We started out at the earliest museum left to see that we didn’t squeeze in yesterday- the Wyoming State Museum. It was a free museum and had some neat displays and history.
Petrified/Fossilized soft shell turtle shell. Impressive.Very old-timey fire alarm. Literally a guy banging cymbals together! haRemember that vintage yellow bus I photographed in the parking lot of Yellowstone? Well, here is what came before that! So.Cool.
After that smaller museum, we went to the Botanical Gardens and the Paul Smith Children’s Village attached.
This outdoor xylophone thing was very pretty sounding!
I am hoping I convinced Kegan to build me this geodesic dome for a patio/pergola in the backyard. I told him to look closely and photograph what he needed- because I want this! ha He says he can do it. (Now timeline, he did not say!) ha
Inside the actual Botanical gardens was pretty underwhelming. It was just a few fruit, tropical trees, palms… I don’t know what I was expecting…but I cant say I’d recommend a trip for anyone else. The greenhouse areas looked huge, but only a small portion was actually open to the public.
Bonsai trees at the gardens
Outside along a trail was well manicured and designed.
Norah’s new squirrel friend
Now it was time to leave Cheyenne heading towards South Dakota.
First town on our way was a little old town called Chugwater that just happens to have Wyoming’s oldest operating soda fountain.
Another business in Chugwater is Chugwater Chili. The soda fountain sold all their products, so we purchased some green chili rub, a chili seasoning, some Beef sticks…beef sticks were good!
Our next stop was back up near Laramie at another Oregon Trail site.
A really nice map showing the Oregon Trail from the Wyoming State Museum this morning. Another map showing lots of different pioneer trails and almost all of them cross at Ft. Laramie. (The red is the Oregon Trail)
We sought out the Register Cliff, a large rock outcropping that wagon leaders used to use as a wind block and camping site on the trail. Many, many travelers carved their names or their family names into the soft limestone face.
It was hard to find the old names- almost every name carved on the cliff was from 1950 on forward. Just a lot of graffiti overtop of history. I mean, it’s all history….but I don’t really care about some guy in the 1960’s driving out here with his girlfriend and carving their names ha The sign said there used to be petroglyphs and Indian images and names, but basically they had all been lost to graffiti.
Just down the road is a site where you can still see the deep ruts the wagons made near a river from such heavy usage.
We came to a T in the highway at Hartville, Wyoming which claimed to be Wyoming’s oldest town. We just passed through.
As we came into South Dakota, the landscape got much greener and prettier. We were finally back to the type of land that I would live on again! ha Wyoming is beautiful and expansive, but I feel like if you got dropped in the middle of it with no town you could die. At least here, grass, rivers, trees….this feels hospitable 🙂
We were headed to the Mt. Rushmore area, but passing right by this amazing mammoth dig site, we stopped in to see what a watering hole full of over 60 mammoths looked like!
The Mammoth Site is still a private owned, in ground research and study center with actual scientists still excavating bones. They have placed a building over the sinkhole where these mammoth bones are found.
This head was uncovered with both tusks still intact attached to the skull.
Driving on north, we entered the Black Hills National Forest area.
a random bicycle “sculpture” at a trailer park ha
We hit the Crazy Horse Memorial first. It’s an unfinished rock sculpture with a very interesting story I wasn’t aware of. He is the work of one man’s vision- who lived at the site and worked on the carving for half of his life, which has now been handed down to his children to complete the work. Government money has been offered many times to complete the site… but the sculptor didn’t trust the government to actually carry out the work correctly. (Kind of fitting for a Native American monument) The first part of the visit was a movie about the family and the guy that sculpted and planned it out-Korczak Ziolkowski. It was great footage and history to see. I just always assumed it wasn’t finished due to funding…or disagreements on who or how to do it…but now seeing the size and knowing its one family completing it over generations- it makes sense. Also-for scale- all of the faces of Mount Rushmore would fit inside Crazy’s Horse’s face alone. It’s massive.
A small sculpture of what the monument will look like when completeThey had these golden gates on the property, too- also done by the same sculptor. There were dinosaurs and other random animals in them. It felt very whimsical.
We continued our drive through the pretty Black Hills approaching Mt. Rushmore, which was a zoo as expected. But it’s something you just have to see if you never have…
At 6:30pm, there were still this many people just walking out to the lookout spots.
Our last stop we squeezed in just before our dinner reservations was an exact replica of the Borgund Stave Norwegian church. The original was built in the 1100s and is the best preserved wooden stave church in Scandinavia. So, for a replica to exist in the hills of South Dakota-I wanted to see it! I still haven’t seen the original in Norway, but it’s on my list too 🙂
Very pretty grounds, amazing building. Super cool.
Our last stop was at the Dakotah Steakhouse for dinner.
They had an AMAZING metal bison sculpture out front that just got more amazing the longer you look at it.Good thing I reserved this last week!
Chislic-South Dakota’s state dish. Deep fried meat cubes. No complaints here.
Prime Rib that was a bit too fatty as you can see
Kegan ordered the Elk Ravioli that I had been eyeing before the trip when I wasn’t doing Keto. ha So he ordered it for his meal and I still got to taste it! It was good- but a little heavy.
All in all, a good day, a lot of ground covered. Tomorrow we’ll explore around South Dakota including Deadwood!
We headed out of Casper first thing today towards Independence Rock. A prominent marker from the Oregon Trail days. Over 500,000 people followed this eventually worn path westward over 15-20 years as part of our territorial westward expansion. This rock got its name because wagon groups would leave Missouri in the early spring, they would hope to reach this rock by Independence Day so that they could make it over the mountain passes before the snowfalls began in the fall.
There are lots of names carved into the rock- and plaques commemorating some of the first missionaries or pioneers that crossed and blazed the trail that so many would follow.
We passed through Sinclair, Wyoming (like Sinclair gas stations with the green dinosaur mascot) and their oil refinery was basically the extent of the town.
Our next town was a cute little old town called Medicine Bow. Medicine Bow is a tiny little town of 284 people with a big history. It largely exists because the first transcontinental railroad ran through this area in the 1860s. In the 1890’s they found a very complete dinosaur skeleton of “Dippy” here. It’s currently in Pittsburgh at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.
Medicine Bow, though, is most famous perhaps for being the setting of the novel The Virginian by Owen Wister, which was the first REAL novel ever written about the west outside of dime novel stories. Written in 1902, it came before any Zane Gray or Louis L’Amour novels and it has been remade into a Broadway play, silent film, Gary Cooper Film, Bill Pullman film…and even a tv series recently.
The local hotel named after the novel, finished in 1911. It was the largest hotel between Denver and Salt Lake City when it was completed. It’s still a working hotel. Only the suites have private bathrooms- the Shiloh Saloon downstairs still has bullet holes in places from a past shootout. No telephones or televisions in the room.
The only real thing the explore right there was the Medicine Bow Museum, so we headed inside.
This board of all the local cattle brands of the area was pretty cool. An old icebox in the museumThe museum curator there told us that this was for planes to land at night. When the temperature dropped to a certain level, it would fire the flame and act as landing beacons. Hunting cabin that belonged to Owen Wister from near Cody that was relocated to Medicine Bow. They had an old railroad caboose you could explore, too.
Just outside of Medicine Bow we came upon Como Bluff and Fossil Cabin.
This fossil cabin was made as a tourist attraction to the area- completely out of dinosaur bones!! Which does make it “the oldest building in the world” as it touts. hahaThey are in the process of moving the fossil cabin to the Medicine Bow Museum area we had just left. The lady there told us it would be fenced off and we wouldn’t be able to go up to it… but when we got there no one was there but they had a big flatbed trailer on site and the fence opened, so we walked in anyway. 🙂
We continued on down the road into Laramie and ate at O’Dwyer’s Irish Pub. It was OK food but had a cool rotunda they served food in.
On down the highway, we passed this odd giant Lincoln Head. It was made to commemorate the Lincoln Highway but it just looks like Christopher Pike stuck in his futuristic wheelchair from the original Star Trek episode The Menagerie. ha
Just a couple miles from there is the Tree in the Rock. A famous landmark since the 1860s. As they were planning and laying out the transcontinental railroad in the area, they found this tree- a limber pine- “growing out of a rock” and decided to route the railroad around it…as trees don’t really grow in this area. Really, there are none around for miles, which I didn’t even notice until the sign at the tree talked about it.
It was said that as the train engineers would pass by, they would pour some water on the tree to give it a drink, helping it survive. Photo from the Cheyenne Railway Museum
Our last little stop off along the way was to see the Ames Pyramid, now looking pretty lonely in the middle of nowhere, but it has quite a history. You see, the Ames brothers were pretty much opportunistic jerks.
In gold rush times, they went to California with a wagon load of shovels and made their fortune on selling overpriced tools to 49ers seeking gold. Then, they used that money to buy railroad contracts to lay railroad track… established themselves as railroad barons… and then proceeded to defraud taxpayers out of 50 million dollars by inflating costs and services so extensively that it became a national scandal because- I forgot to mention- Oakes Ames was a state representative and could approve the railroad budgets and contracts. The scandal was known as the Credit Mobilier Scandal and was the biggest national news of the time in the 1870s. Although, not much has changed for white collar and financial crime from then to now- their punishment for this embezzlement and deceit? Public censure. ha
So….anyway- the pyramid. Right after the scandal unfolded, both of the brothers ended up dying. Ten years or so after their deaths and the scandal was a distant memory, the Union Pacific railroad tried to restore some honor to their overlords. They constructed this pyramid along the railway at the highest point of the transcontinental railroad.. and at a point they would stop to change engines- so it gave the passengers something to go walk and do while the engine maintenance occurred.
Then the railroad rerouted. Then the highway rerouted… and now, its just a dirt /gravel path back to this giant pink Sherman granite pyramid in honor of two slimy old “businessmen” who got caught thinking they were smarter than everyone else. Rings a few bells for a some folks I know today. ha
Most of the rest of our drive was just the rolling hills of Wyoming all the way to Cheyenne.
We arrived to Cheyenne earlier than we expected, so we started trying to fit in the museums that I had thought we might miss.
Cheyenne is preparing for Frontier Days- a famous summer festival gathering and rodeo that has been going for 125 years! Coming up July 24th I think I read.
The first museum was the Nelson Museum of the West and another friend of mine was just here last week and posted online it was a “can’t miss” so we didn’t! The lady working was normally the cleaning lady she said, but she made my day because she flat out asked my mother if she was 60 yet for the senior discount and ruined her day. hahaha (kidding. but she wasn’t happy about it)
A $250,000 set of silver rodeo gear. Lots of Indian beadworkA trophy room of African animals? Weird flex, but ok.
these old vintage casks were locked in a private library I couldn’t enter. They were the most interesting items to me! I’ve never seen anything like them before in this condition.
Next museum. in town- the Frontier Day’s Rodeo Museum
This basically just told the history of Frontier Days and the rodeo. They had exhibits highlighting Lane Frost- one of the best bull riders of all time- who died tragically young on the arena floor at the Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo in 1989 after catching a bull horn to the ribcage and severing an artery.
There was an exhibit highlighting Chris Ledoux and his bareback bronco riding and his country music career. I believe Chris Ledoux grew up in the area and I know he rode at Frontier Days in the 1970s before winning the bareback national championship in 1976. Even if you don’t know Chris LeDoux, you know Garth Brooks – “A worn out tape of Chris LeDoux, lonely women and bad booze, seem to be the only friends I’ve left at all” – Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old)
Lots of old stagecoaches to explore from early frontier pioneer to the latest in style and comfort leading right up the the automobile.
Last museum stop, with less than one hour before they closed (everything in town seemed to close at 5pm) was the Cheyenne Train Depot and Museum. I was surprisingly impressed with this one!
When we arrived to the museum it was 4:10 so she told us if we hurried upstairs, we could see the guys running the toy train. I was like “whatever…its a toy train”…but we went because Norah thought it sounded fun. Holy Moly! It was the KING of all toy trains. This thing took up the entire upstairs of a museum. Some guy built this all from scratch over 20 years. Scale models of toys, geographic features, cast train cars himself, made trees. It was MIND BLOWING.
The train conductors, making a rail switch with two trains, just like a real life changeover!
The guy had this thing built inside a trailer and he hauled it every time he moved. They crane lifted the sections in through the upper windows to get them inside the depot museum. Just unbelievable dedication and craftsmanship.
After the toy train blew my mind, we headed back to the beginning of the museum to actually see the history. It was a great display of Union Pacific memorabilia, dishes, information… but a lot of historical photos I liked from the Cheyenne area, too.
Cheyenne is 1870. Very sparsely populated.
After the museums had closed, Norah had her online Spanish class, so we dumped her and my mother at our hotel and Kegan and I went seeking fuel and alcohol. ha He was looking for a particular “Summer” pack of beer and we had an hour or so until dinner. We successfully found both.
For dinner, we had Durbar Indian and Nepalese Bistro. Really good Indian food. I had lamb tikka masala and some grilled tandoori meats, Norah had chicken tikka, Donna had dal mahkani and Kegan had Lamb Rogan Josh.. and we shared and tried some Nepalese momo- which are dumplings.
We drove back into a storm that looked scary to our Candlewood Suites in Cheyenne. Gross hotel. Not well cleaned, smelled like fried fish, rotting lettuce and stale cigarette smoke…someone else’s comb still in the bathroom, the pull out couch bed had hair and junk all over it under the cushions. Carpeted halls had carpet peeling up every few feet. Bleh…It may have been free, but it still was gross. I’m an idiot and apparently only booked a one bedroom for the night-so that stuck Norah and my mother on a sofa bed..and no other rooms available for the night. Good job, Erin.
This morning, I had to send everyone else to breakfast while I had a work call I couldn’t miss. They walked down to the Irma Hotel- Buffalo Bill Cody’s famous hotel, opened in 1902, in the city he founded- incorporated in 1901. He passed through the area and loved it so much for its proximity to Yellowstone and rich soil, he decided to put a town there. Thus, Cody, Wyoming was born.
William “Buffalo Bill” Cody was quite the character. He was one of those folks that was into a little bit of everything. He was a Union soldier. He was a Scout for the army during the Indian wars, he rode for the pony express, he shot buffalo for the railroad workers to keep them fed- killing so many that he earned his nickname “Buffalo Bill”. There was supposedly another hunter for the railroad folks that was also named William- and he and William Cody had a competition to see who would be able to earn that nickname of Buffalo Bill- in the end William Cody killed 68 buffalo and the other guy killed 48…and he was a part Native American hunter. Says something about how good he was at it.
He became famous in a newspaper article for being a man of the west… and other stories, books, etc all followed turning him into a national celebrity and symbol of the American West. He eventually had a traveling Wild West Show that was seen around the world, showcasing the Wild West of yesteryear to city folks and Europeans looking to get a glimpse of the fabled western frontier.
The hotel has a very cool bar, a personal gift to Bill Cody from Queen Victoria. The Wild West Show had performed in England during the Queen’s Golden Jubilee and had performed for the German Kaiser, the future king George V, etc.
You can see Kegan up there getting good photos for me! ha I hated to miss this piece. But he did good capturing it so I could see it 🙂
Then it was off to The Buffalo Bill Center of the West. If you ever find yourself near Cody, Wyoming- this one is worth the trip. Its 5 museums in one. Plus an active saddle maker, an active lab (that was removing tissue from a grizzly bear skeleton when we were there) as well as shows, demonstrations and other events. I didn’t allow NEARLY enough time to see everything. So we only got the highlights in a quick meander through. When you buy a ticket, its good for 2 days… and I think you could use a full day to really see everything.
We walked through the Natural History museum first
Next was the William Cody Museum that had so many pieces of memorabilia and antiques from his life.
Original roulette wheel from the Irma Hotel.
We went to the Plains Indian Museum next. Again, just tons of amazing artifacts, beadwork, dyed buffalo hides, etc. An amazing collection.
Lastly, we visited the Cody Firearms museum. It was MASSIVE. Like, overwhelmingly massive. If you are super into firearm history, this is THE PLACE for you. Kegan was even like “I cant process any more. I either need all day to sit and go through every drawer, or we need to go” haha
Norah practicing her shooting stance
Gatling gun
Duckfoot 4-barrel flintlock pistol
Double barrel Flintlock pistol
English Wheelock from the early 1700s
Super tiny little Derringer
Kegan liked the decoration on this one
Ronald Reagan’s Winchester Rifle
Gun with an Abraham Lincoln hammer
We stopped at another small museum in town called the Cody Dug Up Gun Museum. Kegan made a quick pass through the second-floor one-room museum. Although it was small, it was well laid out and had a lot of neat pieces. The room was filled with displays of found items- guns, knives, belt buckles, etc.- ranging from old west through WWII era. This isn’t the pristine curated collection that you see at the Cody Firearms Museum, but it is interesting to see things that were found. Most are rusty, beat up junk. But that is the draw of it. Someone found a revolver with the hammer rusted in the the cocked position. Did the owner get shot and dropped it before he could fire? Did he get scared by a bear and drop it while running away? Who knows- but it is fun to imagine the story behind all these items. They didn’t allow photos, so you just get narration 🙂
We made one last stop in Cody, at the Old Trail Town Museum- the original planned site of the town of Cody. They’ve moved a lot of old structures from around Wyoming to this site to reconstruct and save these old buildings. A couple of them are famous. One is the saloon where Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch used to hang out. There are even bullet holes in the saloon doors.
Kegan showing Norah how to lasso. They were both pretty terrible at it.
After this, it was a lot of driving, just exploring the state of Wyoming…which by the way…is really sparsely populated with a LOT of ranches and land in between towns. We drove a couple hours and I swear we didn’t pass a single house. It was odd.
We found a strange rock formation called Devil’s Kitchen that looked like they needed to film one of those cheesy Star Trek alien fight scenes at the base of it. ha (Norah says Star Wars… to each their own sci fi series. ha)
Next, we drove past a formation called Chimney Rock
Our drive continued through Bighorn National Forest through some nice views and ended at a very high overlook over the valley.
We got to Casper and ate at the Rib and Chop House- which we thought was going to be fairly fancy… and it ended up being Texas Roadhouse without the peanuts on the floor. But- I had a great filet steak with mushrooms and a crab and shrimp stack that was decent. The rest of the group was upset there was no rolls or bread. ha (I guess one benefit of trying to eat keto. I didn’t miss the bread ha)
Norah ordered a kid’s mini corndog meal and insisted she wanted to take the racecar box home “in case we never come back again” haha weirdo.
Off to bed and headed to Cheyenne by way of Laramie tomorrow.
As we headed out this morning driving north from Salt Lake City towards Idaho, it got increasingly mountain-esque. (I don’t think thats a word)
We ran into a traffic jam of the local residents. There was a herd of sheep grazing on both sides of the highway and crossing as they pleased. As we passed we saw a Great Pyrenees just lounging in the grass. Didnt even care that his sheep were crossing both sides of the highway. ha
Kegan, Norah and I had never been to Idaho (my mother has- but she lives just an hour and a half away!)
We made a gas station stop and found some interesting items. An Idaho spud candy bar, pickled sausage and Indiana popcorn
Verdict: Idaho Spud – Kegan says it was a combo of nougat like a 3 Musketeers and a marshmallow. Pickled sausage was gross and was promptly thrown away because it was stinking up the car. The Indiana popcorn was good and very buttery.
We passed a car wash, so we washed the salt from the salt flats off the Honda so she doesnt rust apart before we get back home 🙂
We passed through a town called Afton that has a huge antler arch spanning the highway through town.
We reached Jackson Hole, which I had high hopes for. They had tons of nice restaurants online (but a lot of them were closed for lunch on Sundays) I honestly do not get the allure of Jackson after a visit. It was packed full of people standing around everywhere. No place to park, every restaurant full… we finally decided on a spot to just grab pressed juice and sandwiches/light lunch, we got to the counter and they were out of bread, so we ordered a smoked salmon salad. Nope, out of salmon. So we got juices and Norah ordered their special on the board- it took almost 20 minutes to get it. Like, they forgot about it and I had to ask what in the world was taking so long for juice.
So…I was quickly done with Jackson. Over priced, over populated, over exaggerated on awesomeness. Personal opinion. Kegan said I got “the look” and he was afraid for the safety of everyone else around me. haha I was very over the crowds and everything being full or annoying. and I needed lunch.
One shining star in town- the liquor store sells Liquor “sloshies” – frozen boozy drinks.
They did have a Whole Foods grocery though, so we ate our lunch from the salad bar there and headed into Grand Tetons.
The Tetons were a bit underwhelming right now. There are fires around so the sky is very hazy. Also, there is almost no snow on the mountains right now. Kegan says it is usually much better than right when we were there…and it was still pretty… but with current conditions I wasn’t sure why everyone was losing their minds over the beauty of the Tetons. It was more like just a really scenic drive towards Yellowstone to me.
This one looked like a watercolor through the haze. Jenny Lake Overlook
We took the side trip drive up Signal Mountain because we were listening to an audio guide called Just Ahead that gives you a guided tour based on where on the map you were. We did see a baby black bear cub on that drive! So that was exciting!
Also a Moose
We headed on North on the highway and arrived at the South gate of Yellowstone. Lewis Falls was our first stop.
We were trying to get Old Faithful in this evening if we could so we didn’t have to go down the south entrance road again and because I knew that the park would be ridiculously crowded the next day. We saw that it was scheduled to blow at 6:24. We arrived at the visitor center lot at 6:21. We had to find parking… hoof it up to the geyser….we arrived at 6:25… but I knew we didn’t miss it because everyone was still sitting around! ha
Norah couldn’t believe it! ha She loved it.
Turns out they give a +/- 10 minute range and it was at the tail end of the 10 minutes. About 6:35 it blew.
Next stop was Grand Prismatic Spring. I was highly considering hiking to the overlook point because you just don’t get the pretty rainbow tones from the ground level… but it was sunset nearly, so it wasn’t meant to be this trip.
A very cool old school tour bus still taking guests around! I loved this thing!
It was getting dark so we headed out of the West entrance of the park to West Yellowstone where we had the only hotel I had to pay for this trip. $360 for a standard 2 bed room for one night! They have a good thing going….it wasn’t the quality for that price… but it was just as good as a Holiday Inn.
We went to Firehole BBQ around 9:15pm and they are “open until they run out”. Kegan watched them run out of smoked turkey and brisket while waiting in line. Kegan ordered a rack and a half of ribs…and the guy behind him got the last of the ribs. Whew. Close call! ha
Day 18
Our morning started out slow. We didn’t leave the hotel until about 8:30. Then we had about a 30-40 minute wait in traffic to enter the park. Then we had about 20 miles to go to reach our first major stops for the day. So a lot of scenery.
We made a stop at Artist’s paintpots. Geothermal vents and bubbling mud. Super cool area.
We continued on towards the visitor center because we didn’t see any parking at the Mammoth Hot Springs.
Outside the visitor center, we found a big group of Elk just lounging!
Had to walk by them to get Norah’s National Park Passport stamped in the visitor center! haExcuse me, ma’am. We’re going to need to get in that Honda, please.
We swung back through Mammoth Hot Springs area and this time we were able to snag a parking spot.
The terraces are super cool.
We drove out to the north entrance because I wanted to see the famous Roosevelt Arch.
For the benefit and enjoyment of the people.
We were able to find parking in both upper falls and lower falls viewing areas as we passed through, so we got lots of good photo points of the falls.
Let’s keep it real on the blog…that picturesque photo of the waterfall at artist point? So scenic and serene? Yeah… this was a photo of the viewing platform to see it. There are a LOT of people there right now.
As we left the falls area, we descended into Hayden Valley and got our bison sightings in!
We stopped off at Sulphur Springs, Mud Volcano and Dragon’s Mouth Spring.
Unexpectedly, Kegan is telling us how when he was here 14 years ago, there was a bison like 10 feet away from them on this boardwalk… and……
We also had a bison very close on this boardwalk! haha Kegan thinks it may be the same damn bison. haha
The last stop inside the park was a view up to a lookout point over Lake Yellowstone. It was huge! We had no idea it was so big.
This led us to the East exit from the park and we would continue on the Buffalo Bill Scenic Highway all the way to Cody, Wyoming for the evening. Beautiful formations along the way.
Our dinner was super uneventful. Wendy’s salads. ha
We planned to eat at a German restaurant in town-they are closed this week. Then another restaurant we called had over an hour wait… so Wendy’s closed out the night.
Tomorrow we’ll check out Cody and end in Casper, Wyoming.
Kegan got up, flushed the toilet, went about his business and all of a sudden we realized, the toilet is overflowing and still running out into the floor! Kegan rushes in, opens the back tank and holds the fill float up to get it to stop! He first tried the shut off valve, but it was stuck shut… and the flapper stuck open because it was old and in poor repair. So, I called the desk…maintenance wasn’t in yet at 7:20am. So here is Kegan, holding a toilet together in his underwear. haha The desk lady brought us a plunger… and we were able to get it to go down, even though we didn’t do anything to clog it….so we left a wet pile of towels in the floor holding back water in the floor and got our stuff and left. We had some tweaker lady checking us in the night before who was incredibly high…and we weren’t fans all around. We were done with that particular Holiday Inn!
We headed to Delta, Utah to see the Topaz Museum. This was a museum I was really hoping was open for the trip. It is dedicated to preserving the history of the Japanese Internment camps in the United States during World War II. I am a big believer that people who know history and are aware of things that have come before us go forward in the world in a totally different way that people ignorant of our past. I admit I didn’t know a TON about this… I knew we rounded up Japanese Americans- most of them US citizens and forced them to stay in camps for the duration of the war, but the museum did a great job of highlighting the details and educating.
The US Army thought a West coast war was eminent with Japan after the attack on Pearl Harbor. They also thought that Japanese ancestry might make it hard to determine loyalties and they would have to worry about spying….so they ordered the evacuation of all persons of Japanese ancestry off the west coast. They had two weeks to evacuate. If they had a place to go East, they could go to family or friends…but if they didn’t have anywhere to go, they had to report to a station in two weeks time to be relocated.
A lot of them were forced to liquidate businesses and overhead…a lot of money was lost by Japanese immigrants and citizens with this order.
Racism and hatred was boiling over at the time, too- so they were getting no sympathy from their neighbors and no help.
The museum was a donation only entry fee and the guy at the front said we could walk through and then pay what we thought it was worth. We started in a small room where we watched 2 films. One was about the city of Topaz that was established near Delta, Utah where over 100,000 Japanese lived from 1942-1945. It showed the remaining site today – where its just a field full of building foundations and some chunks of concrete. They auctioned off all of the buildings years ago. Someone bought the land and preserved the history of what took place there and then they opened up this fantastic museum to really tell the full story.
The 2nd video we watched was a “contraband” home video filmed inside the camp by Dave Tatsuno. It’s one of two home movies in the Library of Congress. They had the actual video camera he used on display, donated by his son.
Also, in this room were some amazing art and jewelry pieces made by people living in the camp. They were all made of found fossillized shells from the Utah desert. They would sneak through the barbed wire and go out hunting for shells, fossils, arrowheads… they would clean and dye the shells and make amazing pieces of jewelry and art.
After the video, we entered the actual curated museum. So many artifacts from family members of the camp. What I admired about this is that even though they had everything taken and were being forced into barracks, they still managed to smile in some photos. They had a school, a hospital, a dental office- all ran by doctors and teacher residents. They planted food that they could… they made art and furniture, they kept living as best they could under the circumstances
They had an actual barrack house that was used by one specific family in the museum. That was eye-opening to see- the lack of space or amenities for a family of 8.
A suitcase of a Japanese Immigrant with characters that say “going to America!” The irony of this just so few years later to be used to pack up to go to a barbed wire encampment that America mandated.
Norah got to pick out a paper origami swan on our way out. Such a good museum. Highly recommend if you are anywhere near the area.
Our next stop was in Provo, Utah for carryout lunch at Black Sheep Cafe.
Kegan had Pork Jowl tacos, I had a bunless burger and Norah had a chicken and goat cheese quesadilla. Very good stuff.
Next up was a stop at Utah Valley University to see the Roots of Knowledge stained glass exhibit.
AMAZING stained glass and art showing the Tree of Life and the progression of humans in the world over the centuries. I could talk about it ad nauseum, but if you have any interest you can go to:
http://www.uvu.edu/rootsofknowledge/tour
and there is also a UVU Roots of Knowledge iPad app that walks you panel by panel through the project. So cool. So Intricate. So well done.
After trekking it back across campus to the parking garage, we headed to the Museum of Ancient Life in Thanksgiving Point to see some dinosaur bones.
This took us to time to check into the hotel, clean the car… re-organize and shower ourselves(since this morning’s bathroom debacle threw a wrench in that!) and go pick up my mother from the airport. She was estimating getting in at like 7:07p, but it ended up being a bit delayed and then she had a 24 minute walk from where they came into the terminal… we were a little nervous we’d miss our dinner reservations for 8:15.
But, we didn’t. We made it. We reserved Pago even though they had a very small menu because my first choice of the Copper Onion was all booked up. We had a cheese board, Kale caesar salads that had pickled fennel, I had some flank steak and Kegan had a Marionberry cider and pork chop and my mom had scallops with a risotto.
Day 16
Today was a day for exploring Salt Lake City. We started the morning out driving across the city to the Eastern mountains to see the Heritage and Pioneer Park. We started seeing a Pony Express monument.
The Pony Express was a service that ran for less than 2 years (I didn’t know this-it only ran April 1860 to October 1861). It was designed to increase the speed of communication between California and St. Joseph, Missouri before any telegraph lines were ran out to the West.
The way it worked, there were about 190 stations, every 10 or so miles for a 1900 mile journey where riders would ride one horse at a gallop, then hot transfer to a fresh horse to continue riding as fast as possible throughout the day. Each station had an attendant that would feed and water the horses and ready them for the next rider to pass through.
There were about 80 riders…the most famous being Buffalo Bill Cody. (which you’ll see a lot more about in a couple days when we leave Yellowstone and go to Cody, Wyoming.) He joined the riders and famously made the longest ride recorded when we reached a station only to learn his relief rider had been killed. 322 miles in 21 hours 40 minutes using 20 horses.
They made a replica of a Pony Express station house for the 2002 Summer Olympics that were hosted in Salt Lake City to showcase some of the history associated with the area.
In the same area was a monument to the Mormon Volunteer Battalion honoring the 500 soldiers and their families who volunteered to trek west to California as part of the Mexican America war in the 1840s. It’s significant because it’s the only religious battalion ever recruited and labeled as such in the military’s history. It actually was very self-serving…but it was still volunteer military service. At the time, the Mormons were being run out of Nauvoo, Illinois for their “blasphemy” and polygamy. Brigham Young, the Mormon leader at the time, wanted to move the Mormons west…but hadn’t been able to formally start the migration plan yet. So, government-funded Westward movement, with money paid per week to the families and additional tithes to the church… well, this just seemed like a plan from heaven! He encouraged many many men to enlist and volunteer…and migrate west and he began and led the rest of the community westward, eventually landing on Salt Lake City as the chosen and prophesied place.
The migration west for the Mormons was not easy. Most people carried their belongings and walked, or they used handcarts..only some had wagons. Brigham Young had rocky mountain spotted fever at the time they crested the mountains east of the Great Basin. He pulled back the curtains on the wagon he was riding in, said “This is the place, keep going” and they continued on into the Valley to set up their “Zion” city. There is a giant monoment on the high land above the city commemorating this event.
We walked around to other small sculptures and read the plaques.
Seagulls have a funny history with Mormons. The mormons believe that when locusts/grasshopper swarms were killing their crops in 1848, that their prayers were answered because seagulls came out and ate all the grasshoppers, then regurgitated their carcasses and continued eating until they were all gone and saved their crops. So they have lots of monuments and references to seagulls as an answer to the divine prayer to save them.
Once done, we tried to go to the Natural History Museum of Utah…but it turns out you have to book advanced tickets- you cant just walk in! what the heck? ha so… all tickets were booked and we didn’t get to go, so..instead, we headed downtown to see the biggest first temple of Mormons.
Only problem was all the grounds were closed and the building was covered in scaffolding for major repairs.
On our way to our next stop was the old train depot.
The original Union Pacific train depot built in 1908
Next up was a spot for Kegan- the Land Cruiser Museum!
He thought it was a really good museum and way more jammed into it than he expected. Most people around us are Jeep people- but Kegan is a land cruiser person 🙂 He hasn’t sprung for one yet as a driver for himself… because they are SILLY priced haha But maybe one day. If we can decide what country we want to live in forever. haha We gotta know whether to buy right hand or left hand drive! ha
He loved the fact that they had some of the early 20 series that you NEVER see. There are only like 3000 ever made of the MEGA CRUISER (only 133 sold to civilians)…and they have one there. They had Japanese models, Brazilian models, Australian fire trucks. It was super cool.
This one had my favorite paint color (because #girlthings) This was a custom pop up camper tent added to the top of this one for an Australian model and the very back was outfitted with a custom small kitchenette. The one Kegan wants to buy for himself.
Next up was the Clark planetarium downtown. A very cool and totally free space museum mostly geared towards kids, but we enjoyed ourselves too. It was fantastic!
We bought tickets there for the IMAX show on Antarctica and while waiting we noticed that at 10:15pm, they were going to be doing a Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon Laser show in the planetarium dome theater…so we bought tickets to come back at night!
We ordered Lobster rolls from a place in town called Freshie’s Lobster. Good lobster rolls
We booked 3pm entry tickets into The Leonardo. A small children’s museum based on Leonardo DaVinci’s passions and achievements.
They had a piano that said “Please play”, so she did… They had an entire C131 aircraft the kids could go up into the cockpit and then slide down the back end.
The museum was cute and fun for Norah for a while… they had a big Lego table that she dug around in for while… but in the lobby on the way out is this cabinet of rare books from a local book seller. And Kegan spotted something he knew I’d have to have. And he was right.
Sitting unassumingly in the case was this signed first edition of Mostly Harmless. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy book series is easily my favorite series of books and I love Douglas Adams work. This was a fantastic find!
This led us to our last stop for the day in the Salt Lake area- the Bonneville Salt Flats. They weren’t exactly close… it was over an hour each way… but we had to fit it in. Because I had life changing plans for the little one in the car 🙂
The chariot needed a bath after driving on straight salt. One happy girl feeling very very grown up. We got her a hat to commemorate the event 🙂
We ordered Red Iguana mexican carryout because they were all booked up for dining and delivery and they were a very highly rated local family restaurant.
I forgot to photograph the food! But we had fish tacos, carnitas and some stuffed jalepenos.
We left my mother and Norah in the hotel and headed back out to the Clark Planetarium for the pink Floyd show. Let me tell you. I am officially old. Everyone there was like 15 years younger than me and on WAY more drugs. ha But I enjoyed myself none the less- even being old and straight edge. I was a nice 30 minutes of kicking back and listening to my favorite album of all time with a trippy 1998 Windows Media Player visual with lasers. ha
