August 9th through August 13th

Thursday 9th We drove about 140 miles to Cody, Wyoming today. Going through Yellowstone National Park and seeing Old Faithful and the beauty of the National Park.(picture) We have great internet service and the phones work good at our RV park. We looked around and found a nice campground here. There are so many bikers heading home from the "Sturgis Rally" that the campgrounds are some what crowded and the roads are full of bikers. We enjoy watching them and counting how many we see. Main street here hardly has room for the cars to park here as there are so many bikes parked all over. (picture)
Buffalo Bill Cody was a real socialite with friends in high places, he has lots of gifts in his museum from Royalty in various countries. Queen Victoria of Buckingham Palace had a cherry wood bar built and shipped here for Buffalo Bill's daughter "Irma". It is about 40 feet long and goes to the ceiling of the restaurant. The back bar is all mirrors and shelves and and is gorgeous, it is said to have cost $100,000. The bar is still in operation and they serve very good food there.
Saturday 11th We went to the Cody Rodeo tonight and that was a lot of fun. There were a lot of bulls they rode and a lot of top cowboys were there for the different events. They had the kids event where they turn a calf loose in the arena with a ribbon tied on its tail and they an award to the kid who gets it off. That took Sharon back in time to the rodeo in Kimball, SD where they did a similar event only you teamed up in pairs of two. All the local boys were over confident and were laughing at my son Billy and his cousin Marty Walsh who were about 10 years old, both of them were from out of state and weren't dressed up like cowboys. When they release the calf, it has a rope tied around its neck and a ribbon on its tail. One of the boys grabs the rope and slows down the calf while the other grabs the ribbon. It is a timed event and our boys had that calf stopped and the ribbon off in less than a minute. They were so proud and so were we and the local boys didn't have much to say. They gave them beautiful silver belt buckles and Bill still has his buckle today. In Cody, there were about 25 kids after one calf and the prize sure wasn't a silver belt buckle.
Monday 13th Today we went to the "Buffalo Bill Historical Center", it has 5 museums in one building. Buffalo Bill Museum, Whitney Gallery of Western Art, Plains Indian Museum, Draper Museum of Natural History and the Cody Firearms Museum. The Firearms Museum has over 5000 firearms dating back to the 16th century. It is so large that when you go in and pay for the day, they stamp your hand so you can come back the next day free.