Hopefully, without unduly raising expectations, I have a plan for a series to blog this next week. I have quite a bit of material collected from my experiences in historic trail questing (see, Galahad). I've wanted to put this all into a book or something, but don't seem to be sufficiently organized to do so. Then I realized, "Wait a minute! I'm a blogger!"
Leaving adult children at home, I'll be spending the week at Philmont Training Center, Cimarron, New Mexico right on the Mountain Branch of the Santa Fe Trail. My wife is presenting a class, and I am going as a spouse to help her out (a little) but mostly to relax, read, and blog.
My wife got me one of her plastic crates and I gathered all my books on the trails. I grabbed my back-up hard drive and then started looking for my blue plastic file with all my maps, notes and pictures and my BLM archaeological report on the La Bajada segments of the Camino Real from Santa Fe to Albuquerque used by the Mormon Battalion. After looking for two hours and finding a lot of other stuff, I realized that I had lent it to my buddy AnonymousD. So I called him to confirm that and went up to get it. (Remember, he is my cartographer buddy, but that is the extent of the hints he has authorized so far.)
So, while I may have to occasionally interject to comment on Boehner and his Munchkins (he apparently lost the Lollipop Guild Caucus tonight!), we're heading out tomorrow. Starting here beneath the shadows of the Everlasting Hills, the end of the Mormon Trail, we go up the California Trail just a few miles to veer off to Weber Canyon. Then we hit the Mormon Trail at Henefer and on up Echo Canyon to Castle Rock where it came over the ridge from Yellow Creek where my Grandma grew up on her dad's ranch. We cross the sometimes Oregon Trail again at Black's Fork rolling out of Ft. Bridger then we follow the UP line all the way across southern Wyoming. Turning south, we'll pick up the reverse route of the Mormon Battalion Sick Detachment north from Santa Fe to Pueblo and we'll follow the Mountain Branch over Raton Pass and right on through Cimarron to Villa Philmonte.
I'm excited. You can decide on your own whether to keep reading me this week - 'cuz if you want, I think you will be able to watch CNN 24/7 as the Munchkins continue to self-fulfill their premise that "government is the problem." (Well, at least the House).
Oh, I forgot the Lincoln Highway pieces across southern Wyoming, old Highway 30, that if you followed long enough, you will end up on the Gettysburg Battlefield and maybe with a new birth of freedom! - And then there's that really cool, huge head of Lincoln over by Cheyenne. That's one of the coolest things in Wyoming! (well, after the Tetons, the Wind Rivers, Yellowstone, Cody, Jackson, etc. But certainly way, way ahead of Rawlins, Wamsutter and especially, Rock Springs.)
ReplyDelete(Anon/M)Of course, we will follow your blog this week. Specially since the Munchkins are getting so irrational, they're not even funny anymore. I'm right in the middle of reading Irving Stone's "Men to Match My Mountains". Can't believe I've never read it before. If his research is solid, that's pretty exciting stuff.
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