Cody

7/1/11

Our first stop of the day was the urgent care clinic. Isaac's ear was really bothering him. He'd not been able to sleep the night before and was curled up in a ball in severe pain. Half a Tylenol with Codeine I had in the first aid kid helped take the edge off and his attitude really improved once we managed the pain. Before that, he was a true bear, snarling at everyone. I don't think his being sick and grumpy helps Isaac Colson's homesickness much!

After waiting over an hour for his turn, we learned that he still has an outer ear infection so it's back to the ear drops twice a day. I left Dode at the doctor's office and went to the Cody visitor information center to learn about the area. I'd made sure to leave Dode with the medications Isaac takes and a quick history of his ear troubles. I'd forgotten the ear drops back at camp but found a sandy bottle rolling around in my purse. Dode handed everything over to the doctor and she was quite surprised to learn we'd been putting eye drops in his ear. (We hadn't but apparently that's what was in my purse.)

After the doctor office, we went to the Buffalo Bill Museum Complex. It was cheaper to buy a family membership than to just go in once if we paid individually so we now have a year's membership that I doubt we'll use again! There are five museums in one and they call it the “Smithsonian of the West”. I happen to know the Smithsonian is free! We knew we wouldn't be able to drag the kids through the whole thing and had to pick which things we'd be seeing. We saw the Museum of Natural History and Buffalo Bill Museum. We missed: Firearms Museum, Plains Indian Museum, and Western Art Museum.

The kids wanted to start at the museum of natural history. There were lots of exhibits about the animals, plants, and geology of the area. There was a kid's passport they could pick up at the entrance. As they went to different areas, they could stamp their passport. Elizabeth lost her passport when she went to the bathroom and only had one more stamp to go. She had to start over again. Just another typical day in the Dickson household.

stamping her passport

success!

Once we finished at the natural history museum, we drove over to the park for a picnic lunch. The advertising material for Cody said the park was the crown jewel of their green spaces. It had a swing set with four swings and a four way teeter totter and that's it. Not a very shiny jewel!

We are our last Wilcoxson Ice Cream of the trip after lunch.

We went to the LDS Murals in Cody after ice cream. The night before, I'd read to the kids from William H. Dickson's autobiography about the family coming up to the Bighorn Basin. One of the exhibits at the murals had paintings of the journey and the early days of the families in the area. Imagine our surprise to see a painting of a story we'd read the night before, the death of little Avilda Dickson on the way to the Bighorns. I'm sure glad we read those stories the night before because it made things much more real to the kids to see them and know how they related to them.

a depiction of the death

After finishing with the murals, we headed back to the Buffalo Bill Museum. This time, we went to the part of the museum that deals with the history of Buffalo Bill. We listened to a lecture from the curator of the museum about the character of Buffalo Bill (and he was quite a character!) He was the most famous person in the world during his time. He was extremely vain and had to pose “just so” for photographs (he's also one of the most photographed persons of all time.) He had four children, two of whom died in childhood and lived apart from his wife for most of their marriage. When questioned by a reporter about their living arrangements, she said that she wanted to stay in one place so the children could attend the same school. He performed all over the world, putting on more than 200 shows a year. He loved children and would offer free shows for orphans.

Isaac Colson is almost as tall as Buffalo Bill

Cody has a free “Wild West Gun Fight” each evening in the summer and we decided that sounded like a good price to us! We got what we paid for. The plot was very difficult to follow and I think Dode put it best, “I've seen better skits at scout camp.”

While we were waiting for the show to start, Miriam saw this and decided she needed to use the bathroom.

We had to find a real one!

We headed back to camp for a late dinner. Both Dode and I were absolutely exhausted. A hot day coupled with kids who spent a lot of time fighting equaled two frazzled parents. Two museums with two teenagers was too much! They were out of control. We'd checked out strollers for the tired little ones and the teenagers couldn't push sedately.

When we checked in, the ranger told us they had a pile of free campfire wood and we could take as much as we wanted.  I hope we don't take too much!

Some people tease me about my hard sided laptop case.  Here's an example of why I need that type of case,

here used as a step stool

view from our campsite