I have recently come back from a bucket list cross country road trip across the northern US. It was a great trip and I got to see many natural and man made wonders. The focus of the trip was really Wyoming, Montana and South Dakota. I will pass on those places that do not relate to wargaming related history. The first museum we stopped by on the trip was the National Museum of Military Vehicles. The museum is quite off the beaten path and is located in the small town of Dubois Wyoming.
I had come across the museum online while doing internet surfing a number of times and thought it looked interesting. A couple of years ago, a buddy of mine was on a hunting trip to Wyoming and stopped by the museum and gave it his thumbs up. As I am a tread head, no trip to Wyoming would be complete without checking it out.
My expectations of the museum were that it would be a nice little museum that had a decent number of US military equipment items. As the museum was fully funded by a single individual, my expectations were muted. My gosh, was I wrong. I have never seen so many military vehicles at one location that was not a military base! Not only was it chocker block full of US equipment, there was a very impressive cross section of other nationality equipment. I even saw hard to find Japanese tanks! And who has multiple Matildas? The NMMV, that is who!
The inside of the museum is broken up into sections to cover WWI, WWII (the largest), Korea and Vietnam. Each vehicle and piece of equipment is either well preserved or well restored. One the outside, there is a covered area with a bunch of other vehicles lined up (he can field a platoon of Stuarts and Halftracks) under a covered area, with more lined up around the back of the parking to. Then there are the fully restored vehicles around the front of the parking lot entry and exit areas. If you need a bite, there is a cafeteria to get various hot sandwiches (seems to be a local water hole). While you are at the cafeteria, you can check out the rifle and bayonet displays. Just so much to see.
My expected one hour tour turned into a half day visit (had to get to Grand Teton National Park or I would have stayed even longer). I have took over two hundred photos of equipment and vehicles. I of course can only post a few here (website memory limitations), but it will give you an idea. This place is defiantly on the list of top armor museums to see. If a trip to Wyoming just to go to a museum is a bit of a stretch, tie it to a visit to Jackson Hole for skiing, Grand Teton National Park or Yellowstone National Park to keep the family happy (they are all within two hours). In short, if you can make it, go.
- Manteuffel
