Update Archive | |||
| Archive 8/25 - 8/31/2005: | |||
| 8/25/2005 - (603 miles - 11 hrs - L:58F - H:94F) I didn’t arrive at camp until after 9PM the night before and thought about putting off our departure for another day, but decided to press on. I’m much more reluctant to leave this area than I thought I would be. I really like it here. I’m putting this on my list of possibles. I picked Max up from the kennel around 9AM and then we headed out. I think the kennel folks had let him run around out in the corral, cause he stunk like horse poop. Yuck. Anyway, we left Moab around 11AM, not the early start I was trying for, but whatever. I had driven a portion of our route a few days ago, so was fairly familiar with the road and the gas station locations. It was smooth sailing. It almost freaks me out how easy pulling the trailer is. Never happy :o) We started to hit the typical afternoon thundershowers somewhere between Meeker and Craig, CO. I now have hail damage on my trailer. It looks like someone took a ball-peen hammer to the front of it. No dents on the truck. I thought there would be a gas station in Creston Junction, WY… but there wasn’t… there really isn’t a Creston Junction, WY from what I could see, but it’s a spot on the map. Luckily we made it to Rawlins with an estimated 26 miles left before empty. I pulled into one of those trucker gas stations… with the really wide lanes and four acres of parking lot. God, I love those kinds of gas stations…so luxurious. I wonder if it pisses the truckers off to see a regular truck and trailer in one of ‘their’ lanes. They all seem real nice, so hopefully not. My estimation of how long it would take to get to Ft. Laramie, WY was way off. I think part of my reoccurring problem with distance calculations is that I’m just not very good at math. I try to add up all the mileage listed on the map… but, it’s always farther away than I think. 603 miles pulling the trailer. Ouch. That’ll wear you out. Even as easy as the new truck makes it, it’s still a bit more stressful than driving sans trailer. The drive from Cheyenne to Wheatland was awful. The wind was vicious. Fortunately it became a tailwind once I turned off of I-25. I saw the RV park right after I passed it. This is one of the reasons everyone recommends that you make a real effort to be in camp before dark. I had to drive into Lingle and make a u-turn in the middle of town (luckily there were four lanes), then head back out and find the RV Park again. It wasn’t very well lit. There was no map of the grounds. The first site I pulled into was for 50AMP only so I had to find a new spot. All the while the wind was just howling. At least it wasn’t raining! 8/26/2005 - (193 miles – 8 hrs – L:47F – H:99F) By the light of day our new camp is fantastic. Roomy and grassy with lots of trees. It’s regrettably close to the train tracks, but I’ve almost stopped jumping each time the whistle blows. This part of Wyoming is wide open. And quiet. Sitting in the park you hear nothing until the acedias start chirping or singing or whatever it is they do. They are loud. Then they stop and it’s so quiet it’s almost blank. Then the train whistle blows and I jump four feet. Then it’s really quiet again, except for the beating of my heart while I try to recover from that jump. The rolling hills are covered in grasses of light green and warm golden browns. There aren’t many trees, except around the rivers. We drove into Cheyenne today. I left my laptop power cord in CA and needed to find a new one, badly. I found a Circuit City that carried the universal power supply, which worked beautifully. I stopped at Pet Co and they had time to give Max a bath. I drove over to Barnes & Noble because I couldn’t help myself. I vacuumed out the truck then wiped the inside down with some very handy Armorall wipes. It was such a filthy mess. Having a dog inside really adds to the dirt quotient. Next I washed the outside of the truck. I had forgotten how much I hate pressure washers. I think I ended up wetter than the truck. Not to mention I almost had a concussion from that damn overhead hose. But the truck looked pretty good by the time I was done. It sure felt better… Or I felt better about it… whatever. It’s really nice being in a clean vehicle again. I picked up Max and we headed home. 8/27/2005 - (287 miles - 8 hrs – L:45F – H:99F) We set out to see the Agate Fossil Beds National Monument, which is in Nebraska. It was a longish drive and really brought to light the difference in scenery. Gone are the tall, striking red rocks of the Moab, UT area. In their place are gently rolling prairies that seem to go on forever. The sky is blue, but not that almost fierce blue, it’s more of a muted, hazy, almost golden blue. It’s amazing how the landscape changes in a few hundred miles. Agate Fossil Beds was an interesting place to visit. The fossils are from the Miocene era, which began around 23 million years ago. Among the fossils found here are Moropus (similar to horses), Palaeocastor (dry-land beaver), Menoceras (small Rhino), Daphoenodon (similar to dogs), Daeodon (looks like a boar, but no relation to the hog species), and Stenomylus (tiny gazelle-camel). The best guess scientists have is that this area was once just like the Serengeti in Africa. When the water holes started to dry out, large numbers of animals would die in a relatively small space. That’s why there is such a dense population of fossils within a few square miles. We took the 2-mile hike to the quarries and then the 1-mile hike to see the daemonelix (devils corkscrew – fossilized Palaeocastor burrows). The visitor center showed a short movie and had some interesting skeletons on display. That was pretty much it. There were numerous warnings about the prolific prairie rattlesnake, which curbed any desire I had to wander from the developed trails. I decided, since we were relatively close, to head over to the Scotts Bluff National Monument. Scotts Bluff is an 800 foot promontory above the North Platte River, which became a notable natural landmark and resting place along the Oregon/California/Mormon and Pony Express Trails during the early to middle 1800s. You can’t see any actual wheel ruts here, just a “swale”, a deep roadbed that was created by so many wagons traveling single file through Mitchell Pass. We arrived too late to take the Summit Road, next time. We headed over to the Chimney Rock National Historic Site. Towering 500 feet above the nearby North Platte River, the rock is composed of Brule clay interlaid with volcanic ash and Arickaree sandstone. The landmark is mentioned in the journals of hundreds of covered-wagon emigrants. From far out on the plains, the wagon train outriders could see the spire. To them it signaled that the first part of their journey was over, and the difficult mountain passage was about to begin. Though no inscriptions are known to have survived to the present day, there is ample testimony that thousands of names were carved onto the cone by passing emigrants. 8/28/2005 - (75 miles - 5 hrs – L:45F – H:102F) We drove out to Register Cliff. This was a stopping point for folks headed west. There are hundreds of inscribed names and dates, ranging from 1829 to present day. It seems a shame that folks continue to etch their names into something with this much history. At the same time, their doing so is a continuation of a tradition, if you will, started by those first emigrants. I admit I was tempted. It just seemed too much like defacing a national monument. Not to mention, I’m fairly lazy. Next we headed over to the Oregon Trail Ruts National Landmark. How very, very cool. So many wagons passed over the same area of sandstone that ruts were worn into the rock, some as deep as 4 feet. You know without a doubt that you’re standing in the footsteps of those brave, intrepid people. It really makes you think about what their journey must have been like. Very cool place. Our next stop was at the Fort Laramie National Historic Site. Starting in 1834, this area was home to a trading post founded by fur trader William Sublette. The post was then purchased by the American Fur Company in 1836. In the 1840s it became a well-known stopping point for large emigrant parties following the Oregon Trail. At the peak of the western migration in the early 1850s as many as 50,000 travelers each year rested and purchased supplies here before continuing west. In 1849 the military purchased the post and converted it to a military outpost to protect emigrants from the local Indian population. In 1851 a council meeting was attended by some 10,000 Indians to try and work out a treaty. Fort Laramie was used as a major station by the Pony Express during 1860-1861. The fort was also a station for the transcontinental telegraph, which put the Pony Express out of business in 1861. Later, Fort Laramie served as a buffer between whites and the few defiant Indians in the area and as a stopping place for travelers on the Cheyenne-Deadwood stage road to the gold fields of the Black Hills (SD). With the end of the Indian hostilities, the post declined in importance and was abandoned in 1890, its buildings sold at public auction for about $1,700. I toured the grounds, which are beautiful. Very peaceful. Many of the buildings have been restored inside and out. You can look through Plexiglas and see what soldiers homes and barracks looked like. I spoke with one of the park rangers who was dressed in a 1950s soldier uniform. He has a masters degree in western history. That’s the kind of thing I’ll remember before I locking into preconceived ideas about the educational background of someone in period costume. Anyway, he talked about the things that the archeologists are still discovering at the site. They are learning something new almost every day. He also talked about the purported ghost sightings. Pretty spooky stuff. The park hosts a ‘ghost tour’ on Halloween. Hmm. 8/29/2005 - (527 miles - 12 hrs – L:45F – H:100F) I had the idea that I’d drive over to Flaming Gorge. We didn’t make it that far, but we did drive through the Medicine Bow National Forest. Beautiful place. There was a couple stopped for lunch at one of the lookouts. They told me the story of the plane crash that happened here in 1955, killing 66 people. Allegedly there is still debris in the lake below the crash site. They also recommended a road called Aspen Alley and showed me how to get there. They’ve been coming here for vacation for 24 years and spending the summers here for the last 13 years. I drove through Saratoga (didn’t see the hot springs) and then headed out to Aspen Alley. On the way we crossed the Continental Divide four or five times. Aspen Alley is a beautiful spot. I followed the dirt road all the way to Rawlings (a lot farther than I expected it to be…. How typical!). It was a great drive. The road was mostly smooth and the variety of country it passed through made it all worthwhile. We went from towering pine and aspen to rolling foothills covered in tall, golden, gently waving grass to prickly sage and scrub brush. 8/30/2005 - (239 miles - hrs – L:46F – H:106F) We were going to stop at the Ayers Park Natural Bridge on the way to Casper, but when we went through the park gates there was a sign “No Pets Allowed - $100 fine”. That’s such crap. Guess we won’t be going there. We went on into Casper and stopped at Wal-Mart to purchase some supplies. When we arrived back at camp the wind was really picking up. The drive from Casper had been really windy and it wasn’t getting any better. I decided to wash the trailer anyway. I checked with the office and they said it would be OK (most parks won’t let you wash your rig on their grounds… but this place is really laid back). I sat in the office for a few minutes, watching CNN and talking politics and life with Dick, the owner. He bought me a soda and then let me borrow a ladder. Really nice guy. It’s been almost a year (can you believe that!!) and aside from the rain, the trailer hasn’t had any kind of an outside washing. I scrubbed and scrubbed. I think it looks better, shinier. I also put some sealant on the roof, which hopefully plugged the leak. I won’t know for sure until the next rain. Both sets of my current neighbors are from Northern California. We talked for a bit, sharing stories, experiences, places to go and gas station scares. 8/31/2005 - (L:39F – H:90F) We bummed around camp today, getting ready to leave tomorrow. This is such a beautiful campsite. I’m sorry we’re leaving so soon. New Pictures: CO, NE, WY | |||