Historic Sights a plenty and arrival

It's Sunday morning and I make my way north toward Fort Laramie.  I am shocked to see a Wall Drug sign along the highway!  For any of you who do not know ahat Wall Drug is, it's this big store that started out being just a samll drug store that sold some souveniers to the early car travelers and came up with the gimick of giving away FREE ICEWATER!  They still give away free water, but they also sell millions of things and have expanded to include several blocks.  It's located in Wall, South Dakota.  It's the only thing in Wall, South Dakota.

It's a beautiful sunny morning, about 61 degrees, and tiny new horse babies are playing in the fields next to their mommas.  There are flat plateaus and washes, trees and rivers in this area, and even a giant sculpture up on a hill, which I found seems to be fairly common here that someone puts a horse and rider, or a buffalo up on a hill near the highway.  For no apparent reason, just for the interest of the drivers that pass.

I turn East on Route 26, and survey the scenery from a rest stop.  What I see in the distance is Laramie Peak.  This was both a welcome and unwelcome sight to the early travelers.  First, it signaled the end to the hot, dusty, dry travel across the plains, but second, it heralded that the road would get worse, climbing into the mountains.

Laramie Peak in the distance

Along this route were several rest stops for the settlers,including Cold Creek, where rifle pits are still seen today.

Look for the indentations

I wind my way through foothills and land that to this modern day traveler would see like an easy cross, but I turn down a dusty 'alley' as it is called to get to the famous Oregon Trail Tracks in Guernsey.

There is a fairly long stretch here where the Oregon Trail and the Mormon Trail rumbled over sandstone rocks.  Over the years, the wagon wheels cut ruts into the rocks.  This is totally different than the Santa Fe tracks I had seen outside of Dodge.  Although there are depressions in the earth her like I saw at that locations, these tracks went over rock faces and there are actual wagon wheel track CUT into the stone.  Granted, erosion and wind and rain would have helped to make these impressions more noticeable over time, but these really are impressive!

Had to add a point of reference

This is a very steep grade, don't know if they did this uphill or down!

I loved the way the flowers have grown up through the rock

This is a national treasure, and as such, is a protected area.  As you stand in or near these ruts in the hot summer sun, with the sun reflecting off the white rock, you gain a new appreciation for the settlers who passed this way 150 years ago.  They needed to get a heavy wagon up and down these rocks, and in doing so, carved these tracks.  You walk these ruts and you can easily imagine hundreds of weary settlers with tired oxen straining to surmount another hardship of the trail.  This is your average TV show or movie, this was real life and real life was much harder than anything portrayed on film.

Bumping over this would have been difficult

I estimated this rut at about 3 - 4 feet deep

Right below here is the North Platte River, a river that was overflowing with the spring melt like all of the west was experiencing.  It is not hard to imagine that river being swelled as it was for settlers too.  In fact, even on the good years, the North Platte was not a good river to cross, it was wide, deep and fast, and therefore they traveled this high rocky ridge and made the trail ruts.  You would not want to cross it now with modern equipment, how could they do so with a wagon and animals?

Swollen North Platte River

As I was walking the Trail, I looked down and saw this. What does it look like to you?

Really big animal track?

Just a few miles to the east of here is the famous Register Cliff.  Thousands of travelers camped at the base of this rock ledge in the plain near the river to rest their animals, allow them to graze on green grass, and to replenish game supplies, before they continued to those hills where the ruts are carved and then started towards the mountains.  Here they carved their names, dates, and even home towns in the soft sandstone rock, to mark their passing.  They have found some dates back to the early 1800's, although most date from the Trail era. The oldest names are fenced, which is a great thing, since even today modern day passers by carve their names into these rocks, as did soldiers from the early 1900's.  On the areas that are not preserved, you can do so even today. 

They came from pretty far away, like I have

Monument to the Trail

Just near here was a stop on the Pony Express.  In fact, this place proved so popular, that a trading post sprung up here, as well as ranches to supply goods to the travelers.

In fact, several camps were in this area, also the Warm Spring Camp, which was located next to some warm spring waters that must have been a real joy to the weary travelers in need of a bath and some relief of their exhaustion.  Later on, the Army had a camp in this area also.

Officer's Quarters

Old Bedlam, named that for the ruckus the solders raised

Enlisted men's barracks

This post sits on the windswept plain near a small river, and it is easy to understand how lonely it would be out there.  The lucky enlisted men had wives and were able to live in the married quarters, but it would have been a hard and lonely life even if married.  And, I assume, very hard on the marriage also.

There are some interesting tales and stories from the fort.  One of of a rider who rode from Fort Phil Kearny to Fort Laramie on the 24th and 25th of December, 1866, to get aid for Fort Kearny which was attacked and surrounded by Indians and resulted in the death of Lieutenant Colornel Fetterman and 80 men.  He rode 236 miles in a blizzard and 20 below to get to Fort Laramie.  By the way, the horse was a thoroughbred, and dropped dead when he reach the fort.

Another fact is that Fort Laramie was a stop on the Dakota Black Hills Trail that supplied the gold camps in the Black Hills, in violation of the 1868 treaty with the Indians, which, surprising enough, was signed at Fort Laramie.  Don't you just love the government?

The Fort opened in 1849 and was abandoned in 1890.

Another fort, Fort Platte, which was mostly a trading post was just down the road a few miles from Fort Laramie.  right outside the gates of Fort Laramie was the Rustic Hotel, a huge place that was built to service the gold seekers going to the Dakota's who were greatly helped in that travel by the new bridge that was constructed across the North Platte River. 

Remains of the Rustic Hotel

I met an interesting person, who was a volunteer from who lived in the Casper area who moved up here a few years ago from Denver, who, are you ready, is originally from South Windsor, CT!  She volunteers showing how the women settlers lives were, and explaining about how the wagons were outfitted for the lived of the people traveling.

A settler's wife, from South Windsor, CT!

A soldier in period dress

By the way, Fort Laramie is considered to be one of the most haunted places in Wyoming.  Can't tell by me, but I am told that at dusk all sorts of things happen.  I was not there at that time, but there were also many people around, as this is a stop on the tour bus route, since there was something like 6 of them in the parking lot when I was there.

I headed north west to Casper, where I passed through Douglas and Glendo, and saw the famous Glendo Lake, which is huge and a tourist mecca for boating and fishing. This lake sits in a bowl surrounded by cliffs on almost all sides.  It really is quite interesting.  North of Douglas is loaded with drilling rigs. 

I take a auto tour of Casper, and stop in at the famous Lou Taubert Western store.  9 Floors of clothing, boots, saddles and tack and gifts.  It truly is a great place to shop and you can find just about anything there.  And helpful sales people.

Trails and more trails traveled some of the same places

Thought this was somewhat appropriate

At about 3PM I head north again on the final leg to my summer destination.  I pass through a rain storm at the Johnson County line.  There is lightning flashing down in the far distance, and the South fork of the Powder River has overflowed it's banks.  There are lots of forts in this Kaycee area, the "hole In The Wall" of Butch Cassidy fame is here, and old gold mines and tons of Indian battles.  Just north of buffalo is fort Phil Kearny, and the site of the Fedderman fight.  I join Route 90 here in Buffalo heading North, and begin to travel along the Big Horn Mountains on my left.  Here I see lots of snow on the peaks, and dark from the storm.  I hear on the radio that they are still getting snow in the mountains.

Snow on the Big Horn's - isn't this the quintessential Wyoming photo?

More snow

I hit Sheridan at 5pm and find some guy who looks like a hippie and dressed in a lot of feathers and a knap sack walking along Route 90!

Detail

Statue, Casper

 I take Route 342 west towards Big Horn, and see smaller ranches in the foothills of the mountains.  It is 62 degrees.  I see open cattle gates along the roads and horse grazing in the fields behind them.   I few minutes later, I have reached my destination, the home of the ranch manager, Mike and Sharon Darnell.  I am greeted with a frozen Margarita (yum!) a wonderful pasta meal, great conversation and a comfy bed to lay my head from the long journey.

Wyoming, here I come! Crossing the border and ending in Wheatland

You follow the Rockies on your left

Sculpture at the Colorado welcome center

It's a little after noon when I cross the border in Wyoming.  I have been following the Rockies on my left for some time, and even stopped at a Colorado welcome center and found a surprise along with my pit stop, beautiful art! I find that here in Wyoming, like Colorado, there is no rule that you have to wear a helmet when you ride a motorcycle.  While I can certainly agree with the free spirit sentiment, I think that's just dumb!

I slide into Cheyenne, and find an older city with much improvements being made.  It is a 'happening' city, and it, like others I was to find out, comes up with ways to make it interesting, and to bring people into it's downtown.  This was a street fair with bands, a 'refreshment' area, and vendors showing or selling wares or services.  I took a little time to visit some of the local stores, and tour a bit of the city, stopped in a western wear shop.  As cities go, I was very impressed.  No too big, not too small, not too dirty, all the things you want, and a nod towards the arts and it's history.  I thought it was a very nice city.

Lew Taubins Western store

Street Art

A nod to the Past

Nod Number 2

I'm heading west out of Cheyenne heading for Laramie.  Along Route 80 are interesting sites: a billboard proclaiming the town of Bufford, Wyoming to be the smallest town in America.  Population: one.   Rolling plains, drilling rigs, here you know it's for oil and natural gas, and wind turbines. 

I travel along the Laramie Range and parts of the Medicine Bow National Forest.  Along the way is a rest stop that is the highest peak in the Laramie Range, at 8835, and the highest part of of the old Lincoln Highway, the first highway across the country.  These are the Sherman Mountains.

Summit Mountain

Along the way is an interesting sight, something that has survived for who knows how long, as it was here when the railroad came through in the 1868's, in fact, because of it, the railroad relocated it's track.  It is a tree growing out of a rock.  No kidding.  It was a famous stop on the Lincoln Highway.  It is a type of pine that is said that can live 2000 years!  The rock is pre-Cambrian that is said to have been formed over a billion years ago.  So, what do you think about this rock and tree?

How old do you think this tree is?

Look at the roots embedded in the rock.  How is this possible?

Traveling west on Interstate 80 I re-enter the Medicine Bow Forest, and find that snow is still in the shadows of the snow fencing along the highway!  The signs warn or a 5-6% grade here, as we cut through mountain passes and then drop into the valley below.  A beautiful sight as we descend into Laramie.  As is typical of the prairie, there is all sorts of weather both above me and in the distance, I get a mix of wind, rain and sunshine, bright blue sky.  It is truly amazing.   filled with formations of yellow and red rocks, snow in the distant mountains, clouds dropping darkness into the valley, and not much here, vast open spaces of high plains, and another flooded river, this time the Laramie River. 

I am following the trail of the Sand Creek Massacre from Cheyenne to Laramie, when in 1864 a group of soldiers from Colorado attacked an Indian village of Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians.  The problem was that the village was made up of women, children and old men, which they killed an mutilated.  Another shining moment by the US Armed forces. 

I take a side trip to the Wyoming Territorial Prison just outside of Laramie.

This prison holds the dubious notoriety as being the only prison that held Butch Cassidy.  Plus it also held a fair amount of women for all sorts of real or imagined crimes.  Seems back then, some women were convicted of crimes that were a farce, like someone ended up dead and they just happened to be the housekeeper.  However, I found it interesting that some of the sentences that people were to serve for things like murder were maybe a decade?  I did not see any life sentences.  Heck, if you got that, you probably were hung first.

Cell Block

Lovely accommodations, how would you like to be here in summer?

Step right up for your medical procedure.
Yeah, right!

By the way, this place is supposed to be haunted, but I found nothing there.  Oh well, can't see them all!

I cross and recross the Laramie river a few times, the flooding is still pretty bad here.

Flooding

Apparently road closing are a common thing here, these signs are all over the place
These signs ARE to be taken seriously!

Onward I traveled, north west towards my next destination.  I passed through the town of Bosler, an abandoned town and on the abandoned town list.  Was supposed to be spooky, but it sits on the highway(such as it is), and it had a school building that looked like it was 60's for criminies sake, so I don't buy too spooky here. 

Any spooks here?

These looked good enough to run!

Along the highway is a small cabin and a big sign.  Seems that some of the biggest dinosaur discoveries has been made in this area, called Como's Bluff during the 1870's and 1880's.  They made a cabin out of the bones which was a big tourist attraction in the days of the Lincoln Highway.  Hmmmmmm.  Things sure are different today!    Bones from here ended up at Yale, the Smithsonian, and Museum of Natural History. 

But in a short time I am at my destination - Medicine Bow!  Gee, not like it looks on television.  But I stop at the Virginian Hotel and mosey on in.  I enjoy having a conversation with Sharon, who works there, and she tells me to go on up and explore the rooms, that they are open.  I can do all the poking around that I want.  So I do.

This is an interesting old hotel.  Single rooms, a couple rooms with a private sitting room, shared bath down the hall.  The rooms are neat, and done in interesting old time furnishings.  The dining room is reminiscent of an old time hotel, done up in reds and heavy coverings.  I find it interesting that the room is all set up with place settings, silverware and glass wear, as if someone was to be coming in at any minute.  Maybe the cattle men are expected?  I go to poke into the famous Owen Wister room to find it locked.  When I tell Sharon that I was unable to get in, she is surprised, it is supposed to be open.  maybe the ghost (yes it is supposed to be haunted) wanted privacy?  But she gets the key for me and tells me to go ahead on it.

Dining Room

A Guest Room - nice and comfy

And I do.  The room is a three room suite, two bedrooms on each side with a shared common room in the middle, and it's own bath.  It is all pushed around, it appears that some work is being done all over the hotel, either cleaning or renovating?  I know not which, however, I am greeted by something in the Owen Wister suite.  An uncomfortable feeling.  An oppressive feeling, I find it hard to catch my breathe in that suite, as if something was sitting on my chest.  This room is definitely haunted.  I do not feel that same oppression anywhere else in the hotel.

Creepy Owen Wister Room

I go down to return the key to Sharon and she asks if i found anything.  And I tell her, yes, the Wister suite is haunted.  In the bar area are memorabilia from the area, and set into the bar itself if a western pistol, the same one used in the TV series by The Virginian.  I talk with Sharon, who tells me she is originally from Connecticut, (isn't everyone out here?) but her dad moved the family out here early in her life to work in the gas fields. 

The Bar at The Virginian Hotel - That's Sharon making a cocktail

Of course, I need to get my official t-shirt, and Sharon tells me about the big doings at the hotel and Medicine Bow on the weekend of the 24th and 25th.  It's "Bow Days" a celebration of 100 years of The Virginian Hotel.

Medicine Bow was established as a railroad stop in the 1860's and a town grew up around it.  In the 1880's and it's heyday, it was a place where ranches shipped their cattle from.  in fact the first shipment of beef to Omaha came from Medicine Bow.  Philadelphia Lawyer Owen Wister stopped by during that time and 'experienced' the town and later used it as the backdrop for his novel.  In fact, he slept on a table in the hotel that was there at the time because he disliked the rooms that much.  He wrote the novel not here, but up at a ranch in Buffalo, Wyoming.  For anyone who doesn't know, "The Virginian" was the first novel of the western genre, and spawned a TV series.  It is, to say the least, a bit 'dry'.  I had to force myself to finish it.  It's about a soft spoken cowboy known only as "The Virginian' who works for a ranch and ends up getting the school marm in the end. The TV series was much better, as was the movie.  The movie was actually shot on a ranch in the area, called, are you ready - Shiloh!

Medicine Bow was a big stop on the old Lincoln Highway, and a gentleman by the name of Grimm built a hotel there to cater to the tourists.  It was, and it is, The Virginian Hotel.  The one standing today.  The town has only a few hundred residents, and has had it's ups and downs due to dependence on mining.  However, it has the dubious distinction of being one of the windiest towns in America, and was the first area that had experimental wind turbines installed.  They are building a coal gas plant right outside of town. 

However, what I found out is that this town also has a large artist population! 

I was told that I HAD to go to "The Dip."  It's supposed to be haunted too, but I didn't find anyone other that breathing people there.  The Dip is run by a gentleman by the name of Bill Bennett and his lovely bride Joanne.  Bill is a wood carver and a painter.  His carvings are incredible in detail and I am told that he makes each one out of a single block of wood.  He has also painted the walls and ceiling of The Dip with representations of ranches in the area at various time frames, including his own grandparent's ranch.  He also has a great collection of ranch items on display, including a saddle by Meania, which is the maker that I once owned an antique by.  The Dip also has this huge bar, which is all one piece of green stone.

One of Bill's carvings

One of the paintings on the ceiling

Some of Bill's collection of saddles

While there, I had the distinct pleasure of spending some time talking with two local couples, Jim and Shirley Buckendorf and Aloma and Marv Cronberg.  Jim and Marv have been playing together in a country band for many years.  Marv also is a writer and draws!  The Cronberg ranch is on the ceiling also.   

Jim, Shirley, Alona, and Marv in the back

While at the Hotel, and was talking about "Bow Days" I was told that one of the big events at that was the Friday night dinner at the Virginian Hotel with The Virginian himself, James Drury!  The Buckendorf's and the Cronberg's inform me that they will be at that event.  I lament that I did not think that I would be able to participate, even though it was one of my favorite TV westerns.  I vow to send them the link to my blog.  (However, more about this later!)

I travel onward, back along the route I just traveled, my next destination:  Wheatland.

You need to see the humor in this - here I am traveling along the old Lincoln Highway, Route 30, which is basically a road through nowhere, when I get into the blip on the map known as Rock River, population 235, number of buildings in town, something like 3, of which one is, of course, a bar.  And what is happening, but three drunks staggering into the roadway in front of my truck!  Now, I can see the irony in this.  I wonder if they could also.  What exactly are the odds on one truck from Massachusetts almost hitting three drunks on the road in Rock River, Wyoming at about 6PM at night?

There are more of the storms moving across the plains, you can see their black clouds and the rain falling in the distance, and when they move away, a rainbow.  I saw three just in my travel along that stretch of highway.    I take the Route 34 cutoff to head north east which follows through Morton Pass and the Laramie Mountains. 

Rainbow on the prairie

This route is very impressive.  It dips and turns through cliffs on either side, crops off on the side, through red and yellow and black rock.  There are rock slide remnants on the side, and houses and ranchettes perch and cling to the sides of the mountains.  There is even a long one road area where they are redoing the road from rock slides, that actually has a red light, with a warning that is is a 15 minute red light!  (to let anyone going through make it the long distance)   I run through a lot of rain, and some fog and overcast conditions through the mountains.  But is sure is pretty.

 I pass the Shamrock Saloon, with outside tables under a porch and several pick up trucks outside, and a sign proclaiming that is is the "last beer in 27 miles!" 

Morton Pass

These rocks come right up to the highway

I finally go through the mountains and drop into a valley that widens as I get closer to Wheatland.  The mountains start to fade on my left and the smaller humpy hills level out into sagebrush, coolies and then farmland.  Wheatland is a big farming area.  About 5 miles out of town I start to see hayfield being harvested and horses.  It is getting to be later, and I decide to find a room for the night, to be pleasantly informed that Wheatland has a ZERO crime rate! 

However, what it does not have is good wireless reception.