Visiting the Buffalo Bill Center of the West

When on vacation, many times families take in a museum or two to learn about the area they are in or what life was like in the past there.  One museum that we took in while we were in Cody was the Buffalo Bill Center of the West.  We had heard from my parents and the couple we rented our cabin from that this is a definite must stop on our journey.

As you pull up to the building, there are the most gorgeous statues of cowboys, Buffalo Bill, Native American teepees and various animals of the West.  They are simply gorgeous and something worth checking out before heading into the center.

The boys in front of the cowboys

In one of the teepees

Standing with Buffalo Bill

One of the neatest things about this museum is the fact that it is five, yes five, museums in one!  There is the Buffalo Bill Museum, the Plains Indians Museum, the Whitney Western Art Museum, the Draper Natural History Museum and the Cody Firearms Museum.  It was interesting to talk as a family after we had toured the center to see which museum was their favorite.  Everyone seemed to have a different favorite!  Kris, of course, loved the firearms museum and I think he could have spent days in there looking at different guns. 

Brock enjoyed the Plains Indians Museum and Jake and I really enjoyed the Natural History Museum. There is definitely something for everyone at this museum!

Brock trying out his skills in the Firearms Museum

They LOVED this part of the Draper!

This map is made out little tiles.  Very cool!

Back in the saddle

Jake and his love of wolves

The admission price gets you into the museum for two days and if you were to really take in all that the museum has to offer, it would be best to two it in that amount of time.  We spent over 6 hours in the museum and still didn't see everything, so I would definitely plan on two days.  It's a great museum for the entire family!

The Fleeting Days of Summer

Today has been one of those days where I haven't gotten much accomplished.  Sure, I've done a few loads of laundry, picked up the house, read a chapter in my book and have supervised the boys on a few of their excursions to the pool, but other than that, I haven't done much.  Why?  I'm enjoying those last fleeting days of summer.

Yesterday I blogged about not being ready for school yet and truly, I'm not.  I have TONS of books to be processed, bulletin boards to put up, display cases that I'm working on, but for now, I'm going to enjoy the time that I have at home with my boys before our schedules get busy again with school related functions.

Mother Nature has decided to kick up the temps and humidity for the weekend, so I'm thinking it's going to be a great weekend to be near the water either in our pool or on the pontoon.  With summer coming to a close with Labor Day Weekend looming ahead, we know that pool and boat times will be less frequent, so we're going to enjoy them to the hilt while we still can.

So for those of you on last minute vacations, carpe diem!  Seize the day and have great fun!  The kiddos are only off for one more week and this will be a week you'll never get back again, so go and make some memories!

Are YOU Ready for School?

Most schools in Wisconsin begin on September 2nd, so teachers and administrators all over the state are scrambling right now to get last minute inservices prepared, classrooms ready for the students and open houses next week and bulletin boards up to welcome those students back.

I am a 4K-12 Library Media Specialist and I've got mixed feelings about going back.  Have you ever had one of those summers where it couldn't get much better than it was?  Well, that was this past summer for me. We did all sorts of fun family things, many of which I've blogged about, and I just really enjoyed being a mom this summer with no other commitments.  Sure, I taught summer school, but we were doing such fun things in my class that it really didn't feel like work at all.  I had a super group of students, so that really made my job a dream.

If you were to ask my boys if they're ready to go back, I think you'd find the same thing.  They're ready to get back to playing with their buddies, but they've had so much fun together over the summer swimming in the pool, catching toads, fishing and building sand structures in their pile that they haven't missed school at all.

I went in and worked in my library today and I had GRANDIOSE ideas about all I was going to get done, but that didn't happen.  I ran into colleagues I haven't seen since June and we had a bunch of catching up to do.  It was fun to hear what everyone did over their summers.  So while I didn't get a lot done in my room, I did have some really nice chats with friends and that's part of getting read for school, too.  I've still got over a week before the students come, so I'll get there, slowly, but surely.

So, I must ask...are YOU ready yet?

VRBO ~ The Perfect Place to Find Your Vacation Getaway!

I don't even remember the first time that I heard about the Vacation Rental By Owner (VRBO) website, but I do know that it was my sister who told me about it and I am so grateful!  What is VRBO, you ask?  It is a website for owners of vacation homes to list their properties for rental and also a place for travelers to search for these properties in which to spend their vacations.  There are properties stemming from secluded woodland cabins to huge houses fully stocked for your use.

The first time we ever stayed in a VRBO property was this past March when we headed north to Bayfield, WI, to tour the Ice Caves.  We found a two bedroom property that was located fairly close to the Ice Caves and it was the perfect retreat for us.  The Carriage House was exactly what we were looking for and it felt like we were right at home there.

The living room area with the painted mural on the wall

The boys with their bunks

Coming into the Carriage House

Kris and Jake in the living room area

I actually booked our first VRBO cabin last August when we were planning our trip to Wyoming.  I found the Bunkhouse and I knew that we just had to stay there.  It was located halfway between Cody and the East Gate to Yellowstone, so that is exactly where we wanted to be.  It looked like this home would have everything we would possibly need for our 5 day stay there and it did and more!  If I could have, I would have brought that home back to Wisconsin with us, complete with the mountain stream and views.  It was just gorgeous!

View of the Bunkhouse

Mountain stream running through the property

Looking at the Bunkhouse from across the stream

Enjoying a little fire

Petting Ward and Patricia's horses

Beautiful place to relax

While the homes that we've stayed in have been beautiful, we've found an added bonus to using the VRBO website and that's the owners of the homes.  In both cases, they've been so helpful in regard to every aspect of our vacation from sending emails with places to visit/grocery shop/scenic attractions, welcoming us as soon as we pull in, or simply checking in on us during our stay to make sure that everything is going fine.  We highly recommend using the VRBO site for your next vacation!

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions...

More than once before we left for our trip, I had people I know ask, "Hey, Jen!  I see that you're taking a big family vacation.  How do you decide where you want to go and what you want to see?"  I've pondered that for awhile and just thought I'd share some of the resources that I have used.

A big family vacation is something that our family loves to take, but it isn't something we do every year.  We've set it up as an every 4 year vacation and that makes it nice as we can do some thorough research on places that are "in the running" for our next trip and save up money for it.  After visiting South Dakota in 2010, I will admit that we fell in love with the West, but Wyoming was NOT in the mix of places we were looking at for our vacation this year until my hubby was brutally honest with me.  "Jenny, I know that you'd really like to go south and explore Tennessee, but I'm really not all that interested in going there.  Would you consider somewhere else?"  Would I?  Sure I would, so we talked it over and he wanted to go West again, so we looked at some options and then selected Wyoming as our destination.

At the Northeast Visitors Center

Jake "riding horse" at the Visitors Center

The first place I always go to once we've picked our destination is the state's tourism department as they are a wealth of information!  I obtained the paper copy of their vacation guide along with the app of it for our iPad.  I still like getting the paper copy so that I can make notes and highlight things we might be interested in seeing as we're planning our trip.  I was able to request that Wyoming vacation guide right from their webpage at Wyoming Tourism.

Second, check your friends and colleagues.  Who has been to the state you're going to or even the venues you plan to take in?  I have been so lucky in this regard as my parents have been West numerous times and so have many of my colleagues and they're all eager to share places they loved and would definitely visit again.  They are usually pretty honest about places you could skip, too.  This all helps in planning out your itinerary.

Finally, check those travel websites such as TripAdvisor.  Many of the places we stopped on our vacation asked that we please leave a review on TripAdvisor so others could see what we liked about the venue.  I actually used quite a few reviews from this site to help plan our vacation.

There are many other places you can obtain travel information, but these are my top three.  What are some places that you would recommend?

The Vore Buffalo Jump

My parents have been excellent travel agents when it comes to places we should see when we've ventured West in the past.  I shouldn't be surprised that they shared some true gems with us before we left Wisconsin on this year's venture to Wyoming and I'm so glad that they did.  One of those such places was the Vore Buffalo Jump in Beulah, Wyoming.

What is a buffalo jump, you ask?  According to definition, "A buffalo jump is a cliff formation which North American Indians historically used in order to hunt and kill plains bison in mass quantities."  The area where the Vore Buffalo Jump is located is a natural sinkhole that worked extremely well for the Plains Indians. They would chase the buffalo into the sinkhole where every bit of the bison was used in some part from the hide to the meat.

Historical sign at the Buffalo Jump

As we entered the small building on the site premises, we were greeted by a friendly tour guide who stated that a tour had just begun and they were walking to the archaeological site as we were speaking, so we quickly joined in with the group.  As we descended down to the site, it was easy to envision the Native Americans using this buffalo jump and all the work it took to prepare the bison.  

When we got to the bottom of the sinkhole, I was truly amazed to see where archaeologists had been digging and all that they had found there.  I can't imagine being on that dig and coming across such a find!  The bones were scattered everywhere and the tour guide explained how each part of the buffalo would be used.  It was a very interesting talk!

What a find!

Brock learning what they would use some of the bones for

The tour guide sharing information on the buffalo with Brock

Jake with a buffalo horn

After exploring the dig site, we went back up top where we went into the teepee exhibit hall and learned more about the Native Americans in the area and how they used the jump.  The boys even learned of games that Native American children played and they got to try one of the games out.

Walking from the jump site to the exhibit hall

The boys with a buffalo hide

Brock in a teepee

Playing a Native American game

One of the neatest things set up for kids at the site are two sandboxes: one where children can dig for arrowheads and another where they can pretend to be archaeologists and find the bones themselves.  I think the boys would have played here forever had we let them!

One of the arrowheads Brock found

Jake sifting through the sand

Finding buffalo bones

Brushing off bones

The Vore Buffalo Jump was definitely worth the stop.  We learned so much history there and the tour that we got was excellent!  Brock commented after our vacation that this was his favorite spot to visit.  We highly recommend this tourist attraction to anyone traveling to Wyoming.

Kris and the boys outside the exhibit hall

Visiting Sioux Falls, South Dakota

A week ago today, we got back from our 9 day adventure in the West.  I got to thinking today, "Jen, you really must blog about everything you did out there as it was so much fun!"  But when I think about everything we saw and did, I can't even fathom how long of a blog post that would be, so I've decided to break our trip up into bits and pieces.  Some posts may be about one place or one town and all we took in there.  Other posts may be about the beautiful things we saw including the terrain in the West.  Whatever my heart feels like writing about, I'll tackle that topic and for today, it's Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

In June 2010, we stopped briefly in Sioux Falls to take in the Great Plains Zoo on our way to Rapid City. The boys really enjoyed the zoo despite the very rainy weather we had the day we visited.  We had planned on taking in some other sites that day, but the weather deterred us.  That was not the case this year!

Anyone who knows me well, knows that I am a HUGE lover of waterfalls, so a visit to Falls Park was a MUST on my list of things to do on our trip.  When I saw the falls, they took my breath away!  They were so majestic and beautiful and I'm so glad that we stopped!

Entrance to Falls Park

The Observation Tower

Beautiful buffalo statue

View from the Observation Tower

Right down next to the falls

The boys and me

After walking around the falls, we decided to take in another Sioux Falls attraction and that was the Sertoma Butterfly House and Marine Cove.  What a neat place!  The first stop we made was to the Marine Cove. There were lots of gorgeous fish in aquariums, but the big appeal to the boys were the touch pools.  They were allowed to touch sharks, sting rays and a variety of other marine life.  It was a great experience for them!

The boys at the Pacific touch pool

A sea cucumber and a starfish

Anemones

Sting rays

Brock going to touch the shark

 A clownfish

Hey, how did they get in there?!

After finishing seeing the Marine Cove, there was a door that led to the Butterfly Garden and oh, what a beautiful place that was.  Green and lush vegetation everywhere and butterflies and birds flying from plant to plant or dish of food.  It was so pretty!

Beautiful!

Butterflies feasting on fruit

Jake looking at a butterfly

The boys checking out this blue beauty

So pretty on the flowers

We really enjoyed our afternoon spent in Sioux Falls!  After visiting the Butterfly House and Marine Cove, we had a picnic in the park right next door before venturing on to Oacama where we spent the night.  I definitely recommend a stop in Sioux Falls if you get the chance.  Of all the places we took in during our vacation, Jake stated that the Butterfly House and Marine Cove were his absolute favorites.