Tuesday, 26 June 2012
Remember to click on pictures to enlarge
SALT LAKE CITY
First church on site around 1880
Inside conference centre for Sunday Broadcast of choir
rare picture crossing road with saftey flag roads all 130ft wide
Inside first church
Tabernacle only open to mormons for weddings christenings
and instruction in their faith, no ordinary services.
Rockies through to Monument
SUNDAY 17th June
Left rather abruptly as we found a library where we could connect up and send off everything!
Anyway tortuous driving with heavy Sunday traffic, escapes from Denver, saw us passing along many gorges, no valleys, with individual houses many rather nice, until we reached an overwhelmingly tripperish town of Estes Park just outside the boundary of the national park. Camped in the Park at Morraine Campground approached via a bone shaking 1.5 mile road which was being reconstruted and was down to bare rock at the time of our visit. Lovely site great views and sited at 8250 ft.
Now I mention Estes Park for a particular reason. I have commented on forest fires earlier, we read today 25th June in the local paper that a fire has been raging around Estes Park, 1400 people have been evacuated, 21 homes lost to date and the whole area closed off. we would not have been able to do that route or we could alternatively have been involved with the fire!
Having driven all over the place i had thought heights were perhaps behind us, what an idiot. Monday 18th saw us off around the north western perimeter of the Park and statred with a two hour slow climb., magnificant mountain scenery quite outstanding and a hieght gain to 12450 ft on the road with a coffee stop at the visitors centre at 12145 ft.
Where are you from, England, oh please send us some of your rain is a automatic response by just about everyone now. Here at the Visitors centre the ranger said in June last year when we opened up ther was 12ft of snow covering areas of the building, this year no snow and no rain too, things are bad the opposite way to the UK.
A good run down the rockies to Granby past a large an pretty lake onto the 40 and thence across a back road to interstate 70 for the run to Glenwood Springs. We've now picked up the Colorado River again and where this meets mountains it means canyons big huge ones quite narrow with the road at the base and mountains towering thosands of feet above you. A variety of scenery therefore and mostly pastoral.
A complete no sequeter, way back in Wyoming I spoke of the pastoral agrarian landscape helped by the irrigation started by Buffalo Bill which extended for some 30 to40 miles and covered an area of some 1500 sq miles. Towards its NE corner the Yellowstone River was the source for water, a full and fast flowing river. The whole valley was prosperous and looked a dream for agriculture. At the border with Momtana the valley and river continued for 30 miles but one yard inside montana was desert, useless scrub land and nothing, green and fertile to zilch in one stride.
Back again at Glenwood Springs which is really a ski resort we stayed in a rundown mainly residential site called The Hideout, it sufficed just, the town itself did nothing to excite us.
19th to 21st JUNE
Form Glenwood Springs we took the 70 past naval shale oil reserves miles of them whatever they are and decided to take a route cutting a corner off to Moab via the 128 which was described at the start as a narrow winding road with 20mph hairpins, an obvious challenge and seemingly a bleak one from the desert start in considerable heat. One moment we were twisting and turning when suddenly round a corner was scenery the like of which we had never seen before in fact quite the best road scenery to date. Broad valley and canyons, all the pinacles and odd rock formations plus individual monoliths standing up all over the place in fact like monument valley of cowboy fame with mountains closer by which had been sculpted by a god somehow. Although in the same area as CanyonLand the basic valley and gorge bottom was gentler and not quite so demonic.
Moab and a campsite Canyonlands CG for two
nights. Moab a reasonable town which sells itself on outdoor activity such as white water rafting, off road trips etc. Actually I would be disapointwd with the rafting as we saw on our back road in twenty or more rafts, 12 people in an inflateable, paddling hot and aimlessly down th Colorado River and more or less struggling to get over the rapids as the river is very low for the time of year.
There is a superb Indian Atrifacts shop in town.
Our stop was to visit Canyonland and The Arches National Parks. Canyonland is a series of canyons viewed from above and the area is vast and that is an understatement. From above you look down from various view points to a rim about 1000 ft below which is the top of another canyon which falls again down hundreds of feet and this in turn becomes the rim of yet another gorge below that. It is possible to drive round the second rim on an old trail used by the uranium miners, it takes two days to complete. I said vast, just looking out over one section one could drop the Isle of Whight into it and still have water around it, I suppose a 360 degree view around would pobably take in the whole of Ireland with some to spare.
This land is virtually inaccessible, totally barren, bare fractured land high up at 7000ft and one of the most inhospitable place I have seen. Worth a visit just to see one of natures facades.
Arches National Park was a dissapointment, far too busy, arches in rocks are not particularly interesting and in general the worst park we have been to.
JUNE 21 st saw us I suppose at my wish taking a day to visit Lake Powell a monster Lake some 200 odd miles long formed when the Colorado River was dammed by the Hoover Dam. Glen Canyon with a ferry across the lake sounded good and i hoped for a rather greener setting with the tree lined lake etc. Nothing could be further from reality, the lake was there no access to the shore line it is mostly mountain straaight into water, no greenery just desert mountain and rock. Ferry every 2 hours to same thing on other side, campsite 50 dollars, we turned round and came back to Blanding for the night a round trip of 180 mile for nothing. Idilic settings are non existent in this neck of the woods. Oh temperature was 93F.
JUNE 22 onward to the Messa Verde National Park where we stayed at the parks Maresfield site. The Messa Verde Park states it is the only national park to focus on preseving the buildings and dwellings of the former inhabitants of the area. The buildings mainly consist of dwellings built within caves or overhangs in the cliff faces of the various gorges. Dated to around 850 60 1300 AD, curiously the Americans call these people pre historic separated by a common language or what! The dwellings are difficult to get to and some are downright impossible they were approached when in use by use of handholds in the cliff face. Quite why they came from townships on the measa above where they grew crops and hunted no one knows and why they were abandoned by 1300 no on can say though obviously there are many theories.. We had a group guided tour round one "township" called pueblo in these areas which was fascinating though the ladder access and egress was a little challenging. High high up place yet again, will we ever get back down.
Large forest fire to the east blotted out the sky for the evening and was still growing in the morning when we left fanned by a strong wind again we later read evacuations and property loss had occurred and the fir e was still in control,
JUNE 23rd to Monument Valley a longish drive through some of the most desolate areas yet we both thought about the same time that we had been travelling for the last 50 miles though a very nasty looking slag heap. I keep harping back to this but desolation hardly describes some of these areas, hell might be more appropriate. Then suddenly up a slope and everything changes from desert yellow and nasty to deep red and over the brow and into Monument Valley. Another world of endless flatland with thes monumental shapes sticking up everywhere many so familiar from cowboy and many other films. Great w shaped rock patterns and colours which put the Isle of White colours to shame, the wavey shape is incorporated in much of the Indian craftwork. The whole are is controlled by the Naverro Indians.
The Valley was great to see and is again immense. We stayed inGoldings Camp Park right opposite some of the well known monoliths and went to a showing of Stage Coach 1939 John Wayne film which was filmed in the Valley. Good fun .
Left rather abruptly as we found a library where we could connect up and send off everything!
Anyway tortuous driving with heavy Sunday traffic, escapes from Denver, saw us passing along many gorges, no valleys, with individual houses many rather nice, until we reached an overwhelmingly tripperish town of Estes Park just outside the boundary of the national park. Camped in the Park at Morraine Campground approached via a bone shaking 1.5 mile road which was being reconstruted and was down to bare rock at the time of our visit. Lovely site great views and sited at 8250 ft.
Now I mention Estes Park for a particular reason. I have commented on forest fires earlier, we read today 25th June in the local paper that a fire has been raging around Estes Park, 1400 people have been evacuated, 21 homes lost to date and the whole area closed off. we would not have been able to do that route or we could alternatively have been involved with the fire!
Having driven all over the place i had thought heights were perhaps behind us, what an idiot. Monday 18th saw us off around the north western perimeter of the Park and statred with a two hour slow climb., magnificant mountain scenery quite outstanding and a hieght gain to 12450 ft on the road with a coffee stop at the visitors centre at 12145 ft.
Where are you from, England, oh please send us some of your rain is a automatic response by just about everyone now. Here at the Visitors centre the ranger said in June last year when we opened up ther was 12ft of snow covering areas of the building, this year no snow and no rain too, things are bad the opposite way to the UK.
A good run down the rockies to Granby past a large an pretty lake onto the 40 and thence across a back road to interstate 70 for the run to Glenwood Springs. We've now picked up the Colorado River again and where this meets mountains it means canyons big huge ones quite narrow with the road at the base and mountains towering thosands of feet above you. A variety of scenery therefore and mostly pastoral.
A complete no sequeter, way back in Wyoming I spoke of the pastoral agrarian landscape helped by the irrigation started by Buffalo Bill which extended for some 30 to40 miles and covered an area of some 1500 sq miles. Towards its NE corner the Yellowstone River was the source for water, a full and fast flowing river. The whole valley was prosperous and looked a dream for agriculture. At the border with Momtana the valley and river continued for 30 miles but one yard inside montana was desert, useless scrub land and nothing, green and fertile to zilch in one stride.
Back again at Glenwood Springs which is really a ski resort we stayed in a rundown mainly residential site called The Hideout, it sufficed just, the town itself did nothing to excite us.
19th to 21st JUNE
Form Glenwood Springs we took the 70 past naval shale oil reserves miles of them whatever they are and decided to take a route cutting a corner off to Moab via the 128 which was described at the start as a narrow winding road with 20mph hairpins, an obvious challenge and seemingly a bleak one from the desert start in considerable heat. One moment we were twisting and turning when suddenly round a corner was scenery the like of which we had never seen before in fact quite the best road scenery to date. Broad valley and canyons, all the pinacles and odd rock formations plus individual monoliths standing up all over the place in fact like monument valley of cowboy fame with mountains closer by which had been sculpted by a god somehow. Although in the same area as CanyonLand the basic valley and gorge bottom was gentler and not quite so demonic.
Moab and a campsite Canyonlands CG for two
nights. Moab a reasonable town which sells itself on outdoor activity such as white water rafting, off road trips etc. Actually I would be disapointwd with the rafting as we saw on our back road in twenty or more rafts, 12 people in an inflateable, paddling hot and aimlessly down th Colorado River and more or less struggling to get over the rapids as the river is very low for the time of year.
There is a superb Indian Atrifacts shop in town.
Our stop was to visit Canyonland and The Arches National Parks. Canyonland is a series of canyons viewed from above and the area is vast and that is an understatement. From above you look down from various view points to a rim about 1000 ft below which is the top of another canyon which falls again down hundreds of feet and this in turn becomes the rim of yet another gorge below that. It is possible to drive round the second rim on an old trail used by the uranium miners, it takes two days to complete. I said vast, just looking out over one section one could drop the Isle of Whight into it and still have water around it, I suppose a 360 degree view around would pobably take in the whole of Ireland with some to spare.
This land is virtually inaccessible, totally barren, bare fractured land high up at 7000ft and one of the most inhospitable place I have seen. Worth a visit just to see one of natures facades.
Arches National Park was a dissapointment, far too busy, arches in rocks are not particularly interesting and in general the worst park we have been to.
JUNE 21 st saw us I suppose at my wish taking a day to visit Lake Powell a monster Lake some 200 odd miles long formed when the Colorado River was dammed by the Hoover Dam. Glen Canyon with a ferry across the lake sounded good and i hoped for a rather greener setting with the tree lined lake etc. Nothing could be further from reality, the lake was there no access to the shore line it is mostly mountain straaight into water, no greenery just desert mountain and rock. Ferry every 2 hours to same thing on other side, campsite 50 dollars, we turned round and came back to Blanding for the night a round trip of 180 mile for nothing. Idilic settings are non existent in this neck of the woods. Oh temperature was 93F.
JUNE 22 onward to the Messa Verde National Park where we stayed at the parks Maresfield site. The Messa Verde Park states it is the only national park to focus on preseving the buildings and dwellings of the former inhabitants of the area. The buildings mainly consist of dwellings built within caves or overhangs in the cliff faces of the various gorges. Dated to around 850 60 1300 AD, curiously the Americans call these people pre historic separated by a common language or what! The dwellings are difficult to get to and some are downright impossible they were approached when in use by use of handholds in the cliff face. Quite why they came from townships on the measa above where they grew crops and hunted no one knows and why they were abandoned by 1300 no on can say though obviously there are many theories.. We had a group guided tour round one "township" called pueblo in these areas which was fascinating though the ladder access and egress was a little challenging. High high up place yet again, will we ever get back down.
Large forest fire to the east blotted out the sky for the evening and was still growing in the morning when we left fanned by a strong wind again we later read evacuations and property loss had occurred and the fir e was still in control,
JUNE 23rd to Monument Valley a longish drive through some of the most desolate areas yet we both thought about the same time that we had been travelling for the last 50 miles though a very nasty looking slag heap. I keep harping back to this but desolation hardly describes some of these areas, hell might be more appropriate. Then suddenly up a slope and everything changes from desert yellow and nasty to deep red and over the brow and into Monument Valley. Another world of endless flatland with thes monumental shapes sticking up everywhere many so familiar from cowboy and many other films. Great w shaped rock patterns and colours which put the Isle of White colours to shame, the wavey shape is incorporated in much of the Indian craftwork. The whole are is controlled by the Naverro Indians.
The Valley was great to see and is again immense. We stayed inGoldings Camp Park right opposite some of the well known monoliths and went to a showing of Stage Coach 1939 John Wayne film which was filmed in the Valley. Good fun .
Monday, 25 June 2012
CODY and BEYOND. (change of direction by mutual consent now swinging east then down south in a circle back to LA) Sorry spell check did not work!
Slipped up with the blog over the last few hundered miles.
CODY stayed for three nights on Ponderosa camp ground and liked the town. As I said earlier it takes it's name form Buffalo Bill, William Cody, who was aresident in the area and who apart from being a showman with his world renowned Wild West Show was also a Government tracker in the Indian wars, a top class backwoodsman and friend of Wild Biill Hitchock, Kit Carson etc. Cody set up the original town of Cody and was the inspiration behind the irrigation project which dug a 30 mile canal through the region and which now, expanded somewhat irrigates an area of some 1500sq miles giving the best agriculture in Wyoming. He was also instrumental in getting the government to build a dam, now named Buffalo Bill dam which houses enough water to irrigate the entire region. Not just a Cowboy.
We went to a country singing show which was good and were introduced as the only English people in the audience of 27.
A nightly rodeo is held for the likes of us and to all intents it is similar to a proper rodeo without perhaps the partisan support of the riders. Dangerous and rough it is riders were hurt, a bull gored his rider before it left its' pen and all riders were tossed off their steeds eventually, tacky but fun.
Buffalo Bill Museum sounds a bit iffy but is infact five museums in one, all built within the last five years and run by the Smithsonium Museum the premier USA museum on par with the British Museum. A day or more could be spent here and it was all of an exceptional standard.
Various mini walks into town and some almost passable meals later we set of for:-
Montana June 13th to a place called Hardin going on a wide loop on the 310 and then the 90 to the little town.
En route we stopped at a camp a few miles outside Cody on the Alt14A, not a camp but a visitors centre on the site, where 14000 West Coast Japeneese were interned after Pearl Harbour and kept there for the duration of the war. Very interesting and moving, 95% were American citizens and were dispossesd of everything in the four years and had to start from scratch when the were released with next to nothing. Trueman and elenor Rosvelt the presidents wife were vehemently opposed to the action but it went ahead, justified on defense grounds but actually caused more by racism than anything else.
Hardin close to the battlefield, area, of Custers Last stand. An interesting visit, I had envisaged vast mountains and sweeping valleys but no large areas yes but mor Downland like scenery with many gullies sweeping down to flat river areas.
In brief Custer was searching ,with others, for Indians to destroy and force them onto reservations which the Indians did not recognise. He came across a camp and fearing that he had been seen, which he had, he dcided to attack straight away and he did in a three pronged effort. He had 275 men, the camp he saw was huge 6000 people with at least 2000 warrior Indians. A curious decision to attack, perhaps an arrogent one as well when he could have withdrawn and waited for reinforcements which were in the area. He did not wait and we know the result. We stood on the site of Custers last stand wher he and the final 30 of his men were killed.
Difficult facts but there is no doubt that the Indian tribes and people were treated very badly indeed but how do you put together two totally different ways of life, probably impossible the Indians a nomadic hunter gather moving with the bison heards over vast stretches of land areas bigger than the UK and holding most of that land sacred with the famers, ranchers miners who create townships and railroads to connect. All present day stuff require limited individual space, profit and food, onlt food relates to the Indian and the buffalo 30 million of them were virtually wiped out in ten years by the profiteers for their skins so no food for the Indians. It all gets so mixed up and impossible to sort out America has not, Australia has not and Canada has its' own similar problem. Today we drive through huge Indian reservations, the land though sacred is of no use to them, their villages are shambolic and sparse being rude there seem to be a aweful lot of car breakers yard around many of the shake like dwellings, this is not integration into modern society nor is it the " Indian way of LIfe" complete no mans land ---I think!!!
Enough enough enough
Oh yes a conversation overheard between a local and an outsider with the local rancher type saying there was nothing typical about the hot weather 88F at the time he had been snowed in for at least two days in every month of the year except August so nothing was typical.
14th JUNE
From Hardin Grandview camp (no view) we continued eastward to Mount Rushmore to view the Presidents carved in the mountain face rock. The carvings are impressive and though a pilgramage of too many Americans they are worth a visit. Following this we went to see the carving in progress of Crazy Horse a carving asked for by Indian chiefs to show that Indians honoured their people as well. Facts I forget but this was envisaged and started some 50-60 years ago, a polish American sculptor was chosen and he designed and worked on it the whole of his life some 40 years or so. To start with for years on his own and then with his children as they grew up. A video presentation showed all this and decribed in detail what the project was and it includes a big university and medical college for the north west American Indians. We were shown the now massive visitors complex and told how all monies for the carving and everything else was funded by donation and visitor entries as the ethos of the whole thing was for and by the people. Huge national and state funding has been repeatedly refused. Not once in this presentation were the Indians mentioned it was all about the Polish American Family. The visitirs centre is the largest and most impressive we have seen but it housed a craft fair of hundreds of Indian stalls, the carving which is the be all and end all of the project is going very slowly and may be completed in 50 years time if they are lucky. Where were the Indians apart from stall holders.
Stayed the night at a KOA site Devils Tower closeish Mount Rushmore area. Devils Tower is a huge piece of rock sticking out of the ground all on its own. The tower was a major feature of the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
15th JUNE
Off again to and I've got it wrong now. We reached Devils Tower the night before we saw the Presidents so after that visit we ended up at Custer a decent sized town where we stayed in a rustic site calledBig Pine Campground on the route 16.
16th JUNE
A days slog of a drive down to Cheyenne capital city of Wyoming but down in the south east corner of the state within a mile or two of Colorado and Nebraska. Went via the 85 vrtually to the town a longish trip through nonderscript scenery, very hot. Stopped for coffee as one does at a wayside town with a Stage Coach museum went in and got caught by an enthusiastic lady! still we learned quite a lot and saw the last stagecoach to run on the deadwood trail between Cheyenne and Deadwood. Gosh the coach was cramped and would today take about six people max. It is said it took up to eighteen people and 5 days to get between destinations. Driver , armed, and shotgun rider with each coach and often a horse rider guard too. I seem to have missed out that we called in at Deadwood, a small town with a big and wid history, it still has lots of cassinos and bars etc.
Why Cheyenne, sounded nice but was average and had a huge railyard which appeared to have a control tower in the middle. Campsite KOA again sais by someone to be the beat KOA ever and quiet. LIAR. Set 150 yards off the interstate 80 I counted an average of 300 lories per hour at 7pm on a Saturday evening same through the night and on Sunday when we left.
SUNDAY 17th JUNE
Left on a windy day down the 85 towards Denver but turned off at Greeley into the Rocky Mountain National Park Colorado, Rockies actualy run Mexico to Alaska 3000odd miles so this was a Southern section. Passed one Forest fire before Greeley. Up narrow gorges with lots of traffic into the national Park
Slipped up with the blog over the last few hundered miles.
CODY stayed for three nights on Ponderosa camp ground and liked the town. As I said earlier it takes it's name form Buffalo Bill, William Cody, who was aresident in the area and who apart from being a showman with his world renowned Wild West Show was also a Government tracker in the Indian wars, a top class backwoodsman and friend of Wild Biill Hitchock, Kit Carson etc. Cody set up the original town of Cody and was the inspiration behind the irrigation project which dug a 30 mile canal through the region and which now, expanded somewhat irrigates an area of some 1500sq miles giving the best agriculture in Wyoming. He was also instrumental in getting the government to build a dam, now named Buffalo Bill dam which houses enough water to irrigate the entire region. Not just a Cowboy.
We went to a country singing show which was good and were introduced as the only English people in the audience of 27.
A nightly rodeo is held for the likes of us and to all intents it is similar to a proper rodeo without perhaps the partisan support of the riders. Dangerous and rough it is riders were hurt, a bull gored his rider before it left its' pen and all riders were tossed off their steeds eventually, tacky but fun.
Buffalo Bill Museum sounds a bit iffy but is infact five museums in one, all built within the last five years and run by the Smithsonium Museum the premier USA museum on par with the British Museum. A day or more could be spent here and it was all of an exceptional standard.
Various mini walks into town and some almost passable meals later we set of for:-
Montana June 13th to a place called Hardin going on a wide loop on the 310 and then the 90 to the little town.
En route we stopped at a camp a few miles outside Cody on the Alt14A, not a camp but a visitors centre on the site, where 14000 West Coast Japeneese were interned after Pearl Harbour and kept there for the duration of the war. Very interesting and moving, 95% were American citizens and were dispossesd of everything in the four years and had to start from scratch when the were released with next to nothing. Trueman and elenor Rosvelt the presidents wife were vehemently opposed to the action but it went ahead, justified on defense grounds but actually caused more by racism than anything else.
Hardin close to the battlefield, area, of Custers Last stand. An interesting visit, I had envisaged vast mountains and sweeping valleys but no large areas yes but mor Downland like scenery with many gullies sweeping down to flat river areas.
In brief Custer was searching ,with others, for Indians to destroy and force them onto reservations which the Indians did not recognise. He came across a camp and fearing that he had been seen, which he had, he dcided to attack straight away and he did in a three pronged effort. He had 275 men, the camp he saw was huge 6000 people with at least 2000 warrior Indians. A curious decision to attack, perhaps an arrogent one as well when he could have withdrawn and waited for reinforcements which were in the area. He did not wait and we know the result. We stood on the site of Custers last stand wher he and the final 30 of his men were killed.
Difficult facts but there is no doubt that the Indian tribes and people were treated very badly indeed but how do you put together two totally different ways of life, probably impossible the Indians a nomadic hunter gather moving with the bison heards over vast stretches of land areas bigger than the UK and holding most of that land sacred with the famers, ranchers miners who create townships and railroads to connect. All present day stuff require limited individual space, profit and food, onlt food relates to the Indian and the buffalo 30 million of them were virtually wiped out in ten years by the profiteers for their skins so no food for the Indians. It all gets so mixed up and impossible to sort out America has not, Australia has not and Canada has its' own similar problem. Today we drive through huge Indian reservations, the land though sacred is of no use to them, their villages are shambolic and sparse being rude there seem to be a aweful lot of car breakers yard around many of the shake like dwellings, this is not integration into modern society nor is it the " Indian way of LIfe" complete no mans land ---I think!!!
Enough enough enough
Oh yes a conversation overheard between a local and an outsider with the local rancher type saying there was nothing typical about the hot weather 88F at the time he had been snowed in for at least two days in every month of the year except August so nothing was typical.
14th JUNE
From Hardin Grandview camp (no view) we continued eastward to Mount Rushmore to view the Presidents carved in the mountain face rock. The carvings are impressive and though a pilgramage of too many Americans they are worth a visit. Following this we went to see the carving in progress of Crazy Horse a carving asked for by Indian chiefs to show that Indians honoured their people as well. Facts I forget but this was envisaged and started some 50-60 years ago, a polish American sculptor was chosen and he designed and worked on it the whole of his life some 40 years or so. To start with for years on his own and then with his children as they grew up. A video presentation showed all this and decribed in detail what the project was and it includes a big university and medical college for the north west American Indians. We were shown the now massive visitors complex and told how all monies for the carving and everything else was funded by donation and visitor entries as the ethos of the whole thing was for and by the people. Huge national and state funding has been repeatedly refused. Not once in this presentation were the Indians mentioned it was all about the Polish American Family. The visitirs centre is the largest and most impressive we have seen but it housed a craft fair of hundreds of Indian stalls, the carving which is the be all and end all of the project is going very slowly and may be completed in 50 years time if they are lucky. Where were the Indians apart from stall holders.
Stayed the night at a KOA site Devils Tower closeish Mount Rushmore area. Devils Tower is a huge piece of rock sticking out of the ground all on its own. The tower was a major feature of the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
15th JUNE
Off again to and I've got it wrong now. We reached Devils Tower the night before we saw the Presidents so after that visit we ended up at Custer a decent sized town where we stayed in a rustic site calledBig Pine Campground on the route 16.
16th JUNE
A days slog of a drive down to Cheyenne capital city of Wyoming but down in the south east corner of the state within a mile or two of Colorado and Nebraska. Went via the 85 vrtually to the town a longish trip through nonderscript scenery, very hot. Stopped for coffee as one does at a wayside town with a Stage Coach museum went in and got caught by an enthusiastic lady! still we learned quite a lot and saw the last stagecoach to run on the deadwood trail between Cheyenne and Deadwood. Gosh the coach was cramped and would today take about six people max. It is said it took up to eighteen people and 5 days to get between destinations. Driver , armed, and shotgun rider with each coach and often a horse rider guard too. I seem to have missed out that we called in at Deadwood, a small town with a big and wid history, it still has lots of cassinos and bars etc.
Why Cheyenne, sounded nice but was average and had a huge railyard which appeared to have a control tower in the middle. Campsite KOA again sais by someone to be the beat KOA ever and quiet. LIAR. Set 150 yards off the interstate 80 I counted an average of 300 lories per hour at 7pm on a Saturday evening same through the night and on Sunday when we left.
SUNDAY 17th JUNE
Left on a windy day down the 85 towards Denver but turned off at Greeley into the Rocky Mountain National Park Colorado, Rockies actualy run Mexico to Alaska 3000odd miles so this was a Southern section. Passed one Forest fire before Greeley. Up narrow gorges with lots of traffic into the national Park
Wednesday, 20 June 2012
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)