Buffalo, Wyoming
| On the road to and in Buffalo |
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From Yellowstone we drove to Buffalo, Wyoming with a lunch break in Cody. Sorry, folks, we did not visit Buffalo Bill or his museum. Ate pretty mediocre Mexican food. Birgit is reconsidering her new love affair with Tex-Mex.
However, the drive itself was quite spectacular - through the Bighorn National forest. While Yellowstone is at a fairly moderate elevation, once you get out of the park into the forest, you climb - we were close to 9,000 feet at the pass. It got colder, we even saw some snow (higher than we were!) Unfortunately, we also saw extensive damage due the bark beetle - we now know what they mean when they talk about the "grey" forest. Very sad. In Yellowstone, due to the '88 fires, you still see a lot of dead trees, but there is also a lot of new growth. The Bighorn looks like it will be much worse, if they cannot find a remedy against the bark beetle. Below one of many spectacular views we saw in the Bighorn.
And then we reached Buffalo and the Occidental Hotel.
We enjoyed the kitchen - antique furniture (cowhide chairs from an old poker room) with excellent wi-fi connection
The hotel dates to 1880 and was restored fairly recently - thus the functioning internet access in our suite. We followed in the footsteps of some rather famous (or infamous) guests: Among others Butch Cassidy; the Sundance Kid; Calamity Jane and Buffalo Bill. How could we therefore resist booking the Bordello Suite! The suite is located in a rather remote corner of the hotel and who knows how many gunslingers, gamblers, golddiggers and cowboys enjoyed the favors of the ladies there. Since we had the choice of its three bedrooms, it took a bit of time before Birgit could settle on the one below.
Birgits room
I, on the other hand, as you can see settled in quickly in my elegant chamber!
Staying in the hotel is an absolute delight. It is restored and furnished with exquisit attention to period detail. It appears authentic - many of the furnishings have been donated by collectors. But it is also quite comfortable. I only regret that I did not have time to spend more time in its delightful library.
We did not have enough time to really dig into some of the other history of the area, i.e., the Johnson County wars and other less pleasnt events