Robbie and Mr Peabody

Tumbleweed Alert 

Tuesday

Although this campground is now behind us it has left indelible memories, which I think are only fair to share with the world.
As you read the rest of  this page you may wish to play the video, it will provide a soothing background.

Train coming through

Did you know that Wyoming produces 40% of USA coal? That was 388 million tons last year, just over 1 million tons a day. I think I showed an interesting picture from our tour of the museum in Cheyenne. Look here it is again:

 See how much coal there is.

Well, what we found out is that almost all of the million tons of coal a day passes about 25 yards from our trailer! In trains that have 3 to 4 big diesels pulling them at the front and 1 to 2 more diesels at the back pushing. I only counted the number of trucks on one train - 133 while I was washing up, after that I sort of lost the will to live. Each truck carries 121 tons of coal (that is more than 16000 tons of coal), in case you really didn't count the trucks on the train video, there are 166, which more or less rounds out at 20,000 tons of coal. 

The exciting thing for the train driver was that the train goes through the middle of Fort Laramie, which is a town which has no stop light, but three rail crossings. I don't know if you know, but when a train approaches a rail crossing in USA it usually sounds its romantic, long ,low moaning whistle and rings a bell, unfortunately these cola trains have very loud air horns, really very loud air horns, and the Chuck Wagon RV is about 100 yards from the first crossing, which is where that video was shot, as we were leaving). Fortunately, so as not to overwhelm us with surprise, the train gives an initial blast about 200 yards from the crossing, and then again at 100 yards, that was the one that really was loud. Put it this way, the third crossing is at the other end of town, about a mile away, and the air horn still sounded loud when it went past that crossing. Interestingly enough these trains can travel quite fast, I reckon about 15 m.p.h., so they are making a lot of train noise as well, especially when they are 25 yards away and full of coal.

Train coming through!

Because the coal is carried in a finite number of trucks and by a finite number of engines, they must return to the coalfield to fill up again, so every train that goes down the line full, comes back again empty, only faster. Again fortunately you know they are coming and can prepare yourself, as they sound their air horns as they approach the first of the crossings at the other end of town, thus giving you a chance to strap yourself down or don ear protection. To be fair during the night we only got trains coming through at 11.20, 12.30, 3.15, 3.25, 5.00 and 5.15 a.m.

So one could get some sleep. While lying awake one can count coal cars instead of sheep and work out that at 20K ton of coal per train, that is 50 trains per day taking it out and 50 trains returning, to be fair there were not 100 trains per day, it just seemed like it. I also know that a lot of the coal is taken West, either for use or to be shipped to the East or abroad. However, we also noticed that many of the trains were oil, which is also found in large quantities in Wyoming.

I think we would say that this was the noisiest campground we have ever stayed in, but we did see some trains.

We took surprisingly few pics of the trains

The reference to Mr Peabody - Peabody is the name of the coal company that owns the mines. Same Peabody that 'owns' Memphis and the Peabody Hotel. Same 'Mr Peabody' so lamented in the haunting song about Peabody's and the ghost town of Paradise in Muhlenburg County, Kentucky, which inevitably brings to mind dearly departed Jim Martinson of Marilee and Jim, back at Istachatta, FL, from whom I first heard the song.

Robbie? Coltrane of course

On to Fort Laramie

Monday
The forecast got it right and it was  lovely clear day and got away from Cheyenne really early. Although having been neatly caught in a timewarp called Chugwater, we still made good time driving over the endless prairies, those rolling grasslands, and made it to the Fort Laramie area by lunchtime. We had a choice of three campgrounds: The Guernsey State Park, which would be quiet,but had no water, the Guernsey Municipal Park, which was by the river, but had no dump station and the Chuck Wagon RV in Fort Laramie, which suspiciously had everything, including a train track, approximately 25 yards away. Still, it only a single track and it was a rural area and we knew the big trains all used the Union Pacific Railway back in Cheyenne.

Click here if you cannot see the pics

We got nicely set up in a nice site, the sun was now shining, so we went to the first place on our itinerary - The Fort at Fort Laramie. we had a pleasant wander round there soaking up the history of how the army first of all came and explored the area, then in the 1840's and 50's gave support and protection to the emigrants on the Oregon Trail, as they rested by the North Platte and then tried to cross it. The in the 1860'/ 70's/80's and 90's worked hard at controlling and then exterminating the Indian population.

Click here if you cannot see the pics

Then we went back to the trailer in time for tea.

Chugwater Wyoming

Tumbleweed Alert
Monday, 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.

Our time in Chugwater,WY

Weather update

Saturday
Well the morning started with pouring rain, but the weather stations were putting out a weather warning - over an inch of rain today, winds up to 40 m.p.h. tonight, between 10-18" of snow tonight and tomorrow. Temperatures down to 26deg F.
Horror of horrors I have, or rather the rain has, found a small leak at the top of one of the walls of the trailer, so we hope that it will not be anything too serious when we investigate it after this storm.
We set out to go to town before the weather worsened, Sally got her hair done in JC Penney's Salon and had a great time chatting away with her hairdresser, Mary Ellen, who came from just south of Knoxville, TN. While I drove off to Albertson's to stock up on supplies.
When I picked Sally up at about 12.30 and it was still raining solidly. We popped into Walmart to pick up the last of the food (cereals and cans are half the price of Albertson's, but their Deli' meats are not as good), by the time we came out there was an inch of snow on the car - the snow had come early! So we abandoned our plan to have lunch in Applebee's and drove straight back to the trailer to sit and watch the snow fall.
It stopped snowing about 5.00, with only a couple of inches on the ground. About 7.00 the wind started up, the trailer is shaking a bit. Every now and then I could hear a noise like a pebble being thrown on the roof. Went out to have a look - icicles were forming on the rolled up awning and the wind was breaking them off and blowing them against the side of the trailer.

It is now 8.00 and hasn't snowed again, though we expect the main bout of snow to fall overnight, starting in about an hour, so we shall see. Outside temperature is showing 25.5deg F.
Although it is windy, it is not as windy as predicted, so perhaps we won't get as much snow as predicted.
Sunday
We awoke with some trepidation, only to find that there had been only a little bit of snow added and the wind had calmed down, although it had warmed up to 25deg F we still preferred to stay inside with our two electric fires on. We will stay on here until tomorrow.

Looking at the radar pics it seems that the bulk of the moisture passed to the East of us, dropping as rain on the lower ground.
Sunday Evening
Well it looks like the worst is over, the temperature did just get up to freezing and we survived. It did mean that we had a good excuse for sitting and doing absolutely nothing for a day, which can't be bad.
Here is the government weather warning issued on Saturday:

 Central Laramie County Severe Watches & WarningsNOAA Weather Radio

Winter Storm Warning

Statement as of 6:24 PM MDT on May 09, 2015

... Winter Storm Warning remains in effect until 6 PM MDT Sunday... 

* timing... periods of moderate to heavy snow will continue tonight
  through much of Sunday.

* Total snow accumulations... 10 to 18 inches. Locally higher 
  amounts are possible... especially along the Pine Ridge. 

* Winds/visibility... north to northeast 20 to 30 mph with gusts
  to 40 mph. Visibility will be significantly reduced in falling
  and blowing snow.

* Impacts... extremely dangerous or impossible travel with heavy 
  snow and reduced visibility likely. Roads will be slick and 
  snow covered. In addition... the heavy snow may result in 
  downed tree branches... with could lead to scattered power 
  outages. 

Precautionary/preparedness actions... 

A Winter Storm Warning for heavy snow means severe winter weather
conditions are expected or occurring.  Significant amounts of
snow are forecast that will make travel dangerous. Only travel in
an emergency. If you must travel... keep an extra flashlight... 
food... and water in your vehicle in case of an emergency.

Cheyenne Day 2

Friday
On our second day in Cheyenne we had decided to do indoor stuff, on our way into town we had to stop at the Merci Boxcar to get the pics we didn't get yesterday, then, after another stop for coff/T at Starbucks, we made for the Capitol, which is very nice, but not overwhelming. Neither house was in session, so it was very quiet. we did find a chap on the top floor ferreting up in the roof space, doing some exploration to see what was beneath the paintwork, because the building had been extended and revamped several times since it was built. Nnwo they wanted to get it back to it's original design. We had a fascinating time, seeing how the rooms had been in 1867.
We found a memorial to 9/11 that was made from one of the box sections from the 65th floor. The whole section had been taken by Oak Ridge High School in TN and cut into 50 sections, each section was mounted and then one was sent to each State as a memorial.
Outside it was raining, so we quickly moved on to lunch, which we had in Sanfords, which had been recommended by the State Trooper in the Capitol. Now this was an amazing place. It was absolutely full of 50',60's and 70's junk, all very neatly displayed around the walls and between the tables. The food was very nice too.
After lunch we bowled on up to the State Museum. Wyoming has a very small population, about 500,000 people, so their state organisations tend to be quite small, which was the case with the Capitol this morning and equally true of the museum this afternoon. What it did do though was give us a very good idea of all the things that have happened in Wyoming, which again didn't take long, once you had got the shooting, drinking and womanising out of the way. The did have one of those 3D map models that light up when you press the buttons, this was great for showing us the variety of Immigrant Trails, Mountain Men meeting places, U.S. Army Forts and battles with the Indians. Gave some good context to our visit to Wyoming. I noticed some pictures of the coal mines they have here, unbelievable amounts of coal, just sitting their, why we ever sent men underground when there is all this just for the picking up I do not know!

However we did meet some very nice people, on the way in a school bus was waiting to pick up a group from the museum, as we passed it the door opens and a voice calls "Sally", much to our astonishment. Then also much to our astonishment Val, our Trolley Dolly from yesterday, jumps out and introduces us to al the 4th grader kids she is driving round the town, that was fun!!!the curator had spent a long time in the UK, at York, no less, so we had a good chat with him. The volunteer on the door was very friendly as well. While we were going round the museum we kept seeing another couple, so of course we got to talking. It turns out that she is a presbyterian minister from the next place we are visiting, Fort Laramie and Guernsey and he is a friend from Cheyenne, so we had a good long chat with them, which was also fun. The only disappointment was that they nothing on display from the Merci Boxcar, it was all in storage. Still never mind.
So that pretty well wraps up Cheyenne, Now we get to the problem - the weather. We know that it has been deteriorating, today it rained a lot - tomorrow it set to rain and rain and get windy, Sunday we are set to get SNOW! In quantity. So we are going to get food in and hunker down for the weekend.

Click here to see pics if you have an Apple 

Cheyenne

Thursday May 8th
Important caveat: Although I took many photos today my camera did not have a card in it, so pics are more limited today. Grrr!
We had sort of figured that although Cheyenne is the State Capital of Wyoming it would probably be about the same size as Laramie and about as interesting. Well as State Capitals go it is pretty small, but Laramie is even smaller, however we were completely wrong about how interesting it is.
Cheyenne is a fascinating place. It started life as a railhead in 1867 when Union Pacific were building the railroad. It was a tent city, mostly the three B's, beds, bars and brothels. It started about thirty miles to the East, but being a tent city as the railroad grew they picked up their tents and erected them again at the end of the railway. The town stopped moving when it reached a valley, with a small river running through. Whether they couldn't summon the strength to go up the other side, or couldn't get across the river I don't know, but that's where it stopped.
We took a trolley ride round the town, this was driven by and tour guided by a rip roarer of a lady call Val, who gave a very high speed, action packed, yet informative guided tour round the town, telling us about such myths, with a real life, such as Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickock. It was quite fascinating and we loved it. She told us of the many tunnels that are under the sidewalks, most of which led to one or another of the brothels (we remembered the same in Pendleton, OR), she showed us the Capitol building, the rodeo fairground and the railroad as well as the buildings in the old part of town.
We ate lunch in the Albany, which looked like a typical railway hotel/tavern and was, i.e. not sparkling, but OK.
After lunch we drove out to the Botanical Gardens, which were nice, but really we wen to see the old loco, the oldest in Wyoming, which is on display in the grounds. Sally got some rally nice pics of goslings and there were some nice garden benches with local scenes built into them.
Next stop was Holliday Park, with a lake with the unlikely name of Minnehaha Lake. Sounds Indian, but was of course the fictional name of the girl in Longfellow's poem of Hiawatha. Anyway we didn't come to see the lake, we came to see the Biggest Steam Train in the world! Big Boy 4004 was built for the Union Pacific Railroad in 1941 to haul the big trains up the long incline to the highest part of the railroad just beyond Laramie. It is a very big engine. We were impressed, but it started to rain, so we jumped back into the chevy and moved on.
Our last stop was at the Cheyenne American Legion Post 6. Why? because the Wyoming Merci Train Boxcar is on display there (See our blog for the last one we saw in Ogden, Utah). Unfortunately it was now pouring with rain. However, I got out of the Chevy and posed for a pic. There was a gentleman working by the boxcar and he came to say 'Hi'. It turns out that he introduced himself as Ken and he is the 'Chef Du Gare' for the local Forty and Eight Society, whose history I have outlined before, they have a special relationship with the Merci Boxcars. we had a great conversation, it seems that he is preparing the boxcar for public display and asked if we would like to see inside, so of course we said yes. He opened the sliding door and we (Ken and I) climbed in (it is quite high up) and had a really good look round. He told us of his plans and we told him what we do, meanwhile Sally was outside the boxcar, in the rain. It really did not seem big enough to take 40 men with their kit, rifle and ammunition, but there it was, a little bit of history. He told us that the gifts from the French were in the State Museum, so as we bid farewell we determined to visit the State Museum tomorrow to see if we could find them.
/> So all in all, apart from the weather, which has been awful anyway ever since we left Phoenix, we really enjoyed Cheyenne and are looking forward to exploring more tomorrow.

Apple viewers click here for pics

Down the Line to Cheyenne

Wednesday
Having more of less 'done' Laramie we moved East, following the Union Pacific Railroad, looking at one or two significant places on the way.
First place we stopped at was Buford, a ghost town which had a popn. of 4000, now has a popn. of 1.