Cody, Wyoming

07-13-21: Arriving in Cody a visit to the Buffalo Bill Center of the West seemed like the thing to do, with my love of museums they had me at “Easy RV parking”. What an amazing collection of historical items, they have the bulk of the original Winchester gun collection, a large part of the over 10,000 items in their collection. Very impressive, overwhelmingly so, and a great way to spend half a day. You could easily spend 2 full days here to see it all.

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Cody is a neat little town, I explored Sprit Mountain at the edge of town the rumor is that the Spirit Mountain cave had massive crystals growing in it. Sadly it has been gated and requires a permit to enter now. There were some great views from on top the mountain and a couple of really isolated camp spots if you were brave enough to make the drive up, certainly not doable with a trailer.

I also visited the Buffalo Bill dam visitor center, this dam built in the early 1900’s was at one point was the biggest cement dam in existence. It dams the Shoshone river and creates the (what else!) Buffalo Bill reservoir.

Photos for Spirit Mountain and the dam tour are here: Album

(Note: I am taking liberties with the timeline of my visit to Cody because I want to give Yellowstone its own separate post.)

On my last full day in Cody I visited the ghost town of Kirwin, WY. Gold was discovered in the 1880’s and the town was established, a couple hundred folks called it home until 1907 when a massive avalanche swept several buildings into the Wood river killing three people.

Now a well preserved ghost town, likely so well preserved because it is quite the journey to reach, requiring several river crossings and a high clearance vehicle. It is only about 60 miles from Cody but it took me about 3 hours to reach. I took a bunch of pictures of the buildings and equipment, you can see the whole album by clicking on the photo below.

Next post Yellowstone NP!