Tumbleweed AlertMonday, 11th May
Franchise America gives the outward view that it is overrun with places which require precise architecture, attitude and offerings, so that there is little discernable difference between Bartow in Florida and Barstow in California, but there are times on our trips when we travel through a special place, one almost would say magical, except, of course, one wouldn't. Not necessarily a place with famous landmarks, as they have often been subsumed into Franchise America. When we have pulled off the beaten track expecting nothing and yet finding a warmth and richness of American life that you only find in a Jimmy Stewart or a Fred MacMurray movie.
Today we became part of the timeless life of Chugwater, Wyoming.
We would be traveling from Cheyenne to Fort Laramie today, about 120 miles and we have taken on the habit of stopping after an hour or so in order to have a Coff/T. With a fifty foot rig casual stopping can be hazardous, so we will often stop at a Safeway, which has a big car park outside and nowadays has a cafe, often starbucks, inside. Nice and easy, straight forward, however this scenario does suffer from being one of the co-conspirator's of Franchise America, so we will often try and choose an independent coffee shop, diner or similar to stop at. Sometimes this had brought real trials, for instance when we drove through Montrose, CO despite being a good sized town we could not find any etablishment that we could stop at, so missed out on our morning break. In the past this has given us some great experiences of Small Town America. The Manhattan Cafe (biggest cinnamon rolls in the world) in Shoshone, ID, Old Town Coffee (best workshop about the best coffee in the world) in Lander, WY, Ronnie's Cafe (best Gumbo in the world) in Eunice, LA, The Egg River Cafe (best breakfast in the world) in Hood River, OR, Atomic Express Bistro (nicest old lady in the world) in Aztec NM. There are of course many others, some of which are mentioned in previous blogs. Perhaps I should start a Gazetteer page of 'nice places to have Coff/T, where yo can stop with a 50ft rig'.
To continue...
We would be traveling from Cheyenne to Fort Laramie today, about 120 miles and studying the map I found a choice between a soda fountain in Chugwater and a The Wheatland Inn, a family diner in Wheatland. The safe bet was The Wheatland Inn, close to the road with a big car park. The Soda fountain looked more fun, but risky as it meant parking on the main street, "would we be able to find a parking space" is always one of Sally's Mantras. The decision was left until we were on the road, read on................
The magic began as we left Cheyenne KOA with clear skies, only some of the ice layer that had built up on the rig and climbing temperatures (actually, compared to the last few days, soaring temperatures). The landscape looked pristine, covered with snow, with the rolling grassland beneath peeking through, it was a joy to be travelling on Wyomings Interstate (80 m.p.h. speed limit). 50 miles up the road we approached the exit for Chugwater and decided that yes, this would be a good time to stop, so we pulled off the Interstate and time started to sslllooowwww down............
You can listen to this while you read
The city road sign said:
Many of the Main Street houses and shops were missing or boarded up and traffic was not a problem. We found the Soda Fountain, joy of joys, it was open, though it looked like it had been closed for years. Despite the road being completely empty we managed to find somewhere to park, right across the road from the Soda Fountain, which is called Chugwater Soda Fountain. The soda fountain stands almost alone, with the town museum (closed, for the day? for the season? for the century?) to one side and, well nothing, to the other side. Across the road were some large grain silos, which stood alongside the railroad.
The door was set back in its frontage, we went in and now time just stopped.
The Soda Fountain was built in 1914 and rebuilt in 1916 when it burned down. in 1917 it had the current soda fountain installed and looks like it has changed little since then. Although mostly tables and chairs with nice red check tablecloths, it has one booth, sort of in the middle of the floor, but what the heck!
We barely had got through the door and said "Hi" to the waitress, when we were welcomed by a gentleman sitting at a table, he insisted, pleasantly that we could sit with him, so we did. From there we had a wonderful, sparkling conversation about all sorts of things. It turns out that he has only lived in Chugwater for fourteen years, though apparently the locals will now speak to him. The rumour being that he is part of a Federal Witness Protection Program, which of course he denies, but then again, as I pointed out suspiciously, if you were part of the WPP you would deny it, thus making it more plausible. He became suspiciously reticent and changed the subject.
"So how do you think Chugwater got its name?" Was his tack. We of course feigned complete ignorance, being the polite tourists, and also because we were completely ignorant. That cheered him up. He explained that the land that Chugwater was built on had been donated by the local cattle barons, but prior to that it was settle by Indians. The son of one the chiefs was apparently both lazy and bright (often a good start for innovation). The tribe lived by the river, but fed on buffalo of course. He however did not wish to chase all over the plains trying to kill one, so imported the idea of driving them over the local cliffs. Apparently when they hit the ground they make a sort of chugging noise (he did not explain that further), so the place became known as Chug water. This sounded very plausible to us and we said so.
We continued to have a great conversation about his trips to England and other places. He did have to break off at one point as a spanish family came in. He is the only person in the town who speaks Spanish, so he found out from them that they needed gas. Amazingly he is also the only person in the town who keeps a supply of gas, since the gas station closed some years ago.
This was fortunate timing, as we had been sat drinking coff/T, talking and enjoying ourselves for about three days. So I rummaged amongst the T-shirts, because I just had to have a T-shirt that said 'Chugwater, Wyoming' across the front.
The guys name is Lee and he insisted on buying our Coff/T (and cinnamon roll), which was really the nicest thing. Unfortunately he will never read this blog as he does not have a computer. Well we had had the wildest time, but it was time to move on, as we cranked up the Chevy we passed the closed down hotel and the new museum building and the sound of the Interstate started to intrude and time speeded up to normal again and by the time we rejoined I25 we found that we had only been in Chugwater for about an hour.
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