"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime"-MARK TWAIN

Sunday, August 19, 2012

Buffalo Bill Historical Center

 

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It could take days to go through this place and see everything.  Even then, odds are that you would have missed something.  Four museums under one roof, as well as research centers that cover everything to do with the West.  First is the Firearms museum.

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With guns from the earliest blunderbuss’s to modern pistols donated by famous people like Dick Cheney.

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For the avid collector, it would take days to see all the firearms and associated artifacts.  There was even a portion of the Savage Firearms factory there.  You could still smell the machine oil.

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Air rifles, and cartridges.

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Examples of the guns from every manufacturer there ever was, I do believe.

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And then there is the Museum of Western Art.

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Examples of art in every form.

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From the serious, to the funny.

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And then, the Draper Museum of Natural History.

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Takes you from above the tree line and the Alpine Region, to the high desert region in a descending walkway that is truly amazing.  While I was there they presented a live Raptor exhibit with four different birds. A Great Horned Owl, Red Tailed Hawk, Peregrine Falcon, and the lowly Turkey Vulture. A very nice presentation that lasted 45 minutes of so.

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And don’t forget this one.

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Last, but not least, is the museum to the man, himself.

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Recently reopened after a total makeover, it is a very revealing story of an American icon.

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Also, the basement level was home to many smaller exhibits.  One was an exhibit of Western wear and how it evolved through the years.

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We’ll have to visit each of these in more depth at a later time.  An awesome place!…jc

3 comments:

  1. They had a leather tooling exhibit on display when I visited. Gorgeous hand tooled saddles. It is a grand place to visit.

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  2. I never got tired of going to the museum when I lived near there.

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  3. Didn't know there was so much to see at that museum! We'll have to stop by next time we get out that way.

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Thanks for looking, and comments are welcome.