Cody, Wyoming

It may only be 52 miles (85 km) from Yellowstone to Cody but we agree with President Theodore Roosevelt who said it was one of the most beautiful 50 miles in the United States. He must have seen it in spring-like conditions as we did (late snowfalls has deferred summer) with lush, bright green fields, the Shoshone River swollen by snow melts and the Buffalo Bill Reservoir nestled in the Rattlesnake & Cedar Mountains.

The township of Cody was named for ‘Buffalo Bill’ Cody who established it back in the good old wild west days (1895). It is a nice, clean town, with the main business today being tourism! It is also calls itself the Rodeo capital of the world, so we made sure we attended last night’s rodeo. We rated it better than another one we attended last trip in Montana. Today we hopped on our pushbikes and rode uptown where we spent several enthralled hours going through the Buffalo Bill Historical Center. It houses the Buffalo Bill Museum and other museums including Firearms, Plains Indians, Natural History, Wild West Art Gallery and a Research facility. You could easily spend two days there and not be bored. We then explored the main town area, including the original hotel built for Buffalo Bill and named after one of his daughters’, Irma. Calamity Jane and Annie Oakley stayed there in their time. Between yesterday and today we must have ridden 10 miles on our bikes and kept pinching ourselves –hard to believe that we were riding our bikes around this town that was an integral part of the old west. We even found an early model RV...