We got our truck and camper out of its storage of one year and set out again after visits in Colorado. The first waypoint was southeastern Wyoming along the Platte River. Many of the pioneer trails west go along the Platte River, from Nebraska and into Wyoming, including the Mormon Trail, California Trail, and the Oregon Trail. The Pony Express also used much of this route. Some of the trails’ stories are still told in rocks and terrain worn down by so many wagons and by rocks still containing inscriptions of names, dates, and dreamed of destinations. Fort Laramie Wyoming was established to assist westward travelers on their way, mostly with supplies, and, secondarily, protection from raiding Indians. Today it is a National Historic Site. The definition of “Pioneering Spirit” is crystallized when you see what a challenge this travel must have been, with the sole motivation of making a better life.
We continued on through the Black Hills of South Dakota which has always provided a special treat of mixture of inspiring scenery, prairie wildlife, and history of gold miners and Indians.
Continuing northward, we encountered the Teddy Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. After seeing his mother and wife die on the same day, a young Roosevelt in his twenties was burned out. He went out west from New York to this area in North Dakota along the Missouri River to rejuvenate. This experience was singularly the most significant factor in forming the philosophies on his creating government lands as parks and forest during his presidency. He truly invented “conservation” and we all owe a great deal to his visionary preservation of our national treasures. While the land is called the ND Badlands, they do not live up to that name. An intriguing mix of painted canyons, rivers, and hills covered with vegetation set the backdrop of almost every view.
While North and South Dakota are still primarily open farmlands, the presence of the oil boom and wind-generated power was ever present. That area is definitely booming economically. Housing was in short supply and “worker housing” neighborhoods were springing up everywhere, usually consisting of parked RVs, mobile homes, or barracks-type of temporary housing. The watershed of jobs from the oil included truck driving, motels and housing, restaurants and bars, road construction - everything that an area with a growth too fast has to face. Higher prices reflecting the lack of supply and no discounts were the way of life there.
Following the Missouri River westward through the eastern part of Montana and closer and closer to the Canadian border, we saw plains turning into rolling hills and rolling hills turning into our first views of the Rockies! Next stop- Glacier National Park, then into the Canadian Rockies.
No comments:
Post a Comment