Prayer Request for our Son

As a result of a workplace accident in December of 2000, our son has had to have everything in his shoulder "screwed and fused."  This solved the problem of his shoulder randomly falling out of joint, but it has done nothing for the damage to the nerves coming from his spine to everything in that quadrant of his body.

Our son will be 40 years old this year.  He has been in extreme physical pain for the last 12 years.  He was in the National Guard preparing to deploy overseas when this workplace accident occurred.  When he was six years old I could have told you he was "military," and I can tell you now that it broke his heart when the National Guard had to let him go because of the injury.

But the pain.  Can you imagine hurting at a scale of 8 out of 10 for TWELVE YEARS 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?  That's over 4,000 consecutive days.  And yet he continues to work a full time job, raise a family, run a farm.  There are days when things are tolerable, and there are days when he is in unbearable, untolerable pain from the get-go.  When manual labor is required he can manage for an hour or two, but then has to take pain medication that leaves him with severe side effects for the rest of the day.

Please pray for our son.  Pray for someone, somewhere in the world to see this blog and know of a medical solution or a medical nerve/pain trial that will help him.  Pray for nano technology or stem cell trials that will regrow healthy nerve tissue.  Pray for, miracle of miracles, a shoulder transplant or something that will restore our son.  Pray for his family because no one goes through eternal agony without affecting those nearest and dearest to him.  Pray for his current medical team and pray for future medical teams to step forward and say, "I think we can help with this."

Please pray.  This blog is now being read in 27 different countries on every continent but the Arctic and Anarctic.  Someone, somewhere on this planet knows how to help our son.  Please pray.  And please get in touch with us by clicking on "comment" at the bottom of the blog.  If you want your comment kept private simply say so.  Otherwise I will publish your comments so others will know you are praying.

Thank you, and may God bless and keep you always.

Jackson Hole, Wyoming

Jackson Hole today is called a micropolitan area.  (WHERE did they come up with THAT word??  Does it mean way small but very worldly / sophisticated?)  If you ask me, it is a way-fancy place for being literally in the middle of nowhere.  It's a place for the rich and famous to get away to.  For us, it's a town to walk around in and enjoy the ambience of.  (How about that:  ended two sentences with a preposition.  My English professor would be going nuts about now!  Good grammar doesn't always make for good conversation though - and this blog is about a conversation with our grandkids.  "Grandkids" is also not correct.  A "kid" is a baby goat.  Proper English would be "grandchildren."  However, sometimes our grandchildren are as hard headed as baby goats, so grandkids is correct in it's meaning??  Now, back to Jackson Hole, Wyoming.)

But this morning, we grab the first picnic spot we find, have a nice breakfast of sausage/egg/biscuits, and then get down to the business of computer-ing.  Yes! We get a super signal.  Granpa is on his laptop, and I'm on mine.

We are entertained and closely inspected by the Canadian geese that must call this park their home.

I like the gosling in the middle.  He seems to be the only teenager out here.  Got a bit of growing to do, huh?  We've got tons of goose pictures.  I love them all, but I won't bore you with anymore of them. 

After we get all our computing done we mosey into town for a bit of sightseeing. 

This is the town square.  At each corner they have these arches made from deer and elk horns.  This stagecoach ride looks interesting, but it only goes around the block - and it has to stop for the stoplights just like the cars do.  We opt out of riding the stop-and-go coach.

Here I am, visiting with one of my favorite writers, Mark Twain, as he chats with his friends, Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher.

There really is a lot of neat things to look at in the shops around the town square.  I'm not much of a shopper at all, but I did enjoy every one of these places.

Then it's back to the park for a picnic lunch with the geese.

The Moose

If you've been following our travels daily then you know what a royal pain it has been to try blogging on the go.  It has been just as much a pain to try and take care of personal business on line, too.  My patience is reaching critical mass.  So, first thing this morning we're going back through Grand Teton National Park to Jackson Hole, Wyoming where we're certain we can get a strong internet signal.

The drive through GTNP to Jackson Hole is almost surreal in its beauty. 

Yes, this is a photo Granpa took; it's not a painting!

Ditto...

It's a shame I can't upload all of the pictures Granpa has taken here and in Yellowstone.  The scenery and the animals are utterly amazing.  But, what's this?

Could it be?  We haven't seen one in years.  Wait a minute...

it's not just one, it's TWO!

Yea-a-a-a-a!  Hello, Mr. Bullwinkle!  I like your beard.

They say the Yellowstone fires of 1988 drove most all of the moose from Yellowstone down into the Tetons.  Must be some truth to that, eh?  They apparently have seen no good reason to go back up into Yellowstone.  But that's okay, there are plenty of other animals up there.  The Tetons can use you.

Unfortunately, however, the moose could stand to have a whole lot less people invading their turf:

Now, this moose has a couple of choices:  he can charge the man and stomp on him, he can ignore the man, or he can simply leave the area.  If a Park Ranger was here I know for a fact the Ranger would simply let the man reap his own reward.  The only time they physically step in is if a child is involved.  Why is there always some stupid human not content to revel in the glory of nature, but they are intent on being the one who gets closest?  Stupid.

Well, I have to say, I'm impressed with and proud of the moose.  He simply moved away.  It's a shame the man ran them out of sight of others just arriving at the "moose jam."  Stupid human.

As the Frenchman Would Say, The Great Breasts

"The Grand Tetons" - that's what it means in English, the Great Breasts.  

Granpa's photo is much better than my ol' iPhone-out-the-windshield snapshot:

The Frenchman that named these peaks was a trapper and fur trader.  When does one trap?  The winter time.  Imagine these mountains totally covered in snow.  Now, what might they look like to a lonely fur trapper?  That's probably why the name stuck...

Jackson Hole, Wyoming is at the base of these mountains, and the Grand Teton National Park butts up against Yellowstone National Park.  In fact, the entrance fee for one gives you access to the other.

It is truly beautiful here, and the air is crisp even in July.  The animals come out of the mountains into this valley to winter - except for the big horn sheep.  The people come here year round. 

We, of course, weren't the first people here.  The Native Americans came because of the abundant "necessaries" found naturally here.  The ecosystem that is included in Grand Teton National Park currently covers 20,000,000 acres (Looks like 20 million acres to me, huh?  "Millions" of unoccupied land, and there are those who say America is running out of land for people to live on - especially land with resources.  I don't think so!)


To be honest, the farmers, ranchers, and hunters around here fought hard to keep the Feds from "confiscating" their land for a park.  Ultimately they lost the battle - but only partially.  Congress did make the concession that these folks would be allowed to continue to graze livestock in the Park, and they also put in the provision that no U.S. president would be allowed to claim any more Wyoming land to set aside for a national park anytime in the future.  That's a rare win for State's rights!  When is "enough" enough?  I'd say 20,000,000 acres is more than enough!

YELLOWSTONE !!

Granpa pays the entrance fee for the Grand Teton National Park, zooms on through, shows the receipt to the Yellowstone National Park Rangers and finds the first campsite he can.  (As we are turning 62 next month, this will be the last time we have to pay a fee to get into any National Park.  Next time, we pay $10 and that gets us an American the Beautiful Lifetime pass.  That means free entrance for the whole car load and 50% discount on campsites.  Woohoo!!)

There's a picnic table to the left of center in this photo and a tent pad in the center.  What we've discovered over the years is that one can buy humongous tents, but one can rarely find a tent pad big enough to hold it.  Our tent isn't the smallest nor the largest, but it is too large for this tent pad.  However, there's a pretty flat spot just beyond that works nicely.  The path to the right of center is apparently a favorite bear trail, though we never saw a bear here.

Each morning we were up at the crack of dawn and exploring Yellowstone, the Tetons and Jackson Hole until almost dark.  It's a good thing, too, because Granpa heeded my battle cry and chose a campsite with no wind.  There were nice breezes, but no wind -- no wind to blow the swarms of mosquitoes away!  You see, this campsite was at the southern end of Lake Lewis, and, well, you know what happens when there is even the tiniest bit of water for a mosquito to breed in...  We would eat our meals at some nice, mosquito-less picnic grounds in the parks and simply go straight into our tent in the evening.  We had two comfortable chairs in there, our laptops and Granpa had his MP3 players - we even had a porta-potty thingy.  (I know, too much information Granma!  But considering the lines outside the pit toilets in the campground, we did good.)

So, anyway, we would come "home" at dusk, zip into the tent (literally) and then relish in the fact that those pesky mosquitoes were swarming our windows but not able to come in.  I confess, I even stuck my tongue out at them a time or two! 

It was wonderfully comfortable in the tent.  Granpa has a thermometer that records the maximum and minimum temperatures each day, and as our tent was secreted in the shade of those trees, the tent would get comfortably warm during the day.  Our sleeping bags would soak up the warm, and when it came time to crawl in the sheets it was GREAT!

Mornings.  Well, the mornings were downright chilly - 40-ish.  That's about my minimum (maximum?) tolerance level for cold.  We had bought a throw with a picture of a black bear on it the last time we visited Yellowstone, and I tucked that between the bed sheet and the top of the sleeping bag.  The extra cover was perfect.  I never did feel the cold until I had to dress in the mornings.  Granpa, of course, was usually sleeping on top of the covers and delightfully happy.

And so we are cozied up here in Yellowstone for the next week.  The Park recommends that you take at least a day and a half to "see" Yellowstone.  That's what we usually do.  But this time we have the luxury of taking longer.  We'll let you know how that works out...

The Oregon Trail

There you have the Oregon Trail to the north and the Santa Fe Trail to the south.  THAT'S how one would get to California by land.  (Still do, too.)  For a time, that changed with the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869.  But we're back to the automobile now as passenger trains have all but disappeared from the American landscape.

Notice up at the top right, just under the horses hooves.  That would be the Tetons, Yellowstone, the Snake River country.  The reason there are no trails up there is because the country was virtually impassable by anything but fur trappers and mountain men.  Check out a current road atlas.  Still very few roads through there - especially the Snake River area and Hell's Canyon.

Wagon ruts from pioneers on the Oregon Trail are still visible at the Sweetwater River just west of  Split Rock.

That is literally an indelible print on the landscape, eh?

Following the footsteps of the Shoshone, Arapaho, Crow, and Sioux were fur-trappers in 1812 and mountain men, then in 1841 emigrants, Mormons in 1846, gold-rushers (known as '49ers), and the Pony Express riders of 1860.  Those that created shortcuts were said to be following the California Trail.

Because there were about a half million people searching for new land and new lives in the American west, this path was originally known as the Emigrant Road.  Today, there are re-enactors that form up wagon trains and travel these paths for weeks at a time.  Later we'll tell you about crossing paths with one of those wagon trains...

The Pony Express and Split Rock, Wyoming

Out here in the middle of nowhere Granpa sees a roadside something, so he whips in to stretch his legs.  Turns out to be a pretty interesting stop...

If you watch really closely to the right you might see a Pony Express rider come galloping through being chased by Indians.  (Well, that is, if you have a vast and vivid imagination you might see them!)

Granpa wasn't worried about any Indians...

Split Rock Meadows was a landmark for the Pony Express and for anyone traveling the Oregon Trail.  Shoshone, Arapaho, Crow and Sioux made this valley home long before we started pouring through here.    Lots of game around here, and I'm certain there were a lot of buffalo, before we killed most of them off.

At the base of Split Rock a log station was built along with a pole corral.  The Pony Express stationed horses here and the Overland Stage would stop for the night, for fresh horses, food and water.  It was actually used as a post office until 1940's!  Here, in the middle of nowhere...

Can you read this?  "St. Joseph, Missouri to California in 10 days or less!"  On horseback!?!  Mercy me!  2,000 miles in ten days or less.  And check out the rest of it:  "Wanted: young, skinny, wiry fellows not over eighteen...willing to risk DEATH DAILY.  ORPHANS PREFERRED"

Holy cow!  Can you imagine the lawsuits something like this would engender today...  Lawyers take all of the fun out of life, ya' know.  All the glory, too.


Mail relay stations were established 10-15 miles apart housing two to four men and fresh horses - the fastest and best horses in the west as proven by their cost - up to $200 each!  Each rider would cover the distance between three stations - unless there wasn't a new rider waiting at the final stop.  In that case, the rider would continue to another station on a fresh horse.  Day and night, every season, rain or shine, hot or cold.

I'm guessin' it was ol' (or should I say "young") Buffalo Bill Cody that holds the record.  From Red Buttes Station to Rocky Ridge and back, Cody, in one ride, covered a total of 322 miles in 21 hours and 40 minutes on 21 horses.  Seems his relief rider up and died...

At another time, Cody also rode through here on a single horse at full gallop for 24 miles due to the Indians being hot on his tail from Horse Creek Station to Plant's Station.  (Now you know why I asked if you had enough imagination to "see" those Indians!)  That's pretty cool of Cody - but I'm really impressed with the HORSE!

The Pony Express lasted only 19 months (April 1860 - October 1861) due to the Pacific Telegraph line being completed.  But those were an important 19 months.  That was the beginning of the Civil War and the Pony Express was California's main source of news.  (How awesome would it be to have had an ancestor get a piece of mail via the Pony Express, keep it, and pass it down to you?  Now THAT would be a piece of history for sure!)

The entrepreneurs that dreamed up this plan lost over $1 million overall, but a lasting legacy was created and imbues a pioneer spirit of freedom and daring in all who read about it now.

Medicine Bow, Wyoming

Medicine Bow in the Snowy Range mountains got its name from the American Indians, too.  They found the mahogany tees in these mountain valleys to be exceptional for bow-making.  The gathering of tribes was much like white folks gathering:  social and ceremonial (or spiritual).  When the Indians came together, the pioneers said they were "making medicine."  Making medicine and making bows became Medicine Bow.

The Snowy Range mountains tower to over 12,000 feet, and you can still find snow on the summits in August!  Vacationers come to this area now for rock climbing.  Vedauwoo (say it like this:  vee-da-voo) is one of the best climbing spots in Wyoming.  Vedauwoo is from the Arapaho word for "earthborn."

America's first national monument, Devil's Tower, is found here.  It's a plateaued "rock" almost 1,300 feet higher than the surrounding land, and looks as though some gigantic grizzly tried to claw it's way to the top somewhere in the mists of time gone by.  There are more than two dozen Indian tribes that venerate this place including the Lakota, Crow, Cheyenne,  Kiowa, Shoshone and Arapaho

 

(Sorry about the glare, but it's a better picture than I could have taken...  Can you imagine the bear trying to claw his way to being king of the mountain?)  If this image looks familiar, think "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."

Geologists have come up with a dozen different ways this thing might have been formed, but they haven't settled for sure on any of them.  Some think it may have been the plug of a volcanic cone, some think it may be the cone itself.  Most agree it was formed by the forced intrusion of igneous material (think icky thick lava trying to escape through layers of rock that won't give), and then over eons the surrounding material eroded.  I don't have to be a geologist to know this is a pretty cool critter though.

And then there's Fossil Butte National Monument in Lincoln County, Wyoming. 

Did you know that Wyoming was once almost identical to what we now know as Florida?   That's why one of the richest fossil deposits in the whole wide world can be found in land-locked Wyoming.

Who knew?  Now we both do!

Picking Up The Pieces

As we sit in the van surveying the campgrounds I notice that the RV that had been next to us at last light had left during the night.  Their CAR was still there, but the RV was gone.  Took me a few minutes to figure it out:  they couldn't sleep for all the noise our collapsed tent made flapping in the hurricane winds!  They drove their bed someplace else for the rest of the night.  (I'm so embarrassed!)

Well, there's nothing left to do but pack things up and move on ourselves.

The wind had been so strong that it actually pulled up some of the tent stakes and broke the bungees Granpa had diligently (repeatedly) put in place.  No wonder the tent collapsed.  Nothing but a few bungees damaged though.  No worries.  Another experience for the backpack of life.

As we pull back out onto the road we see where we must have camped before.  Wyoming thought it was such a cool place that they turned it into a conference center.  I guess the muckiety-mucks get that sheltered-from-the-wind place and, if we ever camp at Curt Gowdy again, we get the hurricane...

The drive IS scenic though and ends in a nice surprise.

We intersect the Interstate at an interpretive rest area.  President Eisenhower authorized the Interstate highway's after having experienced Germany's autobahn, and this section must have been completed in 2009, the Sesquicentennial of Lincoln's birth - so they kinda dedicated "The Lincoln Highway" to both Eisenhower AND Lincoln.  (Did you know that every five miles the Interstate has to have one mile of straight road so that planes can land on them in time of war?  That's one of the major reasons Eisenhower wanted the Interstate built - easy troop movements.  It didn't hurt interstate commerce one bit either.)

And speaking of commerce...

The driving (no pun intended) force behind the completion of the Lincoln Highway was a man named Henry Bourne Joy.  He was the first president of the Lincoln Highway Association (1913), is sometimes called the father of America's modern highway system, and, oh, yeah, HE WAS THE PRESIDENT OF THE PACKARD MOTOR CAR COMPANY!  Hello!!  He convinced the government to take our tax dollars and build roads for his cars to drive on.  Pretty clever fellow, eh?  Don't get me wrong.  That's perfectly okay with me.  But without his "leadership," government might not  have built this road.  And what's the payback to me the taxpayer?  Tourist dollars support local economies all over America.  It was a win-win:  Joy made LOTS of money selling his Packards, and we have the "joy" of driving on the roads.

The old dirt roads slowly became paved and evolved into U.S. Highway 30 and then eventually into Interstate 80.

The Lincoln Highway was the first transcontinental automobile road - 3,500 miles of it.  What a joy!

Let the Storm Begin ... I Guess

Granpa is always seeking out his cooling wind, but this time, ignoring the fact that THERE'S A STORM COMING !!!

These tents are amazing.  Seriously.  They are meant to bend and flex with the wind without actually breaking or tearing stitches.  (Unfortunately, I don't bend and flex as well as I used to.)  Regardless of how gusty and strong the winds got we had a job to do. The lightening, though, was truly frightful!  We had that big ol' metal van sitting slap dab up against the tent to block the wind (not), just teasing and tempting the lightening to strike her.  CRASHING thunder, unbelievable wind!


Once the storm started there was no turning back.  We just hunkered down and rode her out - sort of.  It is always worse to me on the rim at Palo Duro because I could just imagine blowing over the side of the canyon, but next to that, this was as bad as it's ever been.

Along about midnight I see Granpa on his hands and knees crawling out to re-strap some tie-downs.  Three a.m., ditto.  Four a.m. I wake up realizing the tent is laying across my face and there is LOTS of flapping of fabric going on.  Using my always-handy flashlight I look to see how much water is in the tent.  Nada.  That's interesting.  That's good; but that's interesting because with all the rain and wind I can't believe we're not floating!

Five a.m. I surrender, roll out of the cot, grab my purse and some electronics and crawl out from under the mostly collapsed tent on my hands and knees.  I manage to get me and everything I grabbed into the van without dropping anything.  Only minutes later I see Granpa crawling out on his hands and knees, too.

We survived rain and wind and lightening and marriage.  Yes, sirree.  The tent sustained no wounds and neither did our marriage.  However, there is this new battle cry I have when looking for a campsite:  NO WIND!  Breezes, yes; wind, NO!

Overland to Wyoming

Overland to Wyoming.  Such a simple statement, but when you consider the fact that rivers (the swift, easy, comfortable way to travel) were the super-highways before automobiles,  "overland to Wyoming" said a lot.

Back in the day, this section of trail was known by a bunch of names:

The Taos Trail
Trappers Trail (Mountain Men)
Cherokee Trail (Gold Rushers)
Goodnight-Loving Trail (Cattlemen)

See, you have to learn the vernacular so that when you read about different groups you know that they all mean the same location.  That's what drove me NUTS about the Civil War!  The Union would call a battle by one name and the Rebels would call it by another.

Now we're looking for Curt Gowdy State Park just west of Cheyenne, Wyoming.  We've stayed there before, and it's pretty interesting topography:  huge boulders piled on top of each other, juniper and sage brush, a lake...  We don't even slow down for Cheyenne, but we do take the scenic route shown by roadsigns instead of listening to Lil Miss GPS telling us to take the super slab (Interstate.)  M-m-m-m, it is beautiful, and we always love the pronghorn antelope.

Scurrying around like we might hurt them.  Silly antelope.  We only shoot pictures, not guns, but we understand your caution...

The one on the right looks like Bambi - but Bambi was a deer, not an antelope.

We're remembering the Park to be on the right side of the road, but when we get there it appears to be on the left.  (Get a clue here, Granma.)  We pull down into almost barren hills toward a small lake.  There's an entrance shack, and it's staffed.  The lady says that the other side of the road is closed to campers, but we're welcome to pick a site, any site, and stay here.

John picks THE most exposed site on the highest patch of land around.  (Here he goes with his wind thing again... sigh.)  We've heard weather reports and see storm clouds building, so we're in kind of a hurry to get camp prepared.  (There's a clue here somewhere...)  (Get a clue, Granma!)

Cripple Creek Gold !

After a couple of days in Red River, New Mexico we are ready to move on through Colorado into Wyoming.  We're interested to see if the Colorado Springs wildfires really "destroyed" the city as the news media made it out to seem.

To reach Colorado Springs we go through the oldest town in Colorado, San Luis Obisbo.  (Note to their economic development and historic committees:  I tried to google them and essentially came up with zip.  Lots on San Luis Obisbo in CALIFORNIA, but not Colorado.)  It's a pretty place, visually transitioning from New Mexico to Colorado in landscape and architecture.  I wouldn't mind wandering the streets of downtown, but we don't know what kind of SNAFU's we'll encounter in Colorado Springs, so we move on.

Remember Charles Goodnight of Palo Duro fame?  After his initial cattle drive of 1866, he and his partner ended up just west of Colorado Springs settling 30,000 head of cattle at Rock Canon Ranch.  Over the next two decades those 30,000 head would become over 1 million head of cattle.

Goodnight was here until 1870 when an economic downturn cost him his shirt, and he high-tailed it back to Texas to financially start all over. 

Colorado Springs was established in 1871 by a railroad executive, William Jackson Palmer,  to appease his wife, Queen Meflen. She was a la-dee-da New York fancy pants that wished for more refinement in the West.  Well, duh!  New York had a couple of hundred years of development on Colorado!  Whaddya expect, lady?

So, anyway, Palmer had a plan - and it worked.  Soon the little town filled with authors, painters, and "persons of high breeding" (I wonder if those high-breds realized that they sounded like a bunch of barn yard experiments when it was put like that ??)  To me it's a contradiction, but supposedly the "scenic wonders, healthy climate, and opulent hotels" drew so many Englishmen that it was dubbed "Little London."  Well, I thought London by this time was dirty and dark, full of smog and urban crime...  See what happens when I get to thinkin'?  But it was about this time that Charles Dickens wrote "David Copperfield"...

So Colorado Springs basked in the glow of refinement - until the Cripple Creek gold strike of 1890.
Within ten years the population tripled, but these men weren't wearing starched collars I can tell ya' for sure.  Dusty men, sweating animals, and enterprising money grubbers were the newest citizens.  Unfortunately, after the gold rush waned, Colorado Springs was left to tourism and tuberculosis sanatoriums.

World War II had the next great impact on Colorado Springs, bringing the U.S. military and NORAD (North American Air Defense Command) here.  All these folks turned Colorado Springs into one of the great Rocky Mountain cities.

The much touted wildfires?  We never saw any indication of them from the Interstate and traffic never even slowed through Colorado Springs or Denver.  Though the Air force Academy is practically on the Interstate, and it had been evacuated at the height of the fire threat, we saw no sign of where the fires had been.  Sometimes I worry about the media hyping things to make you watch them...

Santa Fe and The Enchanted Circle

Santa Fe, capital of New Mexico,  was originally named La Villa Real de la Santa Fé de San Francisco de Asís (“The Royal Town of the Holy Faith of St. Francis of Assisi”).  ("Santa Fe" is so much easier!)  The Pueblo Indians were the first known inhabitants of the city of Santa Fe, coming to settle there around 1100 A.D.  The Santa Fe River provided ample water for the village - until 1700 when it became seasonal.  In 2007 it became the most endangered river in the United States (or so says the conservation group, American Rivers.) Thanks to modern technology, though, I'm guessin' they'll pipe water in from somewhere so Santa Fe will just go right on being Santa Fe.

In 1608 New Mexico's third governor under the Spanish flag, Don Pedro de Peralta, formally established Santa Fe at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.  In 1610 he made it the capital of the Spanish province, which it has almost constantly remained.  That makes it the oldest capital city in the modern United States.  I say almost because Santa Fe had to be abandoned for a dozen years or so (1680-1692) due to deadly Indian raids.  (Ah-ha! So Americans weren't the only ones pushing against Native Americans!)

On it's way to Santa Fe, The Santa Fe Trail takes us to what has become known as The Enchanted Circle.

Anchored by the towns of Taos, Questa, Red River and Eagle Nest, the modern love of snow skiing has added Angel Fire and the Taos Ski Valley.  Circling the tallest mountain of the Southern Rocky Mountains, Wheeler Peak, the Enchanted Circle runs for 84 miles through the (Kit) Carson National Forest.  Because the views are so magnificent: alpine valleys, wild flowers, clear blue lakes, evergreen forests, and historic western communities, what might take you an hour or so to drive will turn into four or more hours!  And that doesn't count the time you spend shopping.

We've been through Kit Carson's adobe home in the heart of Santa Fe.  If you don't do these historic places you miss the real understanding of the times and places.  And read, read, READ the interpretive placards!  WATCH the 7 - 10 - 20 minute videos they show!  LISTEN to the staff, strike up conversations with them to get the minutia that is oh, so interesting!  (Did you know that the Carson home was once used to house World War II German prisoners-of-war?  I guess all those troop ships were coming back to the States empty so why not load up a few POW's and bring them here.  That frees up our troops to fight instead of guard POW's.  I wonder how those folks got back to their homelands after the war??)

During different seasons of the year each town in the Enchanted Circle hosts a variety of entertaining festivals.  You most likely will share the road with bicyclists, too.

Coming from Texas we enter the Enchanted Circle on Highway 64 at Eagle Nest. (My momma and I came through here in 1999 - just before the turn of the century, you know - on our way to Alaska, and just as we top the hill before Eagle Nest we saw two bears.  I have them on video tape somewhere...)

Missing the North Pole, South Pole, and Africa

How fun is this!  We have readers on every continent except the Arctic, Antarctic, and Africa!  (If you know anyone on those continents, have them check us out!!)

We now have readers is 25 countries and have had almost 12,000 page views of only 275 posts!  All of this because we wanted to stay in touch with our kids and grandkids at their convenience.

This is kinda fun!  Thanks to all our readers!  I very, very rarely get any feedback, but I guess I must be doing something they like, eh?

And so I blog on...

Ensconced in Junebug Campground

So, we are dry and comfortable in our tent outside of Red River, New Mexico.  The temperatures aren't too hot nor too cold.  The campground isn't crowded, but that may be because the heavy rain over the last couple of days has turned what is usually a crystal clear mountain stream into a fast flowing, milk-chocolate murky river.

On the Fourth of July we go into town to enjoy the local's Independence Day parade.  We love small town parades.  They're the same all over the nation.  At home, we are either in the parade waving to all of our friends and family on the sidewalk, or we're on the sidewalk waving to all of our friends and family in the parade.

(Here, of course, I am in the van trying to figure out why I'm not getting internet connections!)

After the parade there were other entertainments like Indian Inter-tribal dances, Grass dance, Side dance, and an award-winning performance of the dance honoring the revered eagles.  (This is the first time I've tried uploading a video.  Let me know if it works...)

Well, that was enough to wear Granpa out:

That evening we drove back to Eagle Nest for the fireworks show.  I have LOTS and LOTS of photos, but they never translate into the same feeling we have when we watch the celebration in person.  But, trust me, it was one of the longest show we had ever attended - almost 45 minutes!  And they were wonderful displays!

Happy Birthday, America!

( Not bad for a cell phone photo, huh? )

Kit Carson

Not a very smiley face, huh, especially for someone born on Christmas Eve!

I mentioned in "On To The Santa Fe Trail" post that this was the stomping grounds of Kit Carson.  Well, if it hadn't been for ol' William Becknell blazing the Santa Fe Trail back in 1821, Kit's story would have been entirely different.  

Christopher Houston “Kit” Carson was born in 1809 in Madison County, Kentucky, but moved when he was but one year old to Boone’s Lick, Missouri.  Yup, Boone’s Lick as in Daniel Boone.  In fact, the land his family settled on was owned by the Boone family.  Carson and his fourteen siblings became good friends and even intermarrying with the Boone’s.  The Boone’s were also renowned for their gentlemanliness and sense of right and wrong.  Kit's relationships with the Boone family must have had an influence on him because he was always known as a just man.

Kit’s father was killed by a falling tree when Kit was only eight, so Kit never learned to read or write as he had to spend his time hunting to feed the large family.  By age 14 Kit was apprenticed to the Workman’s Saddleshop in Franklin, Missouri.  Franklin was the eastern starting point for the Santa Fe Trail, so Kit got first-hand knowledge of the amazing Far West.

Apprentice’s were legally contracted to their employers for a set amount of time.  Ben Franklin was apprenticed to a print shop as a young man.  (See the posts about him from about a year ago.)  If one left his apprenticeship before the end of their contract the employer could have him arrested.  Kit’s master must not have appreciated Kit’s work because he waited a month before even posting a notice for his return, and he only offered 1 cent reward!  Saddle repair seems to be the only thing Kit was not good at, so I’m certain it was because his heart wasn’t in it.

In 1825, at the age of 16, Kit took a job of wrangling the horses, mules, and oxen of a large trading caravan heading out West on the Santa Fe Trail.  The winter of 1826 Kit stayed in Taos, New Mexico, then known as the capital of the fur trade in the Southwest.  Taos would forever after be Kit’s home, and he is in fact buried there.

In Taos, Kit became fluent in Spanish, Navajo, Apache, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Paiute, Shoshone, and Ute.  Wowser!  That’s pretty cool.

From Taos, Kit accompanied trapping parties into California first and then into the Rocky Mountains.  His first Indian attack was by the Apache on the Gila River.

Kit married twice, meeting both of the Indian women at rendezvous on the Green River in southwest Wyoming.  His first wife was Arapaho, “Grass Singing.”  She died after giving birth to their second daughter, and Kit later married “Making-Our-Road,” a Cheyenne woman, in 1841.  Their marriage was short-lived as she left him to follow her tribe’s migration.  His third choice of a wife was in 1842 at the age of 34.  He married 14-year-old Josefa Jaramillo of Taos.  They ultimately had eight children together and those Carson descendants still live in the Arkansas Valley of Colorado.

This same year Kit met John C. Fremont.  Their relationship is pretty much what history is made of.  They explored, fought Indians and Spainards, mapped, and opened the American West.  Kit took time out from all of this to participate in America’s Civil War.  Yup, that’s right.  New Mexico accepted slavery, but it was geographically not conducive to acquiring slaves, and the government leaders threw their support to the Union.  In 1862 the Confederate Rebels in Texas invaded New Mexico hoping to get Colorado gold and ship it to Richmond to fund their fight against the Union.  The Battle of Valverde ended with a Union defeat and the loss of 68 men with 160 being wounded.  Afterward, most of the Union soldiers were ordered back to the east coast, and Kit and his New Mexico Volunteers were left to deal with “Indian troubles.”

As with the Cherokee “Trail of Tears,” the Navajo were sent on “The Long Walk” in the spring of 1864.  In a 300-mile forced march the Navajo were sent to a reservation set up at Bosque Redondo around Fort Sumner, New Mexico.  The Indians had made a treaty to not war against the whites – but the Indians didn’t equate raiding with war, so they were always getting crosswise with the American army, hence the need to get them to a reservation.  Kit participated in rounding up 8,000 Navajo men, women, and children, so the Navajo held him responsible.  Yes, for finding the Navajo and getting them to the reservation, maybe, but not for the government SNAFU’s that followed.  Even so, into the early 20^th century the older members of the Navajo tribe say they knew him to be “just and considerate.”

Toward the end of his life, Kit Carson was reported to be “a gentleman by instinct, upright, pure, and simple-hearted, beloved alike by Indians, Mexicans, and Americans.”  Wow!  Considering the fact that he waged war with all of the above, that is an amazing statement.  Maybe it has something to do with his beginnings…

Kit also fought the west Texas Kiowa, Comanche, Mescalero Apache and Plains Apache.  In 1868, Kit escorted several Ute Chiefs to meet with the President of the United States of America (Hmmm.  That's right after the Lincoln assassination, so it must have been President Andrew Johnson.) and plead for assistance to the Ute tribe.

 

Kit died of an abdominal aneurysm at the age of 58 in May of 1868 Fort Lyons, Colorado.  (That would make him contemporaries with my great-grandfather!)  There have been books written about Kit's exploits, movies, even comic books.  There is a list of places named after him that is too, too long to share here - or maybe anywhere!  He was a pretty cool dude, but he never did learn to smile!

Texas Claims Santa Fe

In 1836, when Texas seceded from Mexico, it claimed land as far west as Santa Fe.

A few years later, in 1841, some soldiers and traders from Austin, Texas set out with the intention of gaining control of the Santa Fe Trail.  Unfortunately they weren't really prepared and the Mexican army captured the whole lot of 'em.

Texas joined the United States in 1845, setting off a chain of events that a year later resulted in the United States declaring war on Mexico and sending 1,700 soldiers to Santa Fe to claim it and the whole New Mexico Territory for the United States.  Two years later the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo officially ceded New Mexico to the U.S.

So, for about ten years, Santa Fe was a part of Texas!  (Who knew?!  We are born and reared Texans and never knew!  Blogging seems to be very educational, eh?)

Santa Fe National Historic Trail

Well, as you can see from this National Parks map, we only touched on a bit of the Santa Fe Road around Raton Pass.

In 1821, William Becknell decided he would load up a wagon with goods for sale and set out from Franklin, Missouri headed for Santa Fe.  The road he created would become known as the Santa Fe Road.

His trip was successful financially, and the stories he brought home ignited the wanderlust in a whole lot of folks. 

After the Mexican War in 1846-48, the Road became packed with commerce laden wagons.  In 1855 alone these wagons generated $5 million in trade.  (In 1855!?!  WOW!)  However, this bounty didn't come without a cost of life and limb.  The American Indians didn't much appreciate the encroachment on their homes and hunting land.

It took nearly 200 years to settle "east" America from the Atlantic to the Mississippi River.  It took only eighty years to settle the West.  The focal point for the first forty of those years was the Santa Fe Trail.  In 1866, $40 million worth of goods was carried west in 5,000 wagons.  The population of the Kansas Territory boomed from 8,600 in 1855 to 143,000 in just six years.

It took the railroads to distract travelers from the dusty, long Santa Fe Trail.  In 1880 newspapers headlined the fact that the Santa Fe Road had been lost to the sands of time.  OUR love of history, however, will never let it disappear completely.  Kudos to the National Park Service for recognizing the importance of a path to prosperity and success!

On To The Santa Fe Trail

On To The Santa Fe Trail

We take our favorite highway out of the Palo Duro area, U.S. Highway 287, that runs from Beaumont, Texas all the way to Great Falls, Montana.  That’s almost to the Canadian border!  We love this drive across the high plains of the Texas Panhandle.  I think it’s “uphill” all the way from Vernon, Texas to the New Mexico border.  It appears to be flat, but at the same time you have a sense of great altitude.

This is the Texas where "the deer and the antelope play."

 

We turn off at Dumas, Texas (I liked this mural painted on the side of one of the downtown buildings),

and head for Texline, hop across the New Mexico border to Clayton and take the southern route into Springer, pick up the Old Santa Fe Trail and move on to Cimarron.  Here are the stomping grounds of names of the Old West like Kit Carson and Annie Oakley.    

From Cimarron we rise into the mountains through the Kit Carson National Forest.  If we’ve been late leaving we usually camp in the forest at Maverick Campgrounds.  Otherwise we rise out of the forest at a plateau called Eagle Nest, New Mexico.  There is a wonderful lake here.  If you’re fans of the old TV show, Jag, you’ve seen this place.  Admiral Chegwidden did some trout fishing here…  Eagle Nest is where several Native American tribal medicine men would gather Eagle feathers for ceremonial purposes.  Charles Springer built a dam creating a 78,000 acre foot lake for irrigation.

 Through Eagle Nest, across the valley floor we pass familiar landmarks like the Loch Ness Monster (our name for it anyway…)   

 

And beautiful log homes, old and new, throughout the valley.

When we reach Junebug campgrounds on the other side of Red River it’s raining.  No worries.  We suspend a tarp from the trees with the help of bungee cords, THEN we put up the tent UNDER the tarp. 

It and we are bone dry!