Our Yellowstone travels began with an early morning flight from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City where we caught a small plane to Cody, Wyoming.
After picking up our rental car at the airport, we went to Cody’s most important attraction, the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. Five small museums comprise this surprisingly impressive institution.
John wanted to stop first at an outdoor exhibition where a man not only explained the function of the chuck wagon, but also supplied us with some tasty samples of beans and biscuits.
We discovered right away from the door of the museum that we were if not in the Wild West at least in one of the reddest states of the union.
The reference to Buffalo Bill, or if you wish to be more formal, William Frederick Cody, is not a mere nod to the founder of the town.
One of the five museums is devoted to a somewhat critical study of his life and his part in creating the myth of the American West. And this museum is not a mere collection of old guns and faded posters. All of the technological innovations of a modern interpretive center are used effectively to help visitor interact with the material
and to make it fun for kids of all ages.
In addition to exploring the ambiguous legacy of Cody, the center also is the home of the Whitney Museum of Western Art. Some of the material here was predictable. There were the usual landscapes by people like Albert Bierstadt. We were surprised by many of the pieces here. There was this rather sarcastic portrayal of Custer’s Last Stand.
The center owns W. H. D. Koerner’s iconic Madonna of the Prairie.
and A. D. M. Cooper’s deeply ironic Viewing the Curios.
Some interesting modern pieces were Robert Seabeck’s American Dream
Stephen Hannock’s Flooded Cascade is an interesting modern interpretation of the western landscape genre
as is M. C. Poulson’s Morning Glory Pool.
The painting may seem to be abstract or impressionistic, but this famous spring in Yellowstone is exactly this color. It might as well be a photograph!
We took an guided tour of the natural history museum here, and strolled through some good exhibits on the life of the plains Indians. We will be back in Cody later in the week and John decided he will come back here while I am teaching. But we had not quite had enough sleep, so we decided to find our accommodations for the evening, the Cowboy Village Motel.
Despite the hokey Western theme, it was a comfortable place to rest. In the evening, John had read that the Irma Hotel was the place to have dinner. The Irma was established by William Cody himself, and named after his youngest daughter.
As you can see, bikers like Cody and there were no shortage of them in the restaurant and the bar. But today’s Hells Angels are a pretty geriatric group, and to me they seemed more pathetic than threatening.
The food was a bit disappointing. The beef was decent, but some of the sides, like the Fettuccine Alfredo, were absolutely inedible.
The local brew was just fine, however.
We wandered around the hotel where the glass eyes of dead animals seem to stare at your mournfully.
Tomorrow we go into the park.
