Traveling Back Country Highways

I write fifty, or so, posts each year on this blog and they are all about Wyoming. Now we are leaving for a couple of weeks.

What? You two are leaving? Again?

So here we go again – off on our annual fall trip. This trip will make four of the past five years that we have taken a break and got out of Dodge in late October. It is not because of the weather, which has been unbelievable, just time to do what us old people do – travel a bit. And speaking of Dodge, this will be our second day stop, the old town in Dodge City for the third time. Many think it is over the top touristy, but it is still, fun, interesting, educational and helps with writing inspiration.

My Reto Photo Attempt - I Like It

We will be spending time in Oklahoma, on Route 66 in Texas and then a week in Lousiana. We will also make a trip over to Vicksburg, Mississippi to tour, for the second time, the Civil War Battle Site. Then two or three days to take in some of the shows in Branson, Missouri, followed by a day with family in Nebraska and we will head back home to Wyoming.  Looks like we will be gone two weeks, maybe a few days more. Depending on how much fun we are having and how much money we have left.

I am not sure if I will post anything while we are on the trip, other than a few photos here or on Twitter, but I will get some writing done. We have a few days of rest scheduled where I will sit in the sun, or shade and write, edit, format and all the other things I am behind on.

Maybe I Will Find a Spot Like This

 We schedule our trips well in advance and always have a few things we wish we could be home for. My son coaching his football team in the playoffs, and what looks to be a good Wyoming game this weekend, but I will follow the updates and enjoy the south. Speaking of enjoying, I can hardly wait to get into southern Oklahoma or Northern Texas where many eating places feature fried pies. Not the best thing for my diet, but it only happens once each year.

Meanwhile enjoy the terrific fall weather, winter is not far away.

Last night I had a wonderful time speaking about the Civilian Conservation Corps and the building of Guernsey State Park with the Platte County Historical Society. A truly great evening. 

Westward Ho the Wagons

I can remember many years ago watching or listening to  various programs that ended with some form of the phrase – “and the rest is history.”

 In 1841 when the Bidwell-Bartleson party headed west the rest was indeed history. This first great wagon train heading west not only made history, but it also led to the populating of the West and later the middle of the country. The next year, 1842, Dr. Elijah White led a group of more than 100 on the all new Oregon Trail. Two years later four wagon trains carried more than 2,000 hopefuls West.  The next year the numbers more than doubled. By 1869 more than half a million people had traveled along the trail to Oregon, California, and later to the Salt Lake Valley of present-day Utah. 

Trail Ruts cut deep from thousands of wagons - Guernsey Wyoming

The goal for all of these travelers was the same. Make the 2,000 plus mile trip in 150 days taking along enough food and finding enough fresh water along the way to make it.  Taking a day a week off, as most trains did, this would mean the wagons needed to average about 15 miles each day six days each week for five months. Today if we drove for eight hours each day for 130 days averaging 60 miles per hour we could circle the earth two and a half times. What does all this mean? The west coast was a long way to travel, farther than anywhere on earth in today's world. Once the new would-be settlers started west, in all likelihood, they could never go back. What a commitment these people were making. 

A view down the trail. When the first wagons came there were not nearly
as many trees along the North Platte River as today

All of the above are my thoughts as we get ready to take off on a 4,000-mile vacation next week,  and we will only be gone 16 or 17 days. My, how times have changed.

Fall at Fort Laramie, the most famous, and most welcome stop on the trail.