Thermopolis

Thermopolis is a lovely little town in the center of the state with one of the world's largest natural hot springs. Thermopolis is the site of Hot Springs State Park, which has a free bathhouse. The park is a beautiful site where the hot springs run over colored terraces and which is the home to the Hot Springs Bison Herd.

There are two nice hotels in the park itself--the Best Western Plaza Inn and the Holiday Inn. The Best Western is a restored hotel with log furniture and breakfast and a hot springs fed hot pool, plus a swimming pool in the summer. The Holiday Inn also has a hot springs pool and a restaurant. The hotel has a safari theme with pictures of people hunting and many preserved animals all over the place.

Downtown there's a lovely gallery and museum. Sunshine Gallery is owned by a local metal artist and stocks artwork by artists from in state and elsewhere across the country. There's an excellent museum well worth the stop called Dancing Bear Folk Art Center. This center showcases traditional arts, including exhibits and demonstrations of spinning, weaving, food ways, marbles, needle felting and much more. It has the largest collection of artist bears in the country. During the annual marble exhibit, which includes old and new marbles of all sizes, they have a variety of marble games available to play with, including musical marble trees. Above the Folk Arts Center is the Old West Wax Museum.

One other spot to stop is Domhoff Gallery, which is on the Worland road north of town on the west side. Two potters live there, mother and son, and they do unusual dinnerware and a variety of other functional pottery. They were both trained in Germany.