California Here We Come
California here we come!
On Saturday, with Don’s truck repaired, we left Hart Ranch and headed south.
Blustery and cold, it never quite rained until the evening. With the gray skies, what color might be in the grasses is muted, no green at all, just the straw colored dried grasses and the smoke colored sagebrush. The Black Hills are hiding behind the clouds, we can only see an occasional dark shoulder covered with ponderosas. The one color is the bright, almost neon yellow of the cottonwood trees that line anything that ever has water in it. It is an acidy, chemical yellow, sometimes with a copper blush. Unlike the more familiar New England fall colors that spread reds, oranges and golds over all the hillsides and valleys, these shouts of yellow are an intermittent jolt in a grey brown landscape.
Before we left we took one last drive up into the Black Hills, partly to get a photo for a geocache thing at Mt Rushmore, partly just to see the rocks and views again. We were a little late for the color of the aspens, which go a clear, almost painful yellow against the blue sky. In the sunlight, they look like a stand of matches aflame, especially when they are against the dark pines.
As we drive south, we are following the route of the Deadwood to Cheyenne Stage route. This carried the gold from the mines, and was robbed so frequently, by such a wild bunch of characters that its history was a part of Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West show. He carried around one of the actual Deadwood stages and drove it into the arenas at a full gallop. I discovered this by looking up Rawhide Buttes. These hills went by on our left, rocky and abrupt, rising from the rolling prairie, and there was a sign for them. There is a big ranch there, that had one of the stage stops where the horses were changed out. Also there was a house of ill repute set up at a blowing place where the horses were stopped for a rest. This establishment was run by Mother Featherlegs, so called from her ruffley bloomers that looked like chicken’s legs. She was murdered, and a stone erected in her memory. If you want more, http://www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/deadwood2.html. is a website full of good stories about the stage line and other parts of WY.
We pass through Lusk, whose name has always interested me, but it is just named after Frank Lusk who owned the land where it was built, first as a stop on the Deadwood Stage line. Various mines opened up nearby, and men came to live in tents and soon the railroad, and then oil and now it is pretty much a ranch town. The next town south on 85/rail line/Deadwood Stage line is Lingle. Another odd name, but it turns out to be named for Hiram Lingle who promoted the area. I don’t know what I was hoping for. Both Lusk and Lingle sound to me like the names of seafood or perhaps vegetables.
We finally make Cheyenne, and it is truly raining by now, a very unusual weather event out here where the skies are not cloudy all day. Our plan is to spend the night at the Flying J truck stop, mostly because it is free, and also it is easy in easy out and we can fill our tanks with diesel. Usually, we find a spot off in a corner and can put out the slides, but not this time, there is snow forecasted for the mountains, and the trucks are all in here for the night. So we use the Airstream instead, and oh joy, the new TV works just fine on the battery so we sit cozy and watch the Red Sox battle it out with the Indians.
The next morning, we wake up to big fat snowflakes !!! The ground is still too warm for it to stick, but still. We had arranged to visit some geocaching friends in Fairplay CO, which is right next to the ski resort at Breckinridge CO. But checking the weather on the laptop we learned that they were expecting 5-10” of snow !!!. Not for us, Don’s truck is not 4 wheel drive, and towing in the snow is not fun and not safe, so we have taken the low road instead, very disappointed it was going to be fun.
So down I 25 through Colorado Strings, with the mountains sulking under clouds, and rain on and off. The I25 corridor through Denver is a tiresome drive, often under construction, not big enough for the traffic even on a rainy Sunday. It is the only view of Denver I’ve ever had, perhaps that is unfair, but if there was another way to get through here, we’d jump on it. We climb up into hills as black as our Black Hills with ponderosas to a nice campground above Canon City CO.
On Saturday, with Don’s truck repaired, we left Hart Ranch and headed south.
Blustery and cold, it never quite rained until the evening. With the gray skies, what color might be in the grasses is muted, no green at all, just the straw colored dried grasses and the smoke colored sagebrush. The Black Hills are hiding behind the clouds, we can only see an occasional dark shoulder covered with ponderosas. The one color is the bright, almost neon yellow of the cottonwood trees that line anything that ever has water in it. It is an acidy, chemical yellow, sometimes with a copper blush. Unlike the more familiar New England fall colors that spread reds, oranges and golds over all the hillsides and valleys, these shouts of yellow are an intermittent jolt in a grey brown landscape.
Before we left we took one last drive up into the Black Hills, partly to get a photo for a geocache thing at Mt Rushmore, partly just to see the rocks and views again. We were a little late for the color of the aspens, which go a clear, almost painful yellow against the blue sky. In the sunlight, they look like a stand of matches aflame, especially when they are against the dark pines.
As we drive south, we are following the route of the Deadwood to Cheyenne Stage route. This carried the gold from the mines, and was robbed so frequently, by such a wild bunch of characters that its history was a part of Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West show. He carried around one of the actual Deadwood stages and drove it into the arenas at a full gallop. I discovered this by looking up Rawhide Buttes. These hills went by on our left, rocky and abrupt, rising from the rolling prairie, and there was a sign for them. There is a big ranch there, that had one of the stage stops where the horses were changed out. Also there was a house of ill repute set up at a blowing place where the horses were stopped for a rest. This establishment was run by Mother Featherlegs, so called from her ruffley bloomers that looked like chicken’s legs. She was murdered, and a stone erected in her memory. If you want more, http://www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/deadwood2.html. is a website full of good stories about the stage line and other parts of WY.
We pass through Lusk, whose name has always interested me, but it is just named after Frank Lusk who owned the land where it was built, first as a stop on the Deadwood Stage line. Various mines opened up nearby, and men came to live in tents and soon the railroad, and then oil and now it is pretty much a ranch town. The next town south on 85/rail line/Deadwood Stage line is Lingle. Another odd name, but it turns out to be named for Hiram Lingle who promoted the area. I don’t know what I was hoping for. Both Lusk and Lingle sound to me like the names of seafood or perhaps vegetables.
We finally make Cheyenne, and it is truly raining by now, a very unusual weather event out here where the skies are not cloudy all day. Our plan is to spend the night at the Flying J truck stop, mostly because it is free, and also it is easy in easy out and we can fill our tanks with diesel. Usually, we find a spot off in a corner and can put out the slides, but not this time, there is snow forecasted for the mountains, and the trucks are all in here for the night. So we use the Airstream instead, and oh joy, the new TV works just fine on the battery so we sit cozy and watch the Red Sox battle it out with the Indians.
The next morning, we wake up to big fat snowflakes !!! The ground is still too warm for it to stick, but still. We had arranged to visit some geocaching friends in Fairplay CO, which is right next to the ski resort at Breckinridge CO. But checking the weather on the laptop we learned that they were expecting 5-10” of snow !!!. Not for us, Don’s truck is not 4 wheel drive, and towing in the snow is not fun and not safe, so we have taken the low road instead, very disappointed it was going to be fun.
So down I 25 through Colorado Strings, with the mountains sulking under clouds, and rain on and off. The I25 corridor through Denver is a tiresome drive, often under construction, not big enough for the traffic even on a rainy Sunday. It is the only view of Denver I’ve ever had, perhaps that is unfair, but if there was another way to get through here, we’d jump on it. We climb up into hills as black as our Black Hills with ponderosas to a nice campground above Canon City CO.
posted by Thistledown24 at 7:32 PM
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