Varieties of Wyoming

2019-08-30 Friday (lots of photos, but having trouble with internet, so will upload scenery photos later)

We woke up this morning with an agenda to leave our campground early, so we'd have no trouble getting to tonight's campground with plenty of time to set up our TV connections for the MSU football game. Despite a nice morning with showers and shmoozing with Beth on FaceTime, we left by 10:00, which was right on time.

We started driving west from Casper toward Lander, Wyoming, and as soon as we got out of the city, I started in with the wow wow wows again over the scenery. Wyoming really is a spectacular state-- no matter what route we've taken (and this one was new for us), it's been so beautifyl. Unfortunately, most of my photos are on my iPad, and the iPad is refusing to connect to the internet, which is not good here (more on that later.) I hope I can get the photos into the blog tomorrow, because that is what most of the blog is about!

At a little before noon, I noticed on my map that we were just about to pass a historical interpretation site called the Devil's Gap and Mormon Hand Cart site. We pulled into the area and immediately saw the Devil's Gap in the near distance--a distinct break in the rock walls ahead of us. But just as I took a few photos of that, Joe said, "Look on the side of the road!" and there were 3 antelope just looking at us! When we got too close, they started to depart, but I was able to get some photos of them.

Hand-cart replicas. Mom pulled one handle, Father pulled the other.

We ate some lunch, then got out to explore the interpretive site. There was no one there but us, although it seemed like some kind of ranch or something like that--there were quite a few buildings and several parking areas, including a large one for "trekkers" (we were not sure what that meant.) But as we wandered down the steps toward the area saying "visitor's center", a man came out to greet us. The site is run by the Church of Latter Day Saints, and he was a Mormon who was there to give information to visitors. He told us about the history of the site, and when we went into the small museum, it made everything even clearer to us.

Example of loaded handcart

In the 1850s, there were a lot of Mormons moving west to Salt Lake City. The church set up a fund to help finance this immigration, but the funds ran low because so many were coming to America to join the church out west. So Brigham Young came up with the idea that instead of having to pay for expensive large wagons and teams of animals to pull them, the people could move their belongings in small hand-carts which they pulled themselves. Small settlements were then set up along the trail, and the Mormons in Utah would send out regular supplies to the settlements, so the immigrants could have their supplies replenished every few months as they ran out.

The Martin Company set out in 1856, but unfortunately were delayed in their departure due to a lack of hand-carts-- the builders could not keep up with the demand. As a result, they left late, and missed the window of opportunity to safely complete their journey. When they arrived at the settlements, there were no supplies for them. Many of them died along the trail, and this site where we were was the area where many of them died, before finally being rescued by members of the church coming from Utah after hearing that there were two companies (there was another one 2 weeks ahead of the Martin Company) who had run out of supplies and were stranded. As our guide/host said, "This really marks the site of a disaster rather than a triumph." He said he himself was descended from survivors of this migration.

It seems that this location is a place where members of the church come to re-experience the travails of their ancestors. "Trekkers" come and head off into the surrounding hills, pulling handcarts for several days to understand better the ordeal it must have been for those in 1856. Our guide told us that 20,000 people had come during the past summer, although it is winding down now. It was all very interesting. I told Joey that this reminded me a lot of the concept of the March of the Living, that Jewish kids go on to visit the concentration camps in Europe. As our guide said, it's important not to forget your own history.

We wandered around the site for perhaps an hour before finally getting back on the road. Not long afterwards, as I was looking down, suddenly the RV swerved violently back and forth! As I looked up, I caught a glimpse of SOMETHING. I made some kind of exclamation (you can imagine what kind) and Joey said an antelope had just run across the road RIGHT in front of our RV, and he had both braked and swerved to miss it. If it had hit us and come through our windshield, we'd have been in big trouble! It was VERY scary for both of us.

After that, there were no more incidents, and we arrived in Lander at 4pm. We went into the center of town to see if there seemed to be strong wifi, because we were willing to go elsewhere if necessary. Then Joe called the campground, where they insisted that the wifi was usually pretty good at our assigned site, but if not, it was very strong at the office and we could sit there to watch our game. So we went to the campsite and checked in, but as soon as we got to our space, we didn't have any wifi or any decent internet connection.

I'll spare the details, but we spent an hour, both trying to connect via internet, and by using an app on my phone to connect to the radio network in East Lansing that broadcasts the Spartan games. Just before 5pm local (7pm EDT), we got everything working, both radio and tv. We were able to watch or listen to maybe 90% of the game, I'd say-- but the internet did keep cutting out. When the picture was lost, I'd turn on the radio. It was a little crazy, I guess, but football fans ARE a little crazy.

Joey made us dinner while we were watching, and at halftime we did give up and go sit in the patio area near the campsite office. Luckily it was an absolutely lovely, mild evening, and very nice to sit out. The game ended at 8:30 (MSU won, 28-7), and after we put our electronic paraphernalia back into the RV, we went out for ice cream in the Jeep. Then Joey went to bed, while I did the dishes and then wrote this blog. I just hope I can upload it-- the internet is really NOT what I'd prefer, that is for sure!! And I suspect it will get worse from here on, so we are probably lucky we at least saw the first game of the season. And that was the evening-- I will try to upload this, and then I am going to bed. We have a long drive tomorrow, to Idaho.