I love old westerns. Oddly enough, not for the horses, watching cowboys snatch their mounts in the mouth and dig their spurs into them is exceedingly painful. I love westerns for the romance of the open range, the cowgirls who defy the stereotypical lady of the 19th century. My first love and I used to imagine walking our horses down new subdivision roads in our once rural area. We were law “people”, or perhaps gunslingers. Lalo Schiffren music as our background.
So we were going to LARAMIE! I had a huge crush on Robert Fuller. Now to be seen on HULU https://www.hulu.com/Live-tv, but we don’t subscribe.
Hopes up, we wandered around, only to find it filled with trendy shops on the main shopping street, and not much else outside of the tourist area. I was sadly disappointed. Worst of all, Robert Fuller was nowhere to be found. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Fuller_(actor)
Cheyenne was a bit better. A cowboy hat was bought, and an Indian-made bracelet was picked up at a pawn shop. Sept. 11 was our engagement anniversary. The news was full of remembrances of that fateful day. Twenty years ago, the fragility of life convinced us to go ahead and get married, this trip was our 20 year anniversary present to ourselves.
We stopped on our continued trip toward Yellowstone at the National Historic Trails Interpretive Museum. https://nhtcf.org/ It was wonderful. We braved the cold wind to get in and had a great time inside.
Our next stop was to be Riverton and a visit to the casino. No surprise, we took a few back roads and were magically surprised when our wending down route 220 took us by Independence Rock and alongside the famous Sweetwater River. https://www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/independence-rock
We saw our first pronghorn buck. A beauty. A long-ago trip to the Dakotas had introduced me to herds of pronghorns, but here in Wyoming, they seemed used to traffic and humans and not so skittish. They are such beautiful graceful creatures.
How the pioneers managed to go on. How did their livestock survive? Many did not. Granted this area was experiencing a major drought, but all we could see was sagebrush. A continual wind blew, often raising swirls of sand. Hot during the day and incredibly cold at night. As we drove by herds of cattle one wondered how they were getting water, most of the streams were dry. They were widely spread out across the prairie land. Our Angus in KY always stayed together and had adorable nurseries where the calves would be watched over by a couple of Nanny cows. Not so here, many calves were lying out on their own. One would think, with predators in the area, that would be dangerous, perhaps the drought has changed their instinctive habits. Toward evening we witnessed them finally bunching up. They seemed to be following a trail along a now dried-up stream, in search of water. It was a sad and depressing sight. So unlike the happy cows in Nebraska, knee-deep in rich grass.
We continued on our North Westerly trek. The cliffs along 287, were incredibly beautiful. The colours, so varied. Red, tan, grey, orange. I hoped to take photos, but we had a long trek ahead of us.
Finally; Riverton, the smoke from the western wildfires was dissipating. The smoke grey sky was clearing. We did not stay at the casino hotel, and but we did have to explore. We only lost about 25 cents and the food there was wonderful and incredibly priced. Most of the people in the casino, no surprise, were Native Americans, and a joyful lot they were. It is a happy place to grab a great meal. https://www.windriverhotelcasino.com/ Frances Parkman described the Indians in his Oregon Trail, as “Thin, dirty, often starving, but usually very nice.” I am afraid they were thin, dirty and starving thanks to the white man’s intrusion.
The next day, our goal was to reach Cody Wyoming, home of the Buffalo Bill Center of the West (and the Cody Firearms Museum) we had booked a stay at the historic Irma hotel. AND, we were going to get there via the southern section of YELLOWSTONE!! This is how married folk compromise.
Stay tuned for the next installment. A surprise stop in Dubois, WY, my first view of the Grand Tetons, and catching wildlife photos in Yellowstone.
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