Cheyenne to Casper WY

 It's a mixed bag of sadness and excitement to be leaving the Cheyenne KOA. Sadness, because we enjoyed working here; excitement, because we love getting out on the road heading for a new place! We love the journey between jobs. It's our vacation!

 Our KOA employers, owners Dave and Mary Jo, and Jim, our manager. Rhonda, Jim's wife, is missing because she just had some surgery and was sleeping when we left. We will never forget these wonderful people!

 I know, I know! I shouldn't take pictures while I'm driving! Here we are headed up I-25 towards Casper. It's a short drive, 190 miles. Remember, it's our vacation!

  The Casper KOA is really in the town of Bar Nunn, on the outskirts of Casper. We happened to be here on the last day the park is open for this year. We had a nice, big spot with plenty of room for our rig, truck and car, plus a spot to put up our kitty tent. The cats were happy to get out of the car, and after their snack to be put outside in their tent to enjoy the new smells.

 We tried to visit the National Historic Trails Interpretive Center but found it closed on a Sunday. Since the building is up on a hill we got this pretty view of the city of Casper. It is green and full of trees, in contrast to the prairie around it. The mountains in the distance are the northernmost stretch of the Medicine Bows. The Platte River runs through the town. Casper is noted in Oregon Trail history as the place where the trails split into three, the Oregon Trail, The Mormon Trail and the California Trail. The names of the Trails are self-explanatory. The Oregon Trail ended in Fort Vancouver WA and Oregon City OR; the Mormon Trail ended in Utah, and the California Trail split into several different destinations in California.

 We next tried the Fort Casper Museum and were happy to find that it was open. The Fort is a reconstruction, but that happened in 1936, so the log buildings are looking quite old. The original Fort was built in 1859. The one fact that stands out in my mind is that the Fort was named in honor of Lt. Caspar Collins who was killed in an Indian battle. They wanted to name it Fort Collins, but there was already a Fort named for Caspar's father in Colorado! So they settled for the Lt.'s first name.

 This is a reconstruction of a small section of the toll bridge that crossed the Platte River at Casper. The trading post there served as a stage stop, a Pony Express relay station, and a telegraph office. After the Sand Creek masacre in 1864 the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapahoe gathered at this bridge and fought the battle in which Lt. Caspar Collins was killed. The entire Fort was later dismantled and moved to Fort Fetterman near what later became Douglas WY. By the way, I found it interesting that even though Caspar Collin's name is spelled with an 'a' in the second syllable, the town founders changed the spelling to a 'e'.

In 1847 Brigham Young built and operated a ferry across the North Platte River near the site of present-day Fort Caspar Museum. It's difficult to believe that this little raft carried wagon after wagon across the river! However, it couldn't have been too risky. We have found that in all the places we've seen the Platte River it has been very placid, smooth, and not very deep. It's the principle river the Oregon Trail pioneers followed across the prairie. Well, tomorrow will bring us to Hardin MT where we'll once again tour the site of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, where Custer lost his life. I'll be posting about that!

The Oregon Trail Near Guernsey WY

 The one trip I've most wanted to take since we've been in Cheyenne is north to Guernsey WY, a Historic Site preserving the Oregon Trail Ruts and Register Cliff. The trip includes old Fort Laramie, but I'm saving that one for another post. As we traveled a dirt road leading to the sites I couldn't resist one more photo of the striking wildflower called prickly poppy. This one has a busy bee at work collecting pollen.

 This is the North Platte River made famous as a guide along which the Oregon Trail pioneers traveled through Nebraska and Wyoming. It is a deep, wide river in contrast to the South Platte we saw running through downtown Denver.

 At last, here we are! I've seen pictures of these ruts, but actually seeing them for real was so exciting! We had a short hike up from the parking lot to the site. So much fun!

(Taken from the website: http://www.wyomingheritage.org/registerCliff.htm)

"The sandstone rocks near Guernsey tell the story of the wagon trains of emigrants headed west in the mid-1800s. While trail ruts carved by thousands of wagons dot the western landscape, most pale in comparison to those found at the Oregon Trail Ruts site in Wyoming. Here, the trail ruts are not to be missed since they are carved into the stone. Some gouges are more than four feet deep! These deep ruts result from years of wagon wear and from intentional cutting by emigrants attempting to ease the steep passage up from the level river bottom to the High Plains." The wagons would not have been able to deviate from this beaten path!

 That's me walking the length of the preserved stretch of trail. The roadbed has been smoothed out some, I'm sure, with all the tourists walking there. In some places the wheel channels are more visible than in others.

 

This part was particularly arduous looking. That's Mr. Keith up there in the red shirt, watching me. To think, this rock surface was probably relatively level, though bumpy, before the wagons came and wore the tracks into it.

" A short drive from the trail ruts takes visitors to Register Cliff, which rises one hundred feet above the North Platte River valley. Following a day’s journey from Fort Laramie, emigrants spent the night at Register Cliff and inscribed their names into the rock face. The earliest signatures date to the late 1820s when trappers and fur traders passed through the area, but most of the names visible today were carved during the 1840s and 1850s when the Oregon Trail was at its height. Today, visitors can walk along the cliff base to view the signatures up close." (If you click on the photo you can read the sign.) We passed by thousands of names inscribed with dates in the 1900s and 2000s. Copycats! The parts written by the Oregon Trail pioneers was covered by chain link to keep the names intact.

 This name was one of the most clear, as far as reading the date. It is signed H. Boles, 1859. I wonder what kind of adventurer or dreamer he was, and I wonder if he made it to his desired destination. Did he have a family along with him, or was he alone. I wonder, I wonder! One other thing I noticed was that many of the signatures were written in cursive, very neatly. Some had the month along with the year, and some included the state of origin for the emigrant.

Register Cliff is a condominium for swallows, or "mud daubers" as I learned to call them in my childhood. Every little overhang was filled with their mud nests and the birds were constantly flying in and out. I see a face in profile on this part of the cliff. The darker spots forming the eye, the nose and the mouth are the nests. Well, I started this blog post with a bee and I'm ending it with the birds! Look for my next post about Fort Laramie.