Winding down
June 7 & 8
Over last two days we have seen
very little to stop and photograph. What
we have seen is, leaving Loveland was dairy farms and feeder lots. In fact one feeder lot was nearly ¾ of a mile
long and full. Getting into Nebraska it
was nearly mile after mile of corn and soy beans. This also continued into Kansas. It was not our plan to go to Kansas but Jan
checked the radar and found that along our route was a rain system. We felt that it would be best if we found a
go around so we headed south into Kansas.
This route proved to be a great alternative. We ended up going along the old Pony Express
route. After a looking at map, we found
that over the last 4 days we had pretty much followed the route from Sacramento
all the way to Jefferson City, MO. Since
we had scheduled so many miles each day, we did not stop at any of the old way
stations. However, we did learn that the Pony Express only existed for about 18
months. It wasn’t very profitable even
with subsidies. The dagger to the heart
for it was the telegraph. There were way
stations put at 10 mile intervals and the average rider rode between 80 and 100
miles per day at 10 mph. The rider wore
lite clothing for weight and only carried some water, a pistol and a
bible. The letters were carried in
special made slings so that they would be easily traded from horse to
horse. One of the riders was the
legendary Wild Bill Hitchcock. His life was fascinating from beginning to its
end in Deadwood, SD. We found that the “PE”
owned about 400 horses (mostly Morgan and Thoroughbreds). The Morgan is what most police use because of
its durability.
As we traveled across the West, I
continually thought what it would have been like have been a pioneer in the
1800’s. As it turned out we were continually
on and off the Oregon Trail through most of our travel. I can’t imagine how they navigated the rivers
and some of the steep hills. Those were
probably not as catastrophic as the Indians and the weather. Many times, we would top a hill and be able
to see a distance much greater than they could travel in a day. I had often wondered how they got through the
Rockies and Sierra Nevada Mountains. Since
we travel this route, now we can see that they went through the lowest parts of
the mountains. They worked up into Wyoming
and into Idaho on their way. We can
attest that these were much more manageable.
Today we finished our 38th
day on the trip and tomorrow if everything goes as planned we will finish at
home in the afternoon. This has been a
wonderful trip seeing sites that we had heard about all of our lives. I think it is fair to say we have not been disappointed. I’ll recap this trip and give a link to where
you’ll be able to see more pictures.