The Longest Drive

We began our day today in Douglas, Wyoming, a town that we stopped at yesterday (you know....to sleep), even though our goal had been Casper, WY. We were just too pooped and it was just too late, so we pulled over and got a room.

In the morning, determined to start our day in Casper, we drove the hour to get there before even eating breakfast. Then we went to the Historic Trails Museum, which turned out to be absolutely wonderful. I spoke about it a bit in the entry called "Brigham Young and Me" (demonstrating my powers of time travel, since this post comes before that one chronologically...I'm so tricky). I put a link to the museum in the links section, so you can take a look if you want. There were many cool parts of the museum, and I would especially recommend it for kids. (Oh! We also met a family there who was visiting from Carlisle, MA!).

At the start of the museum was a large section on Indians of the region (Arapahoe, Cheyenne, and Sioux), including several recorded talks about the history of their tribes by elders of the various tribes. Phoebe loved listening to those, and I did too. But the best thing about the museum was the interactive exhibits. There was a covered wagon that you could get in, and it rocked and moved and jolted as you watched a very realistic movie out the front of the covered wagon (so it seemed you were really in one on the Oregon Trail). There was a similar one in which we sat inside a Wells Fargo stagecoach and the movie and movement made it appear we were actually back in the time.


There was also a handcart that many on the Mormon Trail used, and there was a treadmill so that you could try to push it at the speed at which they traveled. It was HARD!!! We have a great movie of it, which won't translate so well here, in which Phoebe says (in full high drama mode) "Weary.....terribly weary....." as she is pushing. But here's a photo of her working away.


I also loved the ad for the Pony Express riders, so thought I'd share it here...click on the photo to enlarge it, so that you can read what it says. Intense stuff.


Then we got back on the road, heading toward Independence Rock, a major landmark for those on the trail.
People carved their names into the rock, or wrote them on the rock with axle grease. You've already seen one photo of Phoebe on top of Independence Rock, in the short post before departing for California (more time travel). It was called Independence Rock, most stories seem to say, because if the settlers reached there by July 4th, then they knew that they could get to Oregon before snow fell on the trail--a critical element of success. Settlers camped here-- we saw many of their tracks, and some of their signatures.




My favorite story from this day was that after we searched for a good way to go up to the top of Independence Rock, we eventually settled on rock scrambling up this slope, a difficult but manageable route. Here it is:


Later in the day, Phoebe noted with glee and great pride that since we took a different way up than any of the other people who were around (all five of them), we were truly pioneers! Yay!