MONDAY, JUNE 23

MONDAY, JUNE 23:

     Another lovely, cool morning.  Only 50 degrees when we got up!  But the sun soon started warming things up, and by the time we fixed breakfast, was very pleasantly warm, and so we ate outside.  Our first time eating al fresco on this trip! 

     Continued westward on the scenic highway.  After a few miles, we came upon the Museum of the Fur Trade.  This is another little hidden gem.   Very unpretentious, but gave a very good overview and history of “the first business in North America” – the fur trade.”  And it actually contains one of the most extensive collections of guns made specifically for the Indians as a trade good, as well as the world’s most comprehensive collection of samples of textile goods traded totem..

      The site of the museum is an original trading post site, with a faithful reconstruction of the original 1837 structure.  Every year, in October or November, a small caravan of two-wheeled carts would arrive here after a 4-day from Laramie with a supply of trade goods – everything from textiles to mirrors to knives to guns to clay pipes to buttons to whiskey.   The goods would be stored in a small “warehouse,” as well as the trading room itself – filling space up to the rafters. As the season progressed, the supply of these goods would diminish, and would be replaced by bales of tanned buffalo robes awaiting shipment to the east, especially St. Louis.  There, they’d be prepared for retail sale at about $10 each.  They were in high demand for use as bed coverings, carriage blankets, robes, etc.  Another building block of our nation’s history, especially its western history.  Was particularly interesting to see a couple of exhibits which were relevant to the Native Alaskans’ role in the world-wide trade enterprise – it reinforced what we’d seen & learned last year up north.  That’s surely one of the nice elements of extensive travel – you start seeing how different regions intersect with each other, with layers of mutual interdependence.  

     Aside from the couple of hours we spent at the museum, was a long day of driving.  Two hours or so of that was added as a result of Bill somehow taking a wrong highway shortly after crossing into Wyoming.  I was snoozing, and so didn’t notice, til I woke up and observed that the highway signs indicated that we were going east!  Hmmm . .  . . heading home so soon??  I wonder when Bill would have figured it out had I not awakened when I did – surely when we would have crossed back over into Nebraska!   Guess he was absorbed in the wonderful scenery!  The plains are becoming significantly more rolling now, and with some varying land formations -  and the temperature mild.  So made for a lovely, if long, trip today. 

 

      Reached Buffalo at 8:00 (originally thought we’d get here around 6:30).  A nice, very quiet RV park, right off I-25.  As soon as I got out of the truck, I needed my jacket!  Re-heated our leftover pizza from the other night.  Read and went to bed.