Great Road Trip of 2017....Part Eight/Day Six & Seven

Part One of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Two of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Three of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Four of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Five of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Six of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Seven of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE

After we got into the car and jacked up the a/c we headed back into the actual town of Laramie, Wyoming.

Back over the Platte River.....that river seems to be everywhere out here.

And then we headed North through Laramie, WY-the town.
And we drove and drove.....

And drove a little more.....and more. We started questioning our directions and sanity at this point(maybe 3 hours out in that heat did a number on our brain cells).

Then I spotted a couple of houses set off from the road but no signage for a ranch entrance or a B and B.  This was a head scratcher for sure.  So I prayed for cell reception and whipped out my phone and called their number.

Kathy, one of the owners, answered and said she could see our car so we just needed to go a bit further down the road, so we did and bingo, bango, we found the entrance.

Welcome to Fort Laramie Bed & Breakfast on a working Cattle Ranch.

                     

We headed into the main building to sign in and get situated.  Thankfully this building was air conditioned!  Kathy had drinks and fresh cookies ready to greet all the guests.

                       

Then we took a little tour around to see all the accommodations....

 

You could stay in an authentic Sheep Wagon.  It fit two cozily.

A gentleman and his deaf daughter who were on a trip together were staying in this wagon.

He scared the bejeezus out of me that night when I had to go to the "outhouse"(An elegant outhouse with one side for the sheep wagon guests and another with our bath area.  It had all the modern conveniences except the shower was outside behind the building.) This classy outhouse was between our accommodations and theirs.  The guy was sleeping in a sleeping bag on the front porch area attached to the wagon, out under the stars and he rolled over just as I was within eyesight of the wagon making my way in the very, very dark back to our "room".

The sign for the Out House on the main building.

The campfire in the forefront with the chuck wagon and a family cabin(we didn't check that out as their was a family already in there and a teepee.

Here's a shot of the sheep wagon in the center with the outhouse to the left and the teepee on the right.

And here was our accommodations for the evening.....

Yep, it's 103F degrees and we were going to sleep in a genuine teepee.  I've always wanted to stay in a teepee(must be my 1,034th%+ Native American ancestry, right?)so here we were on one of the hottest days in the year. sigh

I took all these photos of the teepee.

It was constructed on site by a local craftsman who knows how to craft an authentic teepee.

The we went inside and checked it out and man, was it steamy in there!

The roof of our teepee with a dreamcatcher hanging from it.

After taking that shot my camera lens fogged up. lolz

Kathy assured us that once the sun went down it would cool off in there.  I had my doubts but said OK.  No one was staying in the Officer's Quarters that night which were in part of the main building with a/c so if I wimped out we could move into there.

So we ditched our luggage in the "sweat lodge" and hung out in the main building or on it's large front porch.

The porch....

And the view from the porch of part of the ranch with cattle grazing.

Here's the ranches cat having his dinner.

There were all kinds of ranchy type things to look at, like this assortment of cattle brands hanging on the front porch. 

And this old saddle turned side ways with a mirror on it.  One of the owners, Kathy, was off making our dinner(paying for and getting dinner here was optional).  She was going to prepare an old fashioned western "milk can" dinner, cooked over an open fire, but discovered the milk can she borrowed from a neighbor had no bottom(or had holes in said bottom)so she had to think fast and whip up something else in her kitchen.

Arnold, Kathy's husband, paused a few second so I could capture this on my camera........

Time to put on the ol' feed bag with all the other guests in the main building......

We still have a one pot cast iron dinner cooked over an open fire....

Here's my plate with grilled chicken, carrots, cabbage, small ear of corn, a potato and a drop biscuit.

It was quite good and filling.

Afterwards we sat a spell in the rocking chairs.....

Here we are by the Chuck Wagon..........

Then the sun began to set........

I tried my hand at steer roping......without much success.

A beautiful visa behind the ranch........

Nighttime over takes the day.......

Our hosts, Kathy and Arnold, pose in front of the Chuck Wagon for me.

And as the night fell on the out house on the left and the sheep wagon on the right(taken from the platform/porch of our teepee)it was time to turn in.

And indeed Kathy was correct.  The inside of the teepee cooled off at sunset and was a warm but comfortable 80F degrees.  I slept most of the night on my back, looking up at the stars I could see from the opening in the top of the teepee and falling asleep.

At one point a short storm came up and woke me.  Mostly it was just stiff breezes blowing on the prairie but it make a racket with the tent covering flapping but cooled things off even more.  

Before dawn I had to use the out house.  The teepee had two of those pop-up lanterns so I carefully and slowly made my way to the bathroom staying on the wooden walkway(remember this is rattlesnake country!) 
As I returned to the teepee I noticed a fawn near the outhouse and it's mother a distance behind it.  I grabbed my camera but it was much too dark(and they were too far away)to get a good shot.

By the time I got this shot the fawn at moved away but you can maybe make out mommy deer above.  I sat for awhile in the dark watching them from the Adirondack chair on our platform.

Time to rise and shine......

The campfire is going bright and early.

And Arnold is preparing "cowboy coffee".  I had a little of Hubs' just to sample it as I don't drink coffee.

Then it was time to sit down to a hearty breakfast at the main building's spacious dining table with all the guests.

Afterwards we bid our hosts and fellow travelers farewell and headed out.

We headed back down the long driveway.

And saw some cattle also heading out for greener pastures.

Here's the close up of the ranch's sign we didn't see at the entrance heading in.

And in town we saw this sign advertising the B and B.

Pretty soon we hit this town.......

And then this State Historic Site where part of the Oregon Trail Ruts are preserved in rock the wagons traveled over.

And they mention my ancestral cousin, Bill Sublette, in this landmark sign.

                                

We had to hike up a bazillion stairs to get to the trail ruts.  We stopped and took a breather at the sign above before continuing up. 

 A woman and a child were coming down and said watch out because the rattlesnakes are out up there.  Yikes!

Here I am standing in some of the ruts at the Guernsey WY site.  See how deep all those wagons passing along this same trail carved into the rocks here?  It had to be 1.5 feet deep, almost to my knees at this section.

I got to thinking while standing in those wagon ruts about my paternal 4 x Great Grandfather, John Spencer Bowman.  When his first wife died in 1833 in Ireland, he soon married again and he and his new bride jumped on a ship headed for Philadelphia, PA.  They kept traveling West over the years, never staying in one place for more than ten years and having 10 more children(he had 4 with the first wife and left them behind in Ireland but they eventually made it to America as well).

                      

By 1860 the newer family had made it to Jackson, Iowa and by 1868 John along with two of his sons(by his first wife)were in Montana.  John was 58 years old in 1863 when their last child was born in Jackson County, Iowa, so he traveled to Montana sometime after that date, making it to Montana by his 63rd year in 1868.

When we were there seeing the wagon ruts I was 58 years old.  I just kept shaking my head and saying, "How did he do this at that age?"  It was a hard and long journey by foot and wagon, exposed to the elements and the threat of native American attacks, illness and everything else that could befall a person.  I guess Americans back then where made of sterner stuff.  Even though life was harder back then and life expectancy wasn't as long as it is now, I certainly would have never made that trek at that age and lived to see the destination!

Back down the winding stairway and back to the car and sweet, sweet a/c.  And since we almost had to go right by this other landmark we stopped here........

This is another landmark along the Oregon Trail.

This is Register Cliff.  It rises 100 feet above the North Platte River.

Many of the wagon trains headed West stopped here either for a rest or for the night as it's shelter gave protection from the elements a bit.

This rock formation is made of limestone so a very soft mineral/rock and as time went on travelers began to carve their names and dates into the cliff and then dig caves into it's side.

I walked around and wondered about the lives of all those people who made the trek and "left their calling card" on these rocks.

It's impossible to make out anything legible from a photo(plus some of the less well inscribed names/dates into the rock weren't very legible in person.

How did these folks fare in their new surroundings once they made it to their destination?  As an amateur genealogist it gave me pause.

You can read more about Register Cliff HERE. 

After some time there, we headed back toward the road out of town and passed right by this unobtrusive monument/marker...

I guess the Pony Express ran right along this same route by the Register Cliff on it's 1860 to 1861 route.  

Next time, we finish up leaving Wyoming and experience a brief overnight stay in Colorado before hitting Utah.

Sluggy