TravelStream™ news feed for member linda_allen on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/linda_allen en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Sun, 02 Aug 2009 12:55:59 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/linda_allen/3/1246363914/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/linda_allen/3/1246363914/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/linda_allen/3/1246363914/tpod.html Sun, 02 Aug 2009 12:55:59 -0400 Wyoming: The Wide Open West

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Sheridan, Wyoming, United States

Wyoming, like Montana, could be called Big Sky Country. One can see for miles and miles, and the sky has varied today from brilliant blue to dark, fast moving clouds.  Tonight, after a long day of touring (www.southmountainexpeditions.com) , Ron and I were running back to the hotel through a windy rain shower and were stunned to look up and see a full semi-circle of a rainbow, with all its colors bright - almost iridescent.  The bases of the rainbow must have been several miles apart, with no buildings to block any part of the arc, and the top was almost as bright as the bases.  After several glorious minutes just staring at it, we noticed the left side had gained a second bow for about 40 degrees of sky.  This second rainbow had its colors reversed (violet on the outside, red on the inside).   Hours later I am still enthralled.Our day was filled with the many wonders of the Big Horn Canyon National Recreational Area.  The most notable aspect of the Big Horn River was not that it has been dammed, but that it is full and fast - still flowing and often with white water above the plant line due to the spring rains.  We expected brown hills, but we have the crazy-green hues of a Washington, DC April along with numerous wildflowers bursting from fields and rocks.  We saw purple lupine, red Indian paintbrush and countless yellow and white flowers.  We saw deer, wild mustangs, moose, beaver, red-tailed hawks and yellow headed blackbirds.  We saw very few people.Our road trip took us west from Sheridan through the Powder River Basin and the Tongue River Valley over the mountains to the Big Horn Basin.  The area is a geologic wonder, with rocks dated as far back as 2.5 billion (you read that right!) years ago.  We also visited two abandoned ranches (the Caroline Lockhart and Ewing Snell ranches), which had their hey days some 70 years ago and are still each fascinating.  The pond at the Ewing Snell ranch had the clearest natural water I have ever seen, and it was all we could do not to jump right in!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/linda_allen/3/1245775067/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/linda_allen/3/1245775067/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/linda_allen/3/1245775067/tpod.html Sun, 12 Jul 2009 16:09:12 -0400 Wyoming: The Wide Open West

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Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, United States

We entered Yellowstone National Park from the south this year, and between lots of road construction and the inevitable hordes of tourists in cars, RVs and hauling campers (and I'm thinking, very selfishly, of course, "Would you people just go somewhere else?"), I didn't enjoy it as much as the northern road.  We did get to some spectacular geysers.  Just look at the pictures!  But the most memorable part of the day was the beginning - we all needed a pit stop, and pretty much jumped off the bus to get to the latrines in the parking lot of The Lower Geyser Basin and Fountain Paint Pot.  Lo and behold, one of the latrines was being pumped out.  No problem, we can wait for the other one.  Well, combine a windy day (miraculously, always in our faces), a removed latrine seat with the pump going and doors open, and the odor of sulphur from the geysers, and I got a gag reflex.  Which way would I embarass myself, by vomiting or wetting my pants?!  I lurched back to the bus, trying not to breathe, ran up the stairs apologizing to Eric for using the bus restroom (we kept is only for emergencies, and this was an emergency), and looked up to see that Marty, our tour guide, emerging from the back.  Aha!  Busted!Marty insisted that we stop at Midway Geyser Basin, even though Ed initially questioned the idea for lack of time.  It turns out that Marty, as usual, was more than right.  The Grand Prismatic Spring was the visual highlight of the day.  One stands there and the colors of the air and water change in front of your eyes.  The stream envelopes, and passes.  I was thrilled that I was able to capture that in a pictures.  On the boardwalk, Ed ran into a man who has toured with him through Civil War battlefields and recognized him immediately (a common occurrence on every Ed Bearrs trips).We continued on to Old Faithful, which was teeming with humanity.  But now I've seen it.  The better part of that portion of the park is climbing Geyser Hill to look down.Leaving for Cody, we circled Yellowstone Lake and exposed ourselves again to the primordial muck at Mud Volcano.  There, too, I almost couldn't breathe (stinky wind billowing in my face while climbing some couple hundred feet to look down on the basin), but the latrines were all in working order :-) and the site was impressive.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/linda_allen/3/1245774804/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/linda_allen/3/1245774804/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/linda_allen/3/1245774804/tpod.html Sun, 12 Jul 2009 16:01:21 -0400 Wyoming: The Wide Open West

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Pinedale, Wyoming, United States

South Pass City is a faithfully restored town that was important in the gold rush of the late 1800s, and a mine entrance is still open to venture into - just a little way.  However, the most interesting part of its history for me is that the town was dominated by a no-nonsense woman who tried to create a virtual monopoly in business by getting concession rights from the stagecoach line for all needed services for new emigrants.  South Pass City is also the site of the drafting of the successful bill that guaranteed women the right to vote in Wyoming Territory.  Esther Hobart Morris, a resident, was the first female justice of the peace in the country.  Wyoming calls itself "The Equality State," and while I wonder if that is still true, it does rightly boast a proud history of acknowledging the important role of women in the settlement  and development of the West.Completely funny, but of possibly little historical import, is the outhouse up the hill from the schoolhouse:  a two-holer, one normal opening and a smaller, lower seat for the children.  I had to laugh at that!We had lunch in Pinedale, which is a charming western town that hosts a fabulous Museum of the Mountain Man.  I thought I would find little of interest here, but the displays and interpretation were first class.  This area of Wyoming is being exploited for natural gas, and in the construction of the infrastructure, significant archeological findings are being discovered.  So we not only learned about the fur trade (created solely to satisfy the demand for beaver hats, a demand that lasted about 15 years), but we saw evidence of how life was lived 6,000 years ago.The Green River Rendevous site is an area where trappers and natives did their trading.  Its first year, 1837, had one day of trading.  Over the next 15 years, it turned into a market and Mardi Gras all in one - quite a wild and extended period of work and play.  The bluff over the river was our viewing post, but it was accessible only by a long, narrow, switchback dirt road.  Our intrepid driver Eric did not flinch, and we hurled our way upward in the bus.  Roller coasters are less frightening - you know you are really safe.  This was on the verge of terrifying as the bus seemed to lunch left and right.  AND he turned the bus around at the top!  The Green River Valley/Rendevous site was breathtaking, and ne could imagine that it is almost unchanged after more than 150 years.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/linda_allen/3/1245774922/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/linda_allen/3/1245774922/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/linda_allen/3/1245774922/tpod.html Sun, 12 Jul 2009 15:56:22 -0400 Wyoming: The Wide Open West

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Lander, Wyoming, United States

A full day on the bus retracing a large part of the Oregon, California and Mormon Trails has me exhausted, and I didn't have to push a cart 20 miles today.  I have a new appreciation for the tribulations and determination of the emigrants heading west.  Life must have been really bad to motivate an individual and/or family to push into the unknown in the manner they did.  I had no idea that the Mormons paid people to leave Europe and settle in Salt Lake City.  Brigham Young devised a plan that was cheaper than using horses or oxen - people pushed large carts west.   So think about it - moving westward thousands of miles and and upward over a mile, all over trading paths at best and rocky wilderness at worst.  Most people walked (the movies are SO FAKE!) the entire distance - some 2,000 miles for those going to Oregon; almost 1,400 miles for those going to Salt Lake City.  Ed Bearrs' grandmother was pregnant and told stories of how much more comfortable it was to walk than ride a lurching wagon (assuming that option was available, which it wasn't for most)The country is beautiful and forbidding, and the redundant rolling hills and valleys, along with mountains and passes, even in the bus, seemed to go onto the horizon and beyond.  I really understand the adage,  "just put one foot in front of the other and keep going."  Words really don't suffice.We are staying at what Marty says is "the only hotel within a 100 mile radius" in Lander, but it turns out that it's only one of the few hotels in the area, and definitely the nicest one.  But for those whose rooms are on the wrong side of the building, there is a price to pay:   a fair is in the parking lot behind the hotel.One of the notable features of Lander and almost all the towns of every size out here - there is a wealth of spectacular public art.  We have never seen so much money invested in bronze.  Figures range from small (in Sheridan, all four corners of some intersections have a bronze, including, bizarrely, a rhinoceros), but most of the works express some iconic image of the West.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/linda_allen/3/1245774585/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/linda_allen/3/1245774585/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/linda_allen/3/1245774585/tpod.html Sun, 12 Jul 2009 15:53:19 -0400 Wyoming: The Wide Open West

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Fort Laramie, Wyoming, United States

We began our 4th of July by driving down the main street of Guernsey, WY just before they began their parade.  It was pretty funny - we waved and the people waved.  Our destination was a wonderfully maintained section of the Oregon Trail, in which the wheel ruts had worn down the soft rock. We continued on to Fort Laramie, on of the longer-standing forts along the emigrant trails (in some form it lasted 20+ years in the late 1800s), and enjoyed NPS Frontier 4th of July - kind of an Open House in which there were Pony Express re-enactors, horse drill team, an American Indian ethnographer Michael BadHand Terry (who was hilarious in showing us how to shoot from a horse and has a great web site http://www.warriorsplus.com/index.htm), bakers, etc. After a fantastic dinner in Glenrock at the 1916-era Hotel Higgins with its restaurant The Paisley Shawl, we closed our day with some nice fireworks over Casper, visible from our hotel.No rain today!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/linda_allen/3/1245774457/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/linda_allen/3/1245774457/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/linda_allen/3/1245774457/tpod.html Sun, 12 Jul 2009 15:46:09 -0400 Wyoming: The Wide Open West

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Douglas, Wyoming, United States

I write 24 hours after a van in front of us on the road was hit by lightning. I am not exaggerating – it was directly in front of us.  Now we are surrounded by flying rain, lightning and thunder and hail.  The hail is attacking the windows of the hotel lobby here while I write.  The weather today was a series of running among and between storms, punctuated by brilliant blue Wyoming skies.  It's crazy.Our touring started with a visit to a wonderful museum here in Casper called the National Trails Interpretive Center.  The National Parks Service guide had met Ed Bearrs in his USNPS office about 20 years ago, and was quite awed that Ed was visiting.  Our picnic lunch was at a beautiful natural bridge south of Casper (Ayres) at which we were able to climb up on the bridge as well as admire it (and the rushing creek that runs through it) from below.  Our lunch was accompanied by torrential rain, but our picnic shelter did its job!We ended our day in Douglas, home to the Jackalope.  It’s also home to a WWII POW camp (Italians first, then Germans) that has one building remaining, and a Pioneer Museum that included some of the most eclectic collection we’ve ever seen, including a hand written letter from Thomas Jefferson and a skate board identical to the one I owned when I was 9 or 10.We visited the site of the old Fort Fetterman, a major fort protecting pioneers traveling in the 1870s and 1880s.  While the fort is gone, the views from its site are remarkable, with the sky more impressive than the countryside. 
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/linda_allen/3/1246450421/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/linda_allen/3/1246450421/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/linda_allen/3/1246450421/tpod.html Sun, 12 Jul 2009 15:44:19 -0400 Wyoming: The Wide Open West

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Buffalo, Wyoming, United States

Today we are immersed in the history of the post-Civil War westward expansion and the Indian Wars that inevitably followed as the white settlers kept coming and the US Government repeatedly went back in its word.  Every event we studied today, all in a fairly narrow area around Sheridan, involves fights over land, culture and the very survival of the native peoples.To the credit of the winners (whites, who got to write the history), many of the early 20th century memorials have been updated with more accurate information and perspective from the native people.The landscape is stunning.  The day's temperatures have ranged from cool to warm, with a brilliant sunny blue sky and almost no humidity.  We've walked several miles as we studied different battles and skirmishes. I hear outside that it has begun to rain again.   It's quite wonderful that we can have rain and it passes so quickly that the humidity is still low before and after.We had the best dinner (ambiance-wise, and for me, food wise - a whole rack of ribs that I shared with half the group) of the trip at a historic hotel, the Occidental, here in Buffalo.  The hotel spans a city block and was interconnected with all the services a person would need when coming into town - a general store, barber, bank, etc.  (Too bad there are not enough rooms for our group, or we would be staying there instead of at the Holiday Inn Express.)  The owner, Dawn, left San Diego a little over a decade ago and bought the rundown hotel.  The previous owner, though, had never thrown ANYTHING out, and Dawn recognized a treasure when she saw it.  The hotel is fully furnished in authentic, original period furniture.  Our dining room was in the old bank section of the hotel, and at the back of our room one could have a cozy romantic meal in the beautifully decorated... bank vault!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/linda_allen/3/1245775139/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/linda_allen/3/1245775139/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/linda_allen/3/1245775139/tpod.html Sun, 12 Jul 2009 15:36:27 -0400 Wyoming: The Wide Open West

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Cody, Wyoming, United States

We began our stay in Cody last night with a fabulous meal and a rodeo.  Lots of fun, leading to my growing appreciation of the western life.  We saw talented young people who are great athletes, too, heard really bad but funny jokes, and generally got into the whole ambiance.  I am, however, annoyed that they renamed the big dam the Shoshone River a few decades ago.  Sensibly, it was called the Shoshone Dam.  It was renamed to the Buffalo Bill Cody Dam.  Kind of like renaming National Airport.  Blah.Bill Cody was a great horseman, but an even greater entertainer.  With his traveling  "Wild West" (show), he single-handedly began the creation of "The West" of our popular culture, and those big ideas were carried even further in movies and television in the mid-20th century.  It's a distorted view.  To the winners go the spoils, I suppose.  I'm still having a hard time with the simplification of complexity.We spent 4 hours in the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, often called "The Smithsonian of the West."  It was not enough time.  The art, the artifacts, the natural history were enough for several days of investigation, and we hated to leave.Outside Cody we got on the wrong road, lost some time, and had to backtrack to find our way to the Heart Mountian Relocation Camp.  That turned out to be the most fortunate wrong turn of the trip.  Heart Mountain was the destination for 10,000 Japanese-Americans who were given 10 days in 1942 to pack up whatever they could carry (100 pounds max) and leave behind their work, their homes and their communities so that we could put them behind barbed wire.There is very little left to see, but the markers are informative as one walks a circular path though the fields.  Marty held back and began talking to other visitors.  Thus we met Barbara, whose birth name was not Barbara (and whose last name I didn't catch).  Barbara is now 87.  She was 19 years old when she and her family were forced out of California and dumped in Wyoming.  This was her first visit back to that terrible time; she had not been able to face it before now.  She had us crying, needless to say.  And I'm crying now, so I will stop.As with most travels, I have learned more than I expected and grown to love an area of the country and world that I knew little about.  I have made friends with my fellow travelers, laughed endlessly, eaten delightful regional food, and appreciate my own good fortune and relatively easy life.  Thanks for joining me.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/linda_allen/3/1246536917/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/linda_allen/3/1246536917/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/linda_allen/3/1246536917/tpod.html Sat, 11 Jul 2009 14:30:20 -0400 Wyoming: The Wide Open West

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Kaycee, Wyoming, United States

Today was the reason we do these trips with South Mountain Expeditions. We spent an incredible, once-in-a-lifetime day at the Graves Ranch near Kaycee, WY.  The ranch "isn't too big," according to Cheri, “only about 15,000 acres.”  That’s about 25 square miles, or about the size of Arlington.  We rode on the back of the flat bed truck on hay bales and walked several miles when we got to outlying areas.  The purpose was beyond that of seeing a working cattle ranch, although we did that.  The Graves are the 5th generation to live on the site of the Dull Knife Battle of November 1876, and the area is virtually unchanged since that terrible day.  Cheri, a math and geology major in college, has become an expert on the geology of the area as well as the battle and its aftermath.   She has met and toured descendants of the Northern Cheyenne survivors, and her stories were informative and compelling.  Her husband Ken and she are providing an incredible service to those of us interested in the details of the area’s history.  Cheri, Ken and their ranch hand Tallon are personable and physically beautiful people; real cowboys.  Cheri and Ken have three daughters in their twenties, but they have not an ounce of fat on their bodies, are trim and strong.  To read a quick summary of the battle, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dull_Knife_Fight.  Custer had been killed at the Little Bighorn, and the US Government was determined to ... what?  exterminate the natives?   "...Mackenzie waited until dawn, then attacked and drove the warriorsfrom the village. Some were forced to leave their clothes, blankets andbuffalo robes behind and flee into the frozen countryside. Dull Knifebegan to offer stiff resistance, and savage fighting continued. ThePawnee warriors fought with exceptional ability, and the Cheyennesfinally gave way and retreated from their village. The Indian villageof 173 lodges and all its contents were entirely destroyed. About 500ponies were captured. Lieut. J. A. McKinney, U.S. 4th Cavalry, waskilled, along with five enlisted men.The battle ended Cheyenne resistance for all practical purposes.Dull Knife's followers were left in the freezing weather withoutsufficient clothing, and many soon froze to death. Most surrenderedshortly after..."Sobering.Coming down to Casper after our 6 hours on the ranch, we were met with an incredible, powerful lightning storm which is still raging as I write.  We did have rain on the ranch, which was icy cold and added to the adventure of the day.  This rain is nasty and the lightning striking so close it could kill.  It’s nice to be inside!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/linda_allen/3/1245775017/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/linda_allen/3/1245775017/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/linda_allen/3/1245775017/tpod.html Sat, 11 Jul 2009 11:23:02 -0400 Wyoming: The Wide Open West

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Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, United States

Grant Teton National Park is the most glorious place I have ever been.  Jackson Wyoming is overdeveloped and not a place I ever need to return to.  The Park, however, has me wishing to go back this summer and every summer of my life.  I loved the massive basin with flat, rolling fields filled with elk, cattle and bison.  Rising without foothills are the gorgeous peaks (Les Trois Tetons - "the three breasts," called by the trappers, but phonetically similarly named by the Natives), changing hourly in the play of sunlight.  There were bike trails next to the road, brilliant lakes for recreation and boating.  The hiking and climbing could last a lifetime.  Ditto for flora/fauna watching.  We rode a boat down the Snake River and were fortunate enough to float under a bald eagle.Our cabin was in Colter Bay, and although far from facilities, we had no cabins behind us.  It was heaven.  On our first night the full moon was rising behind us, so Marty, Marc, Jo, Ron and I ended up talking and laughing outside, covered in Deet to thwart the mosquitos, and drinking (our contribution) Gentleman Jack.Life is good.
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