Day 9: Wyoming

The plan today was to spend the day in Cody, Wyoming.  I had two places that I wanted to visit:  First stop was the Buffalo Bill Historical Center; this place was HUGE!  You could spend an entire day exploring the five museums that make up the center.

I thought these were beautiful . . .

 

Colin managed to do pretty well considering the size of this place.  Of course all that walking and reading required a snack!

It was on to our second stop of the day:  Heart Mountain Interpretive Center
Until recently I had no idea places like this existed in America . . . I must have missed reading about this in history class or it is just something that is left out of history books.  Heart Mountain was a place in the middle of Wyoming where Japanese Americans were tragically and illegally imprisoned during World War II.  How tragic!  This center was amazing and sadly told the story of those who never deserved to be there to begin with.   You can visit their website for a great history lesson.  When most families arrived this is the room they would be given . . . sometimes three generations would be in the same room.

The first and last thing you see when you enter and exit the center is this sign . . .

. . . sad that so many had their freedoms taken away but eventually had it returned only to have lost everything they ever owned.  A very moving experience and worth the visit.  It was back on the road with our final stop tonight being Buffalo, Wyoming.  There was nothing there of note to visit just a place to put us in a good location for tomorrow.  I did not realize when we would make the journey from Cody to Buffalo that we would literally be going up and down all day long in the mountains.  I was beginning to think this poor rental car was not going to make it.  I swear that rental car agent gave us the worst car because I would not buy any of his 'upsale' options.  It was a tense day of driving for me and my hands were sore from gripping the steering wheel so hard.  There were not many options for dinner in Buffalo . . . of course there was that place with golden arches which I really don't like so we went with the other option, Taco John's.  We saw the signs every town we were in so decided to give it a try.  It was okay.  Our nightly routine of swimming and hot tub were enjoyed too!