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Day three started off at Independence Rock.  It got the name because if you weren’t as far as this landmark by July 4th on your trip to Oregon or California, you probably wouldn’t make it before the first mountain snowfalls west of here.  Technically, we were there after July 4th, but we didn’t run into any snowfall.

Names were carved into the face of the rock. We only got pictures of a few of them, as neither one of us wanted to ascend the entire formation, and there weren’t exactly signs pointing to the specific locations where these carvings were to be found. Still, we saw a few of them. It was one of those times where you think about how “Wagon Train Along Oregon Trail” is non-specific, where you don’t necessarily think about individuals along that trip that made the journey and survived or perished.  Here are instances where you see evidence of “B. Snow,” or other specific people that were at that specific location 150+ years ago.  Crazy.

From Independence Rock, we continued another few hours to South Pass, which is at the Continental Divide.  It looks quite a bit different up in Wyoming than it does down in Colorado (we saw that too, incidentally, on the return trip), as it’s flatter and eminently more “passable” for a group of wagons than the Rocky Mountains are.

Of course, now, there’s an interstate highway system (Interstate 80) that makes its way just south of this location, but being the historically accurate explorers we are, we took WY-28 to get here.  Technically, there’s only a brief rest stop at this location, but nearby, there’s a dirt road that goes off into through some fields to get to the real “South Pass.”  And guess who has all-wheel drive?

The road really wasn’t all that bad, but we were still glad we had the additional ground clearance and AWD, as there were more than a few times where one side of the Forester was a good 12″ higher than the other side of it.  Rain was coming in, so we didn’t stay too long, but we got a feel for how high up we were (about 7,500 ft), yet how flat it was.  It was no wonder why the wagons went this way rather than through the Rockies.

While we were at South Pass, we also saw a few markers left in honor of two famous travelers: Narcissa Whitman (left) and Ezra Meeker (right).  Whitman was the first European-American woman to cross the Rockies.  She was a Christian missionary that made the trip around 1836 and largely proved that women could make the trip, paving the way for families to come out.

Ezra Meeker made the trip in 1852 when he was 22.  From 1906 to 1908, convinced that the Oregon Trail was going to be forgotten, he made a much publicized trip along the Trail by wagon, placing monuments along the way (including this one).  He did it again by ox cart from 1910-1912, and by plane in 1924.  Note that he was in his late 70s when he made these wagon trips.  Regardless, his work is largely responsible for the trip we were able to take 100 years later.

By this point in our journey, we were running low on things to see.  That is to say, points of interest along this portion of the trail become more sparse.  At least, monuments and big things become more “sparse,” while grave sites and famous Indian War battle sites start to predominate.

Soda Springs, however, was mentioned in the Oregon Trail game and was definitely worth the stop.  Sure, we’ve got spring water in Missouri, and “hot springs” down in Arkansas (among other places), but at this intriguing site, the spring water is naturally carbonated.  There are multiple springs in this area, and Hooper Spring was one of the more famous locations.

Obviously, this isn’t what it looked like back then, but you can still hear the water bubbling as it comes up out of the ground.  It’s a nice little stop, though this particular spring is surrounded by mining and construction, so it isn’t quite as picturesque as some of the other places we stopped.  Still, if you’re ever in the area, it’s worth a quick stop.

After stopping at Soda Springs, we booked it across Idaho to the Twin Falls/Jerome region, had dinner, and stayed at a KOA in the back of the car for a night.

Only one more day on the trail!  Next stop, Oregon City!

So, after the not-so-awesome first night’s sleep in the back of the car, we continued toward the nearby Fort Kearny State Park.  Fort Kearny was one of the early well-known stops along the trails, a trading and restocking depot along the California, Mormon and Oregon Trail systems.  It went through a few face-lifts during its years of existence, but importantly, it was established by the US government as a service to pioneers heading west along the Platte River.

The Platte River, we would find, was an essential lifeline to the early pioneers as they crossed Nebraska and into Wyoming (where things would get a lot worse).  It’s an odd river in that it’s somewhat shallow at many points, but it also gets muddy and changes its shape/location readily.  It was also important to the Native Americans of the area, which means the pioneers and Indians were in close proximity, sometimes leading to conflict (hence the need for a Fort at this location).

The state park grounds were interesting, including quite a few replica buildings and the outlines of where previous buildings were.  This site wasn’t well-maintained from its time as a fort, as most of the materials were dismantled around the time the transcontinental railroad was completed (another theme throughout the trip, as nearly every museum would bring up that the trail effectively ended once the train system was completed).  After that point, there wasn’t much need to protect travelers, so the fort was abandoned and eventually turned over to the Nebraska state government.

After leaving Fort Kearny, we passed multiple rock formations that were frequently mentioned in the diaries of those traveling the trail.  Courthouse and Jail Rocks were the first…

…followed by Chimney Rock.  Courthouse and Jail Rocks had a pull-out off the highway near Scott’s Bluff, but no visitor center.  Chimney Rock, however, had a decent visitor center with some displays of artifacts and another video.  By this point, we were noticing that most of these videos told the same story for 10 minutes, followed by 5 minutes that discussed the exact feature you were seeing.  Still, it was interesting to listen to the evolution of how the trail was discussed, where early sites appeared to focus on the railroad system coming in, while later sites seemed to shift that focus more toward how Native Americans were more of a help than a hindrance to the pioneers.

The next stop, just over the border into Wyoming, was Fort Laramie.  Here, in one day, we had a stark reminder of the difference between a state park and a national park.  Where Fort Kearny had replica houses and somewhat chintzy displays, Fort Laramie still had original buildings and displays within those buildings to show how things were set up, including period-specific furniture, clothing, dishes, etc.  If you’re going to pick one, you definitely want to visit this one (mostly because it’s free…your tax dollars at work!).

Much like Fort Kearny, Fort Laramie was there as a service to the emigrants as they crossed toward Oregon, however it ended up having a larger role in the Civil War and in multiple wars with the Native Americans of the region, so it ended up being a larger and longer-lasting establishment.  It wasn’t officially abandoned until 1890, almost 20 years after Fort Kearny was opened up to homesteaders.

The buildings here were pretty cool, so I think we both agree it’s worth the visit if you get the chance.  It has quite a few descriptive signs, lots of artifacts, and is big enough that you could spend a morning or afternoon exploring all of it.  We only spent an hour but felt like we could have stayed quite a bit longer.

It also sits on the Platte River, so it was also important to the same emigrants who traveled multiple trails.  It would be days between these two forts for a wagon train, a distance we traveled in a few hours.  Thus, this establishment had much needed supplies and defenses to allow for oxen to rest before the arduous journey that was to come across the deserts of Idaho and western Wyoming.

The last place we stopped was a set of permanent wagon ruts dug into sandstone near Guernsey, WY.  Apparently, the pioneers couldn’t find an easier way around this terrain, so they drove their wagons over it, digging up to 5 ft into the rock face.  Kinda crazy enough wagons passed through that one spot to dig a hole in rock that deep!

After that, we stopped at a hotel in Alcova, WY.  It was called the Riverview Inn.  It’s attached to the Sunset Grill.  Never stay at this hotel.  I’ll leave it at that…

Onward!

We started our trip at the National Frontier Trails Museum in Independence, MO, where we got our first introduction to the Oregon Trail and the other trails that started from this area.  The museum itself actually set the tone for the rest of what we’d see, in that much of what we saw there was similar to what we’d see most other places: artifacts, a video, some diary entries, regionally specific displays, etc.  It’s a decent place to go if you aren’t planning on driving the whole thing (like crazy people…), but it didn’t really add much to the overall trip, aside from serving as a primer on what was to come.

From here, we hopped on the trail!  Wanna see what it looked like?

Cool, eh?  Yeah, this was our view for the first few hours of the trip as we rounded Kansas City through the southern side of town.  We probably could have skipped this section, but especially early on, we were pretty committed to following the exact route of the trail as far as we could.  Unfortunately, this meant driving through Suburban Hell for longer than anyone should.

Once we were out of the KC area, though, we traveled on state and federal highways as best as possible.  We were on I-70 only briefly after Independence, and then started heading north.

One of our first stops was a Cholera Cemetery near Belvue, KS.  It was somewhat off the beaten path, but as disease was commonplace on the Oregon Trail (and in the game), we thought it would be interesting.  There were only a few stones there, and they were kept behind a chain-link fence, but the informational display nearby was interesting.  It wasn’t the most exciting thing we saw on the trail, but it was a good reminder that a lot of people ended up dying of cholera before they even made it a few hundred miles past Independence…

From here, we kept heading north into Nebraska toward a Rock Creek Station State Historical Park.  It was a relatively early stop on the way to Fort Kearny for trail travelers, but wasn’t necessarily an important stop.  On our first day of traveling, however, we thought it’d be nice to go somewhere else before we reached our destination for the day.

At this point, I should take this time to point out that Nebraska, apparently, doesn’t believe in gravel roads.  Instead of gravel, they use dirt.  And in the event of rain, that dirt turns to mud.  When did it last rain?  I don’t know.  But it must have been a lot, because the dirt road Waze took us down to get to this particular park (which, granted, was a road you don’t have to use – it’s just the one that let us cut over from the highway we were actually on to get to where we wanted to go) was filled with mud.

Luckily, Brooke was driving, otherwise we probably would have been worse off.  This is probably the most harrowing experience I’ve had in a car, mostly because we were in the middle of nowhere, and if our Subaru Forester got stuck down one of those hills, it was likely a tow truck wouldn’t be able to get down there to get us out.

Thankfully, our car is awesome, and Brooke did a great job of driving it.  She dropped into low gear and took it slow down and up the hills.  As you can see in the picture above, the “ruts” we dug into the road were rather squiggly, as the car was sliding back and forth constantly up and down the hills.

Ultimately, though there was mud caked in our wheel wells, we survived and made it back up to the top.  Brooke and I were shaking for awhile after that…enough adventure for our first day on the trail…

Rock Creek Station doesn’t appear to get many visitors…certainly not down the crappy mud road we took to get there…  Still, it was a good reprieve from the last 30 min, so we took our time to walk around and see the re-created period-specific buildings they’d erected.  There were wagon ruts visible, though somewhat obscured by the tall grass.  The rain was starting to come in, so we didn’t hang around too long, yet long enough to watch a video about the site and learn a bit about that era.  It sounds like Rock Creek Station’s main claim to fame involves a story about “Wild Bill” Hickok and his first gunfight, which took place at the station.  It looks like they do re-enactments somewhat frequently, though I hope the participants are better actors than those in the video they showed us.  Still, they’ve got quite a few buildings on display that make for an interesting visit.  I wish we’d had more time, but with the rain coming in, we didn’t want to get stuck in a wood building a mile from the car.

Thus, we continued onward toward Windmill State Park, where we stayed for the night.  The pricing was reasonable and we’d already paid our daily fee for use of Nebraska state parks, so it seemed like a good option.  That, and Windmill was relatively close to Fort Kearny, where we’d start the next day.

This was also our first attempt at car camping in the back of the Forester.  We’d practiced this before leaving, though didn’t actually try sleeping in the car until then.  Still, we put in some eggshell foam pads and a bunch of blankets in the back of the car, folded the seats down, and did our best to get comfortable.  Unfortunately, the way the seats fold down causes a substantial “dip” between the back of the rear seats and the cargo bay, so if you’re my height, it means your hips land exactly at that dip, making it kinda uncomfortable.  By the second night, I figured out a reasonable sleeping position and it got better, but that first night wasn’t great.

We also ate dinner in town at Sportsman Bar and Grill.  After a day like ours, that burger was pretty spectacular!  Definitely an old establishment that has seen better days, but hey, the food was good and the beer was cheap: we weren’t arguing.

More on Day Two in another post!