Tues Sep13, a full day in Cody

Tues Sep 13 Day 15 Warn night, sunny & clear day, mid 70’s still 70 at 6PM
I went up to the arcade/games room where I could get onto the WiFi. Sheila showered & did laundry, and then we headed over to the BBHC, the Buffalo Bill Historic Centre. It is a huge area with separate sections, one for Buffalo Bill, one for Western Art, one for Firearms, (they have literally thousands of guns of all types & sizes), one for Plains Indian Peoples, a lower floor, & one for Yellowstone Natural History, which we could skip. We did the Buffalo Bill, I did Western Art and part of the Firearms, while Sheila did the Indian section. I liked the Western Art; it had paintings of horse, cattle, cowboys in various activities, none of the blobs of colour or odd swirls & lines of modern art. They also had bronze castings of western themes and actions in varying sizes. In the BBHC lower floor they had a display of Stetsons in various shapes you could try on and a saddle you could sit on. I found my hat style was called “Boss of the Plains”; Sheila liked the “Bat Masterson” style. They had a video on the making of an authentic felt Stetson, no wonder they are expensive, it is quite a process involving multiple operations. They also had an area western clothing styles over the years and a display on the gunfighters of the west with the facts as opposed to the stories & legends, for example Billy the Kid didn’t kill the 21 he is credited with in story & song; he killed 4 and participated in the killing of 5 more. Belle Starr, who came from high society Kentucky, never killed anyone or stole anything, she just liked the outlaw type – a lot. We left in time to get to the evening Gun Fighter Show at 6PM beside the Irma Hotel. We sat thru 20 min. of talk & “commercials” for 10 min. of not very good acting – Sheila’s opinion! However, we can’t complain as it was free. At least the costumes seemed authentic. After that we drove out hwy 20, (east of Cody), for a while as Sheila had heard that the wild horses, (mustangs) sometimes come to fields near the road, but no luck so back home for the evening.