WYOMING

June – July, 2019

The western side of Wyoming is beautiful – mountainous, scenic and glorious..no other words need apply.  The Tetons rise majestically and Yellowstone is magical.  Mother Nature calls out to you:  hiking, fishing, hunting, skiing, biking, birding, drifting lazily down the Snake River, whitewater rafting, or even a day’s drive looking at scenery and looking for wildlife – people are almost driven to be outdoors.

The eastern side of the state is quite different.  We saw enough of the uninspired landscape (Barbara claims this is not Mother Nature’s fault) of US Highway 85 and Interstate 25 traveling south through eastern Wyoming to last a lifetime.  Wyoming reminded us of the difference between the Hill Country and the desolate, deserted expanse of Western Texas.

But check out the adventures we had getting from here to there!

If you’ve never been to or heard of Buffalo, Wyoming (population 4590 souls), you probably imagine it as some hick cowboy town.  Sure, it is a crossroads to reach the eastern entry to Yellowstone or to head a little further south to reach the Tetons, but Buffalo is a pretty cool place in its own right and, as we found out, a pretty cool place to park Aimee and explore the surrounding area.

The town proudly hosts the annual Longmire Days Fan Fest every July.

If you’re not familiar with the Netflix series “Longmire”, you can google it and see what all the fuss is about.  The “Longmire” series of books was written by a local, Craig Johnson.  The TV series that was produced from the books has developed an almost cult following, and several of the actors, including Robert Taylor who stars as Sheriff Walt Longmire, make annual appearances for the Fan Fest.  Thousands of fans line the streets to get a glimpse of the actors who put Buffalo on the map.

Buffalo has a lot of other things to be proud of as well.  We had a knee-slappin’ good time at the Occidental Hotel and Saloon on Thursday night listening to a blue grass group and tossing back a couple of locally brewed beers that were delicious.

The Thursday Night Jam Night is a tradition that was started by the hotel owners – no cover charge and the place was SRO.  We did manage to find a couple of chairs just inside the front door of the saloon, and once the music started we had a grand time. We even got a piece of  birthday cake, courtesy of a local whose mother decided the best way to celebrate her daughter’s birthday was to share the festivities with all of the bar patrons.

The saloon has a colorful history for being a place where the lawful and the lawless gathered to drink, play poker, and occasionally shoot up the place!  The saloon was transformed in1908, and today it retains the long, 25-foot imposing back bar with stained glass accents, an intricately embossed tin ceiling and impressive period decorations. Even some of the chairs used by guests of the bar are said to be chairs from the original hotel.  Imagine being surrounded by larger-than-life moose heads, elk heads, bear, mountain lions and other local animals that have been shot, stuffed and mounted and then used as decor.  Apparently, if you look close enough, you can still see countless original bullet holes in the old tin ceiling.

The “Ox”, as the Occidental Hotel is loving referred to today, was built in 1880, and it is an elegant hotel with period decor and antique furnishings. The Ox is adjacent to the rowdy saloon. Famous historical hotel guests include Butch Cassidy, Teddy Roosevelt and Calamity Jane.  The beautifully embossed ceilings in the lobby are the original ceilings. The hotel struggled financially like many other hotels of the Old West.  While others were torn down, the Ox went into disrepair and limped along.  In 1997, Dawn Dawson bought the building and through her tireless efforts, uncovered this gem of an Old West hotel with all of its architectural treasures and history.  She was able to revive its original character that had been hidden by years and years of endless remodeling by former owners.  The hotel rooms have been updated with modern conveniences but they still retain much of their historic authenticity.

The Ox has been named “The Best Hotel in the West” – twice.

We traveled to Crazy Woman Canyon one bright sunny morning to hike the canyon and to be open to whatever we might discover.  We were not disappointed.  It’s about an 18-mile drive south from Buffalo, but the lush green prairies that stretch from the highway to the horizon kept us entertained along the way.

The legend of Crazy Women is the saga of the Morgan family; while traveling by covered wagon westward they were attacked by Sioux warriors.  Three children and their father were killed, leaving only Mrs. Morgan to survive the attack.  She lost her mind, stole an axe from one of the warriors and proceeded to kill four of the Sioux as they fled.  Mrs. Morgan and her dead family were soon discovered by a mountain man named Johnson. He buried the remains of the family members and tried without success to get Mrs. Morgan to leave.  Johnson built her a small cabin, but when he returned in the winter, he found her frozen body, dead from starvation.

We turned on Crazy Woman Road, and arrived at what we presumed was a parking lot for large vehicles.  Two tour busses were parked at the top of a winding road so we maneuvered our way down and around them and headed into the canyon.  Not a hundred yards in front of us were a gaggle of hiking teens and a few adults.  Some of the teens looked like they would rather be back on the bus; others seemed to be having a grand time. We questioned our wisdom in choosing to drive this narrow dusty road, and we headed for the first available turn out to park.  The rushing Crazy Woman Creek was the first thing we heard as we stepped out of our car.

The next thing we heard were the bays of a hunting hound.  To our surprise, around the corner came an old pickup truck barreling its way up the road. On the cab of the truck the driver had constructed a pen of sorts for his three dogs: a hound, some other mutt and a St. Bernard.

The bed of his truck was filled to the brim with stuff, and attached to the truck was a trailer hauling what looked to be a mule.  The driver stopped by the side of the road, detached the trailer, and headed back to the entrance of the canyon in search of his horse that had gotten loose.  Pretty soon he was headed back into the canyon without his horse, and he announced as he drove by us “he knows the way home.” He reattached his trailer and continued his journey.

As we drove into the canyon, we had passed what looked like a cove in the rocks and we wanted to get a closer look.  Imagine our surprise to find the runaway horse nonchalantly eating grass along the sides of the road.  He didn’t seem bothered by us so we walked around him and headed into the cove.

The cove looked like it had been a refuge in the past for travelers, and today it serves as a place to hang out and party in the woods.  The cove was littered with trash and graffiti, and we could still see the smoke-charred walls that indicated fires had been used sometime in the past.  We left our new friend munching away and decided to see what else there was to see in this peaceful canyon surrounded by powerful towering cliffs.

Along the way we had to endure the dust from several ATVs, other vehicles, and the 50-60 teens and their chaperones returning from their forced march.  We walked a couple of miles more to reach what we decided was probably the highlight – a geologist’s treasure of volcanic rock that looked like it had once belonged on the side of the mountain.  Huge boulders were stacked on top of one another, and a roaring river made its way over, around and through these massive boulders.  It was a sight to behold.

Heading back to the car, we marveled at what a hidden treasure this canyon is for Buffalo.  The easy walk loaded with all kinds of fragrant wildflowers and trees made for another lovely way to spend the day with nature.

On sunny days, we prefer to spend our time outdoors hiking, biking and discovering unusual places unique to the town or city where we are camping.  However we were intrigued by the description of a different kind of art gallery near Buffalo: Ucross – “an exhibition celebrating the Ucross fellowship for Native American visual artists.”  We wanted to know more about this gallery because we had read that Ucross provides residency programs for indigenous writers, visual artists, composers, performing artists, etc., from around the world.  The mission of the organization “is to foster the creative work of both accomplished and emerging artists by providing uninterrupted time, studio space, living accommodation, and the experience of Wyoming’s majestic High Plains, and to serve as a responsible steward of its historic 20,000-acre ranch.”

We drove to Clearmont, WY – about 16 miles north of Buffalo. The lovely shady, tree-lined road onto the property was so welcoming, and two white-tailed deer in the fields greeted us.  We parked and headed to the gallery only to discover that we had to go to the office first.  As we approached the office building, we were welcomed by an old yellow lab who didn’t seem alarmed by two strangers opening the screen door.  The young woman who met us said it was perfectly fine to tour the gallery, so with no further ado, off we went.

The gallery is small:  just two rooms for the imaginative and compelling exhibition titled “Intricate Forms”, the works of two Native American artists – Brenda Mallory (Cherokee Nation) and Sydney Jane Brooke Campbell Maybrier Pursel (Ioway Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska).

Brenda’s creativity takes many forms.  The framed wall hangings feature exquisitely crafted hand-made white paper with lines and stripes in ink or wool.  Brenda also uses found objects to explore not only what’s inside the object but to reconstruct these found objects into something new and thought-provoking.  We felt the large firehose that had been dissected and reassembled emitted an amazing energy.  Two other large wall hangings constructed with a commercial floor scrubber brush, paint and smaller deconstructed firehose that hung in long strings was reminiscent of a warrior’s shield.  So much to think about.  Brenda’s works stimulated good discussions as we moved to the other side of the room to view Sydney’s exhibits.

Sydney’s works had a younger feel to them.  She is comfortable using a mixed bag of media to inform and express her art.  A video that ran in a continuous loop accompanied a mannequin in a Victorian-era styled dress that Sydney had created using paper copies of the old treaties between the Ioway peoples and the U.S. government.  The accompanying video depicts the artist in the dress, running through the forest, tripping, falling, and tearing the dress.  It was up to us to decide who or what she was running from.  As she makes her way home, we see the artist on the couch, some family members in the background, watching mindless TV, eating junk food and drinking soda.  She eventually sheds the remains of the dress and we experience her as she is today – a tattooed member of her tribe.  We reacted to the “life” that many indigenous people have been forced to live, sequestered on their reservations, many of them alienated from their history and their culture.  Suicide and alcoholism are major issues for many indigenous people in the West, and we saw several billboards in our travels designed to raise awareness for motorists of these critical issues.

We walked away from the gallery grateful that we had found this gem during our stay in Buffalo.

Traveling south to then go east, our next stop in Wyoming is Casper.  Casper (population 57,461) is the second most populous city in Wyoming, and it is known as an oil boomtown and for its cowboy culture.  We stayed in a campground along the banks of the North Platte River that was approximately 10 miles east of downtown Casper.  Once set-up we were greeted by an intense, brief, hellacious afternoon wind and rain storm; after which, well…take a look.

We found 2 not-to-be-missed attractions near Casper – Independence Rock and Hell’s Half Acre.

Independence Rock is a large granite rock, approximately 130 feet high, 1,900 feet long, and 850 feet wide.  During the middle of the 19th century, it became a prominent and well-known landmark on the Oregon, Mormon, and California emigrant trails. Many of those passing through carved their names on the rock, causing missionary Father Pierre-Jean De Smet to call Independence Rock the Register of the Desert.  In 1961 the site was designated a National Historic Landmark, and it is now part of Independence Rock State Historic Site, owned and operated by the state of Wyoming.

Hell’s Half Acre drew our attention as a must see because many of the battle scenes from the 1997 movie Starship Troopers were filmed there.  We drove the 43 miles west northwest of Casper through absolutely flat and uninteresting countryside.  It was nice to see pronghorn grazing in the vastness of open fields, but nothing else of much interest is visible along the way.  We found the parking lot, parked, got out to stretch our legs, and  we were then amazed to find an awesome expanse of badlands within a shallow canyon.  If we didn’t know there was such a site to see, we would have passed on by – we thought that the boredom of the surrounding countryside just stretched on and on.   Unfortunately though the public can only view the badlands from the parking lot.  But all-in-all an amazing site.

Many of the friends we’ve made during our travels prefer to use secondary roads to get from here to there – avoiding the Interstates.  They tell us that those secondary routes are less direct but much more interesting – winding 2-lane roads and through many, many small towns (you never know what you’ll find).  We did come to appreciate their philosophy for the southbound 341 miles we rode through eastern Wyoming on Interstate 25.

While the roadway may have been less than inspiring, we found our time in and around Buffalo and Casper to be rewarding.

Next stop…Colorado.

Barbara and Brian