Category Archives: mountain view cabins

Wednesday 7th August 2019 – ANOTHER HECTIC …

… day today.

It started off with yet another Sleep of the Dead and I remember nothing whatever about my night. I must have dictated something at some point because the dictaphone was still on but I remember nothing whatever about it and I’ll be interested to see what I might have said.

The bed was the most comfortable that I have slept in for quite a while (mine at home excepted of course) and the facilities in the room were second to none. The microwave was magnificent.

Only downside was the shower. The hot water was one of those ‘instant heat” arrangements that are either on or off and there’s no midway. With it taking a while to warm up and pass through the heater matrix it was impossible to set it at the right temperature. It was either hot or cold and that was that.

In the end I just washed my hair and rinsed myself off quickly.

On the road and after a photo opportunity for His Nibs I followed the route of the Johnson County War, when the stock growers tried to force the sodbusters off their lands.

One thing that I was planning to do on arrival at kaycee (the site of the famous KC ranch) was to go and visit the “Hole In The Wall”, the legendary hold-out of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid but I looked at the route on an aerial photograph and decided against it. Had I been in Strider I would have gone for it, but not a small hire car with street tyres.

Instead I went to find Fort Reno and luckily I tracked that down without too many problems at all. There was a sign to say where it was but that was about all.

However in the immediate vicinity there was a big flat beaten surface (like a parade ground might be) surrounded by heaps that had all the air of crumbled adobe from decayed western buildings, so that is my guess.

My route from Fort Reno brought me through some beautiful countryside and also through the oilfields of east-central Wyoming, famous for its role in the “Teapot Dome” scandal where a US Government Minister sold the navy’s oil reserve to a friend in exchange for a very large and thick brown envelope.

This road took me through Casper and out past the Sinclair Oil Refinery (a descendant of the oil company involved in the Teapot Dome scandal) and past several historical trail markers to Douglas where I ended up at Fort Fetterman.

When the Army was obliged to pull back from native American lands and abandon its forts there, it built a Bozeman Trail fort on the US side of the North Platte River. This was named Fort Fetterman after the recently deceased soldier about whom we talked the other day.

With it being on US soil, it was never disputed and so was not a stockaded fort like those further north.

A couple of buildings still exist today, having been used as a ranch house and barn after the fort was abandoned, but the rest is just disintegrated adobe around the parade ground.

And it’s just as well that a couple of buildings are still standing because another visitor, the Park ranger and I were caught in the most tremendous thunderstorm and had to seek shelter.

While I was waiting I asked the Ranger about motels. He told me of the Holiday Inn. When I mentioned that I was a budget traveller he tried to tell me about the Best Western. I don’t think t hat, like many Americans, they understand the meaning of the word “budget”. They just go out and get a bigger loan or overdraft.

Now I’m in Douglas in a crummy motel, the Four Winds. It’s the only room in town in my budget and it’s only thanks to the guy at the fort that I had it, so I can’t complain.

he also gave me a booklet on the Oregon and California Trail which I shall be picking up tomorrow sometime.

But I’ve run out of Vitamin B12 drink so I nipped to the Dollar Store, where I overheard this delightful conversation –
Customer – “how much are those cigarettes?”
Assistant – “4 dollars and six cents”
Customer – “how much are two packets?”
Assistant – “errr … let me see … errr 8 dollars and 16 cents!”
And they call this lot the “master race”.

But I’m not exempt. I bought a cheap tin of mushrooms to liven up my soup tonight, only to find that I need a tin opener which I don’t have.

So I’ll hope for another good sleep tonight. I’m winding down now ready to return to Winnipeg by next week end.

0

Tuesday 6th August 2019 – GUESS WHO …

… has been a busy boy today.

Started off with a reasonable night’s sleep with just a little tossing and turning here and there, but it was a struggle to leave the bed, I can tell you.

So medicine, another shower and clean-up, followed by breakfast, and then uploading all of the … gulp … 180 photos from yesterday onto the laptop.

And then uploading the dictaphone note and the dashcam stuff too. I was exhausted after that.

There should have been an early start but I ended up chatting to mine host and wife for quite some time in exchange for a coffee.

Up the road, first to Decker where I photographed a lot of the mining installations there. Much of it is open-cast but there is evidence of what is suggestive of a deep mine.

Onwards then to the site of the Battle of the Rosebud where I spent a couple of hours wandering about the part of the battlefield that is on public land (and there’s not so much of that).

But the battle itself is very interesting, if not crucial. General Crook, whose adventures we have followed in the past thanks to John Bourke’s brilliant On The Border With Crook has been discussed in these pages many times, was on his way to join up with Custer and Co when his over-stretched and over-tired column, resting on the Rosebud, was hit by a large party of native Americans.

Although Crooks troops pushed them off, they were so battered that they had to retreat to their camp at Goose Creek (near present-day Sheridan) to regroup and resupply.

And so they never joined up with Custer.

So imagine how different the battle of the Little Big Horn would have been had Custer had an extra 1100 troops at his disposal (although whether he would have welcomed them was another matter – he had turned down two regiments of infantry and a Gatling gun brigade on the grounds that they would slow him down).

From there I passed by Little Big Horn again (still wondering why the cavalry dismounted. On foot they were useless. At least mounted, they could have gone for an “arrowhead” charge to try to break out, rather than be butchered on the ground) and through to the Crow Agency where I stopped for fuel.

And that wasn’t a good idea. I ended up being stuck for about 20 minutes in a roadworks queue and then another 20 minutes at a level crossing as a mile-long coal train inched its way by.

A good run into the Big Horn mountains brought ;e to the head of the Bozeman Trail. Here after much binding in the marsh I found where the “Hayfield Fight” had been, but finding Fort CF Smith was rather different. I knew the GPS location which I knew was a private field, so from the field’s edge on both sides I tried to find anything at all.

There were some vague outlines in the field but really they could be anything. Trying to find the remains of adobe buildings that had been abandoned and burnt in 1868 was expecting too much.

There was no sign or anything acknowledging its existence so I had to go by where I would have put the fort had I been in charge.

On the way back I found a car upside-down in a ditch, and then a very long drive all the way back to the outskirts of Sheridan.

At Ranchester I found the site of the “Battle of Tongue River” where General Connor’s troops attacked a sleeping Arapaho village and killed mainly non-combatant women, children and the elderly.

Incidentally, have you always noticed that it’s a “battle” whenever the white men attacked native civilians, yet it’s a “massacre” whenever the natives returned the compliment?

I carried on then down the Bozeman Trail looking for the sites relating to Fort Phil Kearny. I found the wagon-hill fight site and the “6th December” fight, but not the site of the death of French Pete which rather annoyed me.

Buffalo is on the limit of the Sturgis Festival travel zone so finding a motel was difficult. A friendly motel owner rang a few friends and now I’m in a cabin on the edge of town.

I was rather dubious at first, as the smell of wet dog in the reception put me off and the scrap car and general air of neglect didn’t help, but it’s very deceptive as the cabins are beautiful inside.

I’ve had my soup, and I’m not going out. I shall enjoy my little cabin while I can.

0