Day 11 -- Rawlins to Glendo, Wyoming -- Friday June 7, 2013

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On road from Rawlins to check out the four Oregon Trail way points that we missed yesterday.  The drive to the first way point, Independence Rock, was beautiful.  The hills are green, antelope are busy harvesting the greens, the sky is blue and the clouds are high.

We are beginning to see more evidence of the four different trails that followed the same path, at least up to the Parting of the Ways and Hastings Cut-off. These four groups are the people going to Oregon, Brigham’s Young Mormon Pioneer Party headed north to Salt Lake City, the people going to California (after 1848) and, a little later on in 1860, the Pony Express.  All of these events are well memorialized along the portion of the trail that we will be following for the next several days.

As we travel north and east from Rawlins we are in the Big Sky Country that is the stuff of John Wayne movies, Louis L’Amour novels, and much Western music.  Whether or not the emigrants in 1850 were as enamored of the romance and adventure as we have become 150 years later is a good question.  
 There are many quotes along the trails on highway markers and in the visitor’s centers that we have visited.  There are complaints of the a tedium and boredom of the same thing day after day – up at daybreak, fixing breakfast, yoking the oxen, then walking mile after dreary mile through sagebrush and sand.  There are few trees, fewer sources for fresh water, little food for the humans and, very importantly, grass for the animals is hard to come by.

We stop first at Independence Rock, a significant way point along the route.  The name comes, according to legend at least, from the fact that a group of travelers stopped there on July 4 and thus the name stuck.  Rock formations such as these are visible for miles across the flat plains and serve as navigation way points for the wagon trains.  As we pulled in to the Independence Rock site we saw a group of people gathered around a covered wagon there, and a number of cars parked along the side of the parking area.  The cars bore Utah license plates, and given the fact that most of the people in the group were dressed, more or less, in 19th Century closing I surmised thy were on some kind of an excursion.  Subsequently, I noted a bumper sticker on one of the cars that identified the group as a group of Mormons who were following the Mormon Trail – presumably to remember how the first Mormons came to Salt Lake.

A much smaller rock outcropping, separated from Independence Rock and a bit further east is known as Overlook Rock because one of the travelers who climbed to the top aid that you could over look the whole area from that vantage point.

Independence Rock was one of the several places along the trail where travelers would often inscribe their names on the rock to record their passage.  Some of those inscriptions are still visible, and some are of more recent vintage.  The soft sandstone is susceptible to erosion by wind, degradation by lichens, and defacement by idiots. 

After Independence Rock we headed for the visitors center in Casper, Wyoming.  As we drove up we noted a log cabin was being constructed on the site with a little help for some modern conveniences.  It would have been nice to see some of the college students from the nearby campus pitch in and replace diesel power with muscle power.  The visitors center was, I thought, rather over the top, but there were parts that were very interesting.  Especially the parts dealing with the conflicts with the Natives in the Area.  These conflicts are becoming more prevalent, at least as the story is being told, as we move east  Since we had recently been in Northeast Oregon, the traditional home of the Nez Perce, I was interested in the story on their banishment to Oklahoma by General Sherman. Like many of these conflicts there are two sides to every story, and people with various points of view are found on both sides of these stories.
One of the stories about the conflict in the area that was told in the museum bays was of the ambush of and army supply train  at Platte Creek.  In this ambush several American soldiers were apparently killed out right, but the commander of the supply train, Lt. Caspar Collins was initially wounded, but succumbed to his injuries.

It seems like the story is repeated over and over: The Army and settlers in the area in which they come into contact with Native Americans try to reach accommodation with the natives, whether it be to pass through the area on their way to Oregon or California, of whether they plan to try to settle in the area.  On the other side, some of the Native Americans are cordial to the people passing through and tolerant, perhaps with resignation of the inevitable, of the newcomers.  Of course, in the course of tens of thousands of people passing through there are confrontations that are not always resolved peacefully.  When that happens there is retribution  revenge.  Neither the Natives nor the the newcomers are innocent in this process.

From then visitors center we continue our journey and spend the night in a campground at Glendo reservoir, a area being developed along the Platte River in Eastern Wyoming.  There are many boats pulling into the area for the weekend as we arrive on Friday night.  We find a camping spot and have a light supper.  The weather is a little questionable and I woke up about 4:30 AM by a pretty loud windstorm and a light rain.  The wind makes a very loud noise as is blows through the trees. I hunker down in my sleeping bay for as long as I can stand it, then I gather up my slightly damp clothes, sleeping bag, and foam mattress and retreat to the van.  I guess I would not have made a good traveler in 1850.