Monuments, Museums, and Mammals

In Nebraska, we headed to Alliance to see another famous landmark on the Oregon Trail.  This one was Chimney Rock. It is quite tall and could be seen for a ways before we reached it. We went to the Visitor's Center and saw displays about the Oregon and California Trails, and looked at the rock. We found out that the Indians called it Elk Penis.  It was the white pioneers coming through who gave it its current name.

Our next stop was Carhenge.  It was an interesting display of old cars in the shape of stonehenge.

Next we went to Dobby's Frontier Town in Alliance.  This was old buildings from the town put together to represent how the town looked way back when it was first begun.  There were several buildings, and it was fun exploring them. There was a funeral parlor, a dentist office, a house, a garage, and even a saloon with sawdust on the floor and a bordello upstairs!

 We left that corner of Nebraska and headed north to South Dakota.  Our first experience in this state was at Custer State Park.  It is a beautiful, huge, forested, and grassland park.  It is in the Black Hills, and is full of wildlife.  We saw lots of buffalo, elk, wild turkey, white tailed deer, mule deer, prong horn antelope, big horn sheep, and lots of birds. 

The next morning we visited the Crazy Horse Memorial.  It was a little disappointing.  The memorial itself is a great beginning, but nothing has been done since the original sculptor died years ago, except to build many buildings of displays.

Next, we visited Mount Rushmore National Memorial.  This was really exciting after having heard about it so much.

We then drove into Keystone to see the National Presidential Wax Museum.  I really liked this.  They had all the Presidents from Washington to Obama, and told a little bit about each one.

From there we went to Rapid City to see the Journey Museum.  This was a really fun hands on museum.  It started with a dark room full of stars and progressed through the ages from the dinosaurs to the cowboys. 

The next day we drove past many signs leading to famous Wall Drug store.  It is now a huge complex. 

Our next destination was Badlands National Park.  Throughout the park are various areas that look like the surface of the moon, tall cathedral spires, beautifully colored cliffs, and prairie grassland. We saw lots of buffalo, big horn sheep, and prairie dogs. We decided to spend the weekend here,camped in a prairie area of the park. There are buffalo wandering through our campsite at various times!

Buffalo Bill, Snow, Rodeo, and Pioneers

We left Denver in the morning and headed to Golden.  There we saw the Buffalo Bill Museum and grave site.  The museum was started by his foster son, and completely covered his life history and accomplishments. There were displays of his costumes and clothing from various times in his life, many artifacts, as well as many of the dime books written about him. We also enjoyed the extensive gift shop!  It started to snow when we left Lookout Mountain but it was just a little bit of snow. 

We headed up to Estes Park to see the Stanley Hotel, a haunted hotel where Steven King got the inspiration to write "The Shining", and the Rocky Mountain National Park to spend the night.  We were hit with a hail storm on the way, and then some more snow.  As we got up into the mountains the snow became heavier and heavier, and the temperature was dropping.  When it hit 30 outside, the snow was starting to stick, and it looked more like a blizzard, so we changed our plans and headed down the mountain.  We were disappointed, but didn't want to camp in that much snow anyway.  So we headed to Cheyenne for the night. The one positive note about being up in the mountains was, we saw a herd of elk grazing by the side of the road!

When we woke up in the morning, we had a dusting of snow on us.  But it was much better than the several inches the mountains received!  We headed to the Frontier Days Old West Museum at the Fairgrounds.  This museum had a wonderful collection of lots of carriages.  There were many different kinds beautifully restored.  They also had a display of their Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo, an annual event that attracts thousands every year.  They had a display for every event in the rodeo, as well as Miss Frontier.

We took a driving tour of the old downtown area, and saw the State Capitol too.  What a historic old town it was.  I didn't realize that this was where Doc Holiday was from, or that he was a dentist, although he didn't practice dentistry here. 

After that we headed to Guernsey State Park.  This was a great park, with a beautiful view of the lake from a castle of rocks built by the CCC.  We had fun exploring here.

Then we headed to see more Oregon Trail ruts.  We were able to walk in the ruts of the wagons as the pioneers and wagons did over the sandstone cliffs.  These ruts were 3 to 4 feet deep in places. 

Next we went to Register Cliffs to see where people had carved their names while traveling on the Oregon, California, Mormon, and Pony Express Trails.  There were literally thousands of carvings!  Many of the carvings were from more recent years, but it was interesting to see all the names and dates.

From there, we headed to Douglas.  We spent the night camped alongside the North Platte River.  It was a pleasant sight to wake up to.  The morning sun behind us, the slurping of the flowing river beside us, the birds chirping in the bare trees, and the Canadian geese honking.  I imagined what it must have been like for the early pioneers who also camped along this river.  I wanted to put my feet in the river, but it was much too cold!  The weather that day was warming up to 67, but the wind was chilly and strong. Wyoming has some very strong winds.

We visited the Wyoming Pioneer Memorial Museum.  We spent a long time there.  The museum is two stories of collections of every moment from the 1850s to the present.  They had pioneer artifacts, clothing, carriages, weapons, military uniforms, War memorabilia from all the wars, china, political buttons from every election, household appliances, you name it, it was there! 

From there we said goodbye to Wyoming for now, and headed to Nebraska to spend the night. 

Wild West Adventures

We headed  back into Wyoming to Fort Kearny State Historic Site.  There was nobody there but us when we arrived.  We toured the recreation of the fort wall, the original was burned down by the Natives when it was abandoned.  It was fun to look out over the plains through the guard tower and through the fort windows. 

We stopped at Independence Rock, a famous landmark on the plains.  This granite rock is huge, and covered with names and dates from the Oregon Trail, the Mormon Trail, The Pony Express, Fur Trappers, Father De Smet, and even more.  Some of the names are carved into the rock, and others are painted with axle grease.

We also stopped for a look at Devil's Gate, another well known landmark.

A ways down the road, we spotted a herd of antelope grazing near the road, bringing to mind the song "Home on the Range".

 We headed to Rawlins, and went to the Wyoming Frontier Prison.  We had a guided tour of the prison and heard many stories of the prisoners.  There was also a gallows and gas chamber.  The original cells were tiny and cramped. 

From there we headed to the Saratoga Hobo Pool.  We took a dip in the hot springs mineral pool for free.  The water was hot and bubbly and the soak felt really good.  The pool had a rocky, natural  bottom.

From there we headed south to Colorado Springs, Colorado, to spend the night.  We spent the morning at the Garden of the Gods Park.  It was full of red rock formations, with green plants, blue skies, and wind blown white clouds.  With snow capped Pikes Peak overlooking it all, it was magnificent.

From there we went to the US Air Force Academy.  We drove through the campus to the Visitor Center.  There we saw displays about the cadets and their curriculum.  They also had information about the history of the school and the air force.  We also hiked to the famous chapel designed to look like jets standing in a row.

Today we went up to Denver and rode the Platte River trolley along the river.  It was the opening weekend, so the ride was free!  The trolley was an open air model, and the weather was nice, so it was a great ride. We got to see the stadium of the Denver Broncos, and the city skyline.

We spent the afternoon at the Denver Art Museum.  It was a huge complex with many floors, and a wide variety of art. 

Afterwards, we got a much needed car wash and relaxed.

We had dinner reservations at The Buckhorn Exchange, "Denver's oldest restaurant".  We got Elk and Quail dinners with garlic mashed potatoes, Saratoga chips, navy bean and ham soup, and garden salad. Then we splurged and had cheesecake for dessert!