Johnson Family

May 30, 2008

Today was one of those great days that can only happen when life slows down and you are not bound by time constraints or pressures from the outside world. After the tremendous relief of finding a home we have really begun to enjoy or nomadic lifestyle on a whole new level. We don’t have to be back in Snowflake until the 14th to pick up our rental truck for the move. We are planning on killing time by visiting a few National parks on the way.

Today we were on our way to Mount Rushmore when we saw a sign for Fort Laramie. I love history so I asked Cameo if she thought we could stop. It didn’t really take us too far out of the way so we decided to check it out. I figured we’d stay about an hour and be on our way. I had no idea how fascinating the place would be. Not just to me but I think the whole family really liked it. Many of the original buildings are gone but they’ve restored quite a few of the buildings that were around at the time of the fort’s use. It was used as an army fort for approximately forty years and as a fur trapping fort before that. During that period it was a vital link to opening up the west. It was a main stop of the Pony Express and the Oregon/California/Mormon trails. We spent hours going through the buildings looking at the period furnishings and trying to imagine what it would’ve been like to live here in those days.

People’s minds get wrapped up on lots of different things, whether it be car engines, celebrity gossip, Oprah’s latest topics or whatever but when I come to places like this, it’s a long time before I can stop thinking about how a place that was once such a vital and thriving community where real people lived real lives, ran businesses, raised children, went to work and school every day, and one day after forty years the place is almost completely abandoned. It wasn’t until forty years after the army stopped using it as a post that the National Park Service decided to restore the buildings that were left.

Just as we were wrapping up our visit, we picked up a book in the Visitor’s Center that detailed the Mormon migration through Fort Laramie. We realized that many of our ancestors came through here in covered wagons and handcarts. There was a replica of a handcart in the visitor’s center and I pointed it out to Cora. I asked her what she would think if we could only take as much stuff as would fit in the handcart with us on our move to Denver and what she would think if we had to walk and pull it the whole way. Her eyes got really big and she said, “That would be freaky!” I bet the pioneer kids felt the same way. We found a pamphlet put out by the National Parks on the Mormon Trail and realized that just south of the town we had passed 13 miles back was a very famous spot on the Mormon Trail and a spot where you could see all of the wagon ruts cut into the rocks. We decided to drive back 13 miles to check it out. It was kind of weird because I was stuffing my face with potato chips driving in what amounts to be a moving home with a refrigerator, kitchen, bathroom, beds and everything we need down basically the same path that the pioneers walked across. It was pretty surreal seeing wagon ruts cut through solid rock as much as five feet deep in some places. We then drove over to a place called Register Cliff where many of the early immigrants had carved their name into the wall. It said that this was a popular camping spot for many pioneers after traveling one full day from Ft. Laramie. It’s so crazy to me that now we can pass this spot in the early afternoon, spent most of the day in Ft. Laramie, come back to this spot, hang out for a while, make Chinese stirfry dinner and drive back, not only to Ft. Laramie but well past it, well before we even have to think about going to bed.
-Lynn