Fort Laramie, Cheyenne, and home

We got up Saturday morning, and headed west along the N. Platte river to Fort Laramie. Fort Laramie also has a tremendous amount of western history associated with it, from the fur trade days, to the Fetterman fight, to Red Cloud.

One of the amazing stories was John Phillips, who rode 236 miles in three days after the Fetterman fight, to request help for Fort Phil Kearny. He arrived in the middle of the officer's Christmas eve party, gave the message, and collapsed. This is believed to be one of the greatest horse rides in history, although later historians note that he did not make the entire ride alone.

Fort Laramie is big, with some buildings only foundations, and others restored to how they would have looked in the late 1800s. Marianne felt that it had a nice feel, unlike Fort Robinson, which in her mind held a lot of sadness and negative vibes.

Fort Laramie was on the Oregon trail, the Mormon trail, and the California trail. It had up to 700 troops stationed there, cavalry and infantry. In later years, Fort Laramie was an island of civilization and culture, with boardwalks and even a birdbath. The officer's wives formed the social scene.


Richard enjoyed talking to one of the reenactors, a woman on the trail. It would have been a very hard journey, with many deaths from cholera and other diseases. He even got to use a little French with some tourists from Lyon France.

After Fort Laramie, we drove to Cheyenne, where we had a nice dinner with Judy, Ron and Stephen. On Sunday, we drove home to Boulder in a misty rain.

Back to Gering - Bluegrass In Bayard

We got up on Friday morning and headed down the road to Gering, back to the same campground that we had left a few days before. When we called them, they said that they only had two spots left!

We hung around camp midday, and then Richard headed over to the nearby Farm and Ranch Museum. His tour started with a 30 minute video, made from 8mm movies shot by two bachelor farmers in the 1930s and 1940s. The narration explained what you were seeing. They demonstrated various farming practices of the time, as well as building a barn and moving a house. It was more interesting that Richard had expected, kind of a snapshot of time. Later Richard met the man who had interviewed one of the farmers, and learned about the existence of the 8mm movies. The museum had a vast collection of old machinery, showing amazing mechanical ingenuity. The picture shows a potato planting machine.

After dinner, we headed to Bayard for the bluegrass festival. We particularly liked the young Mr Gilmore, as well as the High Plains Tradition band. We left after seeing a couple of songs from the Stanleytones, also very good. It was a very small festival, perhaps 100 attendees, but perhaps there would be more people there Saturday. It was in a dude ranch type place near the North Platte river, who offered rides in covered wagons.

As we left we noticed that the Chimney Rock was lit up at night, a nice touch.

History

We started the day at the Fur Trade Museum in nearby Chadron. We had been told that this was a world class museum, and were glad to finally get the opportunity to see it. A pretty amazing collection of trade goods, weapons, and other artifacts related to the fur trade. They try to cover the French, British, Spanish, American, and Russian traders, all of whom played a role in the trade in North America.

There was a special exhibit on the Voyageurs, who traveled by canoe all over Canada and the USA. We chatted a bit with the museum director, who suggested some good books, including the autobiography of Red Cloud. She also told us that Mari Sandoz's book on Crazy Horse was historical fiction, in some cases contradicting known historical facts.

After a nice lunch at the Heritage Grille, we went to Chadron State College, where we visited the Mari Sandoz museum, and learned a little more about Mari Sandoz and cattle ranching. Marianne pointed out that the painting of Crazy Horse, commissioned by Mari Sandoz, made him look incredibly handsome, suggesting her idealized view of Crazy Horse.

We bought some Nebraska sweet corn out of the back of a pickup truck.

We stopped at the quilt shop in Crawford, which was a busy place. Bili, the owner, came over to shake Marianne's hand and introduce herself. Marianne was very happy to find some "Kansas Troubles" fabric, a reproduction of old fabric, which she is using on some traditional quilts.

We ended the day at the Fort Robinson Historical Museum, depicting the Fort's history from the days of the Indian Wars to World War II. Marianne found it very sad. Richard asked where Crazy Horse died, and was directed to a small monument near two reconstructed log buildings. There are various stories about how and why Crazy Horse died. I have not yet gotten to the part in Mari Sandoz's book where Crazy Horse died.

It is hot here, and we were glad to get back to our air conditioned Prarie Schooner.

Agate Fossil Beds and Fort Robinson

We headed out of Gering, stopped briefly at an RV shop in Scottsbluff, and drove to Agate Fossil Beds National Monument. When we reached the visitor center, we joined a guided ranger walk that was about to leave. Our guide was Lil, a rancher's wife. She knew her plants, and told us a little about ranching life, as well as pointing out the corkscrew fossils known as Demonelix. These fossils were the filled in dens of a land beaver, a little like a prarie dog, from 20 million years ago.

The monument was created in recognition of the bonebed found around two hills, apparently the result of animals dying in a mudhole during a "drouth". (Drouth appears to be the accepted spelling and pronunciation in Nebraska). A local rancher discovered the fossils, and his family also contributed his collection of indian artifacts; James Cook was a friend of Red Cloud, who often visited him on the ranch.

After lunch, we drove to Fort Robinson, a huge state park with a long history, including the death of Crazy Horse. Fort Robinson is in a particularly pretty area, the Pine Ridge, a mix of grasslands and pine trees.

Chimney Rock

After breakfast, we drove east to Chimney Rock, perhaps the best known landmark on the pioneer trails. Along the way we stopped at the grave of Rebecca Winters, one of the Mormon emmigrants. Unlike most of the emmigrants who died on the trail without a marker, one of her companions marked her grave by engraving her name on an iron wagon tire. This tire was found later, and her grave is now well marked, with a gravestone and an historical marker.


Chimney Rock has a visitor center run by the Nebraska Historical Society. There are many artist images of the rock, all a little different. The rock we see today may not be the same as the pioneers saw, due to erosion, but it is still impressive.

After our visit to Chimney Rock, we stopped by the grocery store, and then visited the North Platte Valley Museum in Gering. This turned out to be surprisingly interesting, with artifacts ranging from arrowheads to a 1919 Patriot truck. The lady running the museum was very enthusiastic, and started off by demonstrating an old music box, with metal disks that would play different tunes. There was a large diversity of artifacts, and a lot of care and love in this small town museum.

Scotts Bluff National Monument

In the morning, we headed over to Scotts Bluff National Monument. The museum was somewhat interesting, but the views were perhaps the best part.

The view below shows the Oregon trail, and the monument headquarters. The round road is the road going up to the top of the butte. The Oregon trail is a straight line from left to right.



You could even see the campground and our camper.



After the monument, we visited the local quilt shop, and then went back to rest. The afternoon heat eventually got to us, and induced us to close the camper up and turn on the air conditioning.

We visited the local wrecking yard to look at a possible seat upgrade for our truck, but a quick look showed that the seats in the junkyard were not good.

We had a nice dinner at the local steakhouse, the Gaslight.

Our cat is not doing well, now has some kind of infection in his forehead, and is almost blind.

We played scrabble, and went to bed.

Richard picked up a book on Crazy Horse by Mari Sandoz, perhaps the best known author in Nebraska, born in the late 1800s.

Boulder to Scottsbluff Nebraska

On Sunday, we left Boulder on our trip to explore western Nebraska, an area nearby, but an area that we do not know. Key destinations include Scottsbluff National Monument as well as the mountain man museum in Chadron.

(Note, in late July we participated in the family reunion in Estes Park, but we did not blog that trip, partly because many of the prospective audience were there.)

In order to see new areas, we started going east on South Boulder road, and continued this past I25 to I76. We saw the new Del Webb "Anthem" retirement community, among other things.

We cruised northwest on I76 until Fort Morgan, where we turned north on highway 52. It was lunchtime, so we decided to stop at the very nice city park, next to the South Platte River. They kept the 1922 bridge as a pedestrian bridge, very nice.

The area north of Fort Morgan is pretty empty, as you can see at the state line sign.


We found our campground in Gering, NE, very nice, green, lots of space between sites, a city run park. It was hot when we arrived, but the wind was blowing, and the sun disappeared behind the clouds, so it gradually got cooler. We can see Scotts Bluff from our campsite.