On we go to the Oregon wagon ruts

As you can see Spring  is handling this trip just fine.  They sleep I drive.

Bear is on his pillow snoozing away too. No Stress here.

We arrived in the Ft. Laramie area. It was hot and dry, very dry.  Note the statement about the fact as you go up the temperature declines and the precipitations increases.

A beautiful drive into the Ft. Laramie area.

Sign for the areas we will visit. The little town here is known as Guernsey. Could that be named after the Guernsey cow? 

The pioneers did not have an easy trip. The rocks, the rivers, cold, rain, snow.  It is amazing any of them made it to Oregon or Utah.

A map of the area we will visit.





 Those wagons were small. The houses with no insulation. Most of the pioneers came out of comfortable homes, civilized areas into heat, dust, indians and rough terrain.

This is wagon ruts left by the pioneers on their way to Oregon and Utah. I stepped the wheels off and found them to be about 4 feet apart. The wagon bed would have been smaller, I am estimating 3 1/2 feet wide. They moved a lot of furniture and staples on a small wagon.

It appears that the wagons them went in the area of the pine tree and started down.

Another look at the ruts the wagons left.

I am so glad they left this mark for us to see and remember so many years after they passed this way.

This old tree could tell many tales. The limbs are twisted and leaves a mark of beauty for us to see.

There are many cattle crossings.

We drive across cattle gaps as we enter the interstate. As we enter the cliffs area we also cross a cattle gap.

The rails are far enough apart it keeps cows in the fields not on the higways.

The cliffs, a very important stopping point for pioneers as they traveled west.

This cave blasted into the side of the cliffs was made as a root cellar. This was used to keep the vegetables cool.

A picture of some pioneers that were heading west.

This area was a ranch, a pony express stop, a supply location for pioneers.

On the sides of the cliff, we found cliff sparrow nests. Those little white dots are baby sparrows and mom was busy bringing food back to them.

More of those little nest.

Signatures were left by pioneers but as years went by, we have signatures of more current travelers.

Many of the pioneers died from Cholera. Some unmarked graves are here.

We left the area heading to a new campground.

We stopped at a city Park in Ft. Morgan. Really nice park, so we used the shelter for dinners.

Mitch cooked frajtas for us. They were as yummy as they look

Mitch at the grill busily cooking.

We all brought a bit of something to go with those frijtas and we had a feast.

While we were there, Liz located a geo cache. Checking out the contents.

While Birdie and Liz look over the contents, Carol is looking for something to leave in the box.



We were off then to further adventures along the road.

We continued our drive westward

The wind was blowing quite a bit, so we pulled into a rest area to take a break.

This door was on an old building. I do not speak German but believe the word is German and says Welcome.  I do love the flower paintings.

We found this marker about the Pawnee Indians. The description of the Pawnee reminds me a lot of the Seminoles.

We left the rest area and went to the geographic center of the lower 48.

We all had our pictures taken at the center and of course all the dogs left their mark.

Liz took a group picture then decided to lay down for a bit. Mitch is trying to figure out why she is laying down, Tina is just saying I don't know these people.  Me, I am taking the picture. Liz was fine, we had a good laugh.

Bronze marker for the center os the USA

Welcome sign into the area

In the park area there is a chapel you can visit. I am sure many prayers have been offered up for the USA here.

Inside of the chapel is very simple but nice.

On Westward

We circled our wagons at Pararie Dog State Park in Kansas. A nice park, we all had pull throughs so Mitch was very happy. We woke up to some pretty high winds and as you can see the lake was choppy.

The sunrise was beautiful

As we were pulling out, found the pararie dog holes so stopped to take some pictures...Can you see the pararie dogs?

In our travels we did see a couple of Indians still out there watching our westward travel.

Those long roads though stretched on and on. Imagine traveling these hills with indians around you in a covered wagon. There were more places to hide than you can imagine.

LOOK!!!! in the distance is that an indian?  Yep he is there watching our progress. There will be smoke signals soon.

I saw this herd of cows down in a gulley. They were all gathered around the tree and content.

Finally we are coming out of Kansas and run across the corner of Nebraska. We were in Nebraska maybe 5 minutes before we entered Colorado.

You see a lot of places where the land has collasped.  Leaving holes and gullies.

You see a lot of old windmills. Not too many are still functioning.

As we close another chapter in Westward Ho the wagons, we want you to return as we visit the center of the US in the lower 48.