3 Best Sights in Cody, Sheridan, and Northern Wyoming, Wyoming

Among the nearly 60 dinosaur skeletons displayed at this nonprofit museum and research center is the winged "Thermopolis Specimen," the only Archaeopteryx exhibited outside of Europe, and "Stan," one of the most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons in the world, measuring 35 feet long and weighing in at nearly 6 tons. Special full-day programs allow kids and adults to try their hand at paleontology by digging in one of the several active dinosaur sites nearby (some 10,000 dinosaur bones have been excavated in the vicinity since 1993). Tours of the dig site are also offered daily in summer.

Thousands of buffalo bones are piled atop each other at the Vore Buffalo Jump, where Native Americans herded bison over a cliff between the years 1500 and 1800, when hunting was done on foot rather than on horses imported from Europe. The site is open to visitors even as it continues to be excavated by archaeologists.