the original townsite as laid out by Buffalo Bill Cody.

Old Trail town

It contains an impressive collection of buildings moved there from less than 150 miles away but all of them have an historical significance.

It also features artifacts from the period and a cemetery where famous (or infamous) people of the Old West have been reburied like Jeremiah “liver eatin” Jonhson, made famous by Robert Redford in the movie Jeremiah Jonhson.

The grave of Jeremiah Jonhson

The Buffalo Bill Dam also merits a visit, although we didn’t have time to do it, but we saw it on our way down from Yellowstone. (We had to spend some time washing the motorhome, because the road we took from Yellowstone park to Cody was under construction, so by the time we arrived in Cody, we couldn’t even see the color of the coach, we were covered with mud 🙁 …

Downtown there are a number of galleries featuring work from local artists.

Cody is the Rodeo Capital of the world, and every night during the summer, you can go to a rodeo, they call it “Nite Rodeo“. That’s what we did for Bear’s birthday and we had a lot of fun.

In short, Cody is a fun town to visit and has a lot to offer.