We drove from Point of Rocks to Wamsutter, where we had luncheon. The
road from Point of Rocks to Wamsutter is very rough and we were
tormented by the plague of these roads of the plains; namely, gutters
made across the roadway by running water in time of freshets. One has to
be continually on guard for these runnels. Sometimes they are very deep.
They give the machine a frightful jar and if one comes upon them
suddenly they are likely to break an axle. One must possess one's self
in patience and drive at a pace that will enable him to slow down
quickly in coming on them. Chuck holes and these gutters across the road
are the two chief difficulties of travel across the plains. However,
many a backcountry road of the Eastern States is just as uncomfortable
for motor travelers.
On our way to Wamsutter we passed a fellow traveler, a gentleman from
New York with his family. His son drove their car, a Pope Hartford, and
they were seventeen days out from New York. They had ten days more in
which to reach San Francisco if they were to help their friends win the
wagers which had been made on the time of their trip across country. We
assured them that they would be able to reach San Francisco in ten days,
barring serious accidents, if only they would rise early and drive late,
making ten hours a day.
Just outside of Point of Rocks we had come upon another and a humbler
caravan. A man and his wife were encamped in a canvas-covered
moving-wagon by the roadside, having found a patch of grass that
promised forage for the horses. We stopped to talk with them and learned
that they lived near Pueblo, Colorado. Having planted their crop they
had come away on a prospecting tour into northern Wyoming to look up
better farming country. They were now returning, traveling by day and
camping by the roadside at night. They had had what is called mountain
fever, due they thought to the bites of mosquitoes.
They liked the Wyoming country they had seen, but deplored the heavy
drinking. They told us of one man who had said that he did not mean to
go into town on the Fourth of July. Everybody got drunk, said he, and he
did not want to put himself in the way of temptation. They spoke of a
lovely farming country in the midst of which was a little town where
saloons were open all night and all day Sunday. They told us of one
saloon keeper who had been hauling barrels of whiskey for days in
preparation for his business of July 4th. He openly boasted that he
meant to take in $3,000. on that day.
As we drive along, we constantly see the remains of former camps by the
roadside. Old tin teakettles, pieces of worn-out campstools, piles of
tin cans; these are mute and inglorious monuments to the bivouacs of
other days. These immense Plateau States are very dependent upon canned
foods, and all along tin cans mark the trail. We have many evidences,
too, that we are in a sheep and cattle country. We pass the dried up
carcasses of sheep and the bones of cattle and of horses as they lie
upon the desert near the road. Often the fleece of the sheep, dried and
shrunken by wind and weather, sticks to the bones of the animal. It lies
where it fell, only one of a vast herd, sick and dying, perhaps freezing
in a blizzard. We asked one countryman what the sheep did in case of the
fierce storms that sometimes sweep over the winter plains. "They just
hump up and die," he replied. We saw many a shriveled carcass of some
poor animal that had succumbed and fallen never to rise again. But so
high are these plains and so dry is the atmosphere, that nature quickly
shrivels these carcasses and they are not offensive as they would be in
damp climates.
Out on the desert we waited for a long freight train to pass as it stood
blocking the roadway. The train conductor came along and he and T.
exchanged greetings. "It's good to see you," said the conductor; "you
motor people are about the only signs of life we fellows see out here on
the desert."
Coming into Wamsutter, and later coming toward Rawlins, we flushed
numbers of grey-brown prairie chickens, almost as large as hens. They
would fly up from the sage brush as the noise of our machine came near.
There were some large flocks of young birds. Between Rawlins and Laramie
we met late in the afternoon a large caravan of movers. They looked
foreign and were evidently in search of new farms and homes. They were
drinking, and watering their tired horses at a small station on the
railway. There were plenty of little children in the caravan. One woman
dandled a tiny baby. A little farther on we came to a second and smaller
camp. These people were traveling from Kansas to Washington. "There is
good land there still that can be taken up by homesteaders, fine fruit
lands," said they. One man had seen the land and was acting as guide for
the others. Their wagons were drawn by horses and burros. The children
were sweet, cheerful little people, but the whole party looked somewhat
underfed. I would have liked to give them all the luxury of a hot bath
in a big tub to be followed by a substantial supper. They had their
water with them, having hauled it from the last point where water was to
be had. They deplored the fact that they had camped before knowing of
the Union Pacific Station a little farther on. Water is a precious thing
in the desert. We have passed two places where signs read that water
could be had at the rate of five cents per beast and twenty-five cents a
barrel. At the watering stations on the Union Pacific Railroad, the
wells are the property of the Road. Before we came into Medicine Bow, we
passed through a little mining town, high and bare on the summit of a
ridge. Just outside the town was a bare little cemetery, the brown
graves decorated with paper crosses and wreaths. An iron fence protected
the cemetery, and outside its boundaries was an untidy litter of old
wreaths and crosses which had been discarded and had been blown by the
wind in tight heaps against the fence.
[Illustration: 1. Road in Wyoming costing $50,000 per mile. 2.
Characteristic Sign on Lincoln Highway.]
Ten miles beyond Medicine Bow the character of the country suddenly
changed. We came from the grey and brown desert into fine rolling
uplands dotted with the new homes of homesteaders and green with the
precious water of irrigation. This was a country newly settled and
bearing every mark of prosperity. At one point on the road we had great
difficulty in getting through. A careless settler had allowed the water
of his irrigating ditch to run out upon the road. It was with the
greatest difficulty that we succeeded in getting through the mud. Only
the help of some fellow motorists from San Francisco, who stopped to
push the car while T. turned on its power, enabled us to get through. A
few miles on we met the road commissioner who proudly called our
attention to the work that was being done on the roads of his county. He
told us that he was on his way to arrest and fine the careless
homesteader who had flooded the road. After this fine stretch of fertile
country we plunged once more into a long stretch of desert. It was here
that I saw and welcomed the beautiful yucca that I had seen growing in
California. I saw too in Wyoming quantities of cactus blooming in broad
patches of color, usually buff.
All day we mounted one ridge after another, buttes to the left and to
the right of us; driving through a vast country with practically no
ranch houses and only isolated stations on the railroad for watering
purposes.
As we approached Wamsutter a wonderful great tableland lay to the right
of us, very high and with an immense level top. It was like a fortress
with its buttresses and ramparts carved by nature. To the left was a
butte that was like a side view of the Sphinx, an immense pyramid rising
beside it. As we came into Wamsutter, we drove along a ridge where the
road had been laid to avoid a low marshy tract of land.
Red Desert Station, just before reaching Wamsutter, is well named, the
buttes having wonderful color.
The day was hot, and it was a relief when the afternoon sun began to
decline. We felt that we were dropping with it. But we were dropping
toward the East while it was falling toward the West. In the afternoon,
out on the great plain, we had crossed the Continental Divide. It had
not been marked by any visible elevation of land above the surrounding
country. All was open country, rolling and vast, and yet we had ascended
the Western slope and were now going down to the Mississippi Valley.
We must soon begin to say farewell to the Plateau States. The long
upward climb is practically over. We look forward with the streams to
the Atlantic, leaving behind the water courses to the Pacific.
Shortly after crossing the Divide we came to a low head stone and a
wooden cross at the left of the road, marking the grave of a man of
thirty-five who died in 1900. It is a lone grave on this rolling ridge,
yet it is destined to be passed by many travelers in future years.
Some day the Divide will be marked upon the Lincoln Highway by a
monument, and the traveler will have a satisfactory outward expression
of the thoughts that fill his heart.
Rawlins was our halting place for the night. It is a pleasant town with
wide streets and plenty of sunshine. The post office is a beautiful
little building. We fraternized in Rawlins with fellow travelers, a lady
and her son who were going on from Colorado Springs to Pasadena in a
beautiful Stutz roadster.
In Rawlins as in most Western towns, we stayed at a hotel managed on the
European plan and ate our meals in a nearby restaurant. It is always a
surprise to me to see the number of people in the restaurants and
cafeterias of the West. Even in small towns these places are crowded.
As we came into Rawlins we saw Elk Mountain rising nobly on the horizon
beyond us. When we left Rawlins and traveled toward it, it grew more
imposing.
Instead of going on to Arlington, directly under the shadow of Elk
Mountain, we elected to turn off to Medicine Bow, made famous by Owen
Wister's book, "The Virginian." Elk Mountain rises 12000 feet, and
Medicine Bow is 6500 feet, above sea level. It is only a railroad
station, a tiny cluster of saloons, a still smaller cluster of shops, a
big shearing shed, and a substantial stone hotel called The Virginian.
The landlady of The Virginian told us that their hotel is always full of
guests.
It is a busy place. Here the woolmen come to trade and to export their
wool, here the sheepmen bring their sheep for the annual shearing.
Nearly sixty thousand sheep are shorn annually in the shearing shed, a
few minutes' walk from the hotel. Here the plainsmen come from time to
time to throw away in a few hours of drinking and gambling the money
earned in months spent in the open.
We had an excellent substantial lunch at the hotel and then went over to
see the shearing. How hot and uncomfortable the poor sheep looked in the
waiting pen, with their heavy fleeces weighing them down! They stood
panting in the sun, their broad backs making a thick rug, so tightly
were they wedged in together. And how half ashamed they looked when they
came out from the shearing, thin and bare!
In this establishment the shearing is all done by machinery. It takes a
skillful man to run these rapidly clicking shears over the animal's body
and make no serious wound. The overseer told us that in the case of an
inexperienced man the sheep would "fight him all over the pen." The
shearer reaches out his right hand and grasps one of the three or four
sheep that have been pushed into a little compartment from the main
pens. The beasts stand stupidly huddled together. The shearer takes one
by its left hind leg, and by a skillful twist he throws it on its back
and pulls it toward him. Then he yanks it into a sitting position with
its back against his knees. Bending over it he takes off first the thick
coat of wool on its under-body from throat to tail. It looks very easy,
but only skill can guide the shears through that thick mass of wool,
taking it off so cleanly and thoroughly, and yet leaving the pink skin
unbroken.
Next come the fore legs, then the hind legs, then the wool is trimmed
from around the eyes and from the top of the head. The workman moves
very carefully here. Then the sheep is righted and the wool is cut from
its back and sides. It is interesting to see how quietly the animal
submits to it all. Quickly it is all over and an attendant pushes the
sheep through another aperture back into an outer pen. The men work very
rapidly and a good shearer can easily handle one hundred sheep a day.
Some expert shearers can handle nearly two hundred. These men are paid
nine cents a head for their work.
It was a picturesque sight in the long, airy shed. Six men were handling
their sheep, the clicking shears moving rapidly over the big animals. A
boy gathered up the wool as fast as it dropped from the sheep. Later it
would be sorted into its different grades. An important, happy sheep dog
ran wildly about, eyes shining, tail wagging, his sharp nose lifted to
his master's face. He seemed to be saying, "This is fine, master, but
isn't there something that I could do at this moment?" The overseer
stood at the end of the shed looking down the row of busy workers.
From Medicine Bow we came to Laramie, reaching there on the eve of the
Fourth of July. Laramie boasts a good hotel which was crowded with
people. Ranchmen had brought their families for the festivities of the
Fourth. Tall cowboys lounged about, wearing their most ornamental tall
boots, their best silk shirts, and brightest neckties. The streets in
the evening were full of people, some on horseback, some walking.
Confetti, those noise-makers known as "cluckers," and the miniature
feather dusters called "ticklers," were all in evidence. Everybody was
in good humour and in a mood of expectation.
[Illustration: 1. Lincoln Highway Sign. 2. Lincoln Highway Sign in
Western Village. 3. Cowboys and Cowgirls in Laramie. 4. Sage Brush in
the Desert. 5. Last View of the Rockies leaving Colorado. 6. Movers'
Camp in Colorado.]
The morning of the Fourth we drove out to the edge of the town to see
the State University, a modest cluster of good buildings. Then we drove
about the town to see the cowboys on their handsome horses, and the
young women who accompanied them, riding easily astride. There was to be
a morning exhibition of lassoing, racing, and other feats of skill and
strength. We met many people riding and driving into town, all in
holiday dress. But we pressed on Eastward.
We passed Red Buttes, having a grand view of the wonderfully colored
Buttes off to the left. Masses of blue larkspur grew in the fields and
alongside the Highway. We had left our beloved desert behind us and were
in rolling grass and grain country. Near the Colorado line we turned
toward the south to go to Denver, thereby missing the Ames Monument on
the direct route to Cheyenne. The mountains of Colorado now rose in the
near distance; rocky peaks, pine clad and snowy. At this point we met
some parties of travelers; a motor party from Lincoln, Nebraska, and
another from Lexington, Kentucky. Both motor cars were going into
Laramie for the celebration of the Fourth. The gentleman from Lexington,
who was driving his wife and himself, had a beautiful Locomobile
roadster, newly purchased in Chicago. His car had every modern equipment
and convenience, and he was mightily proud of it. We all halted to enjoy
the grand view of the country toward which they were moving and which we
were leaving behind us. Miles of rolling, grassy country, clean and
wind-swept, lay to the west. It was an inspiring prospect, and filled us
all with a sense of exaltation. Said the Kentucky lady to me, "I felt as
if everything bad in me was swept clear out of me when I first looked at
this wonderful view." A third party of travelers came along from
Cheyenne as we stood gazing. They had a unique outfit, a prairie
schooner drawn by four burros abreast. The father and mother, several
children, and a friend lived cheerfully in this moving house, making,
they told us, about fifteen miles a day. When they were short of funds,
they encamped in some town and the men worked to replenish the treasury.
They had their household food supplies neatly packed on shelves running
along the sides of their canvas canopy.
"This is our home," said the husband and father. The children were
gentle little creatures, but looked thin and underfed. All were bound
for some unknown haven on the Pacific coast or in the Northwest. They
felt sure that they would find rich farming country there still open to
homesteaders.
What a contrast between the elegant Locomobile car and the humble
prairie wagon, drawn by four shaggy burros, chosen because they could
endure hardships! Our friends of the wagon allowed us to take their
picture, and we parted with mutual good wishes.
We passed the Colorado State boundary marked by a very simple board
sign, and came into a new country of rocks and hills. We came through a
canyon where we found some movers encamped in a pleasant hollow by a
mountain stream. Southward we moved, passing some fine rugged buttes to
our left. We took luncheon at a pleasant farm house hotel, known as the
Little Forks Hotel. Our farmer host and hostess were very agreeable and
gave us a refreshing meal. We left them to drive on through Fort
Collins, a very pleasant town in the midst of alfalfa fields.
Just south of Fort Collins we turned to the right, drove across the
plains and entered the mouth of the Big Thompson Canyon. We were en
route for the famous tract of mountain meadow, of forest and canyon,
known as Estes Park.
A long procession of motor cars was entering the park and another line
of cars kept passing us. Many people were driving up the Canyon and many
were leaving after a day spent in picnicking. For the most part the
Canyon road ran very low and close to the bed of the brawling river. It
was a most lovely road, winding and picturesque. Finally we came to the
end of the Canyon and entered the green meadows which are at the
beginning of the Park itself.
We were told that the hotels and camps were crowded, it being holiday
time, and that we would do well to stop at the simple but comfortable
ranch house located near by. We found ourselves comfortable indeed and
were content to make the ranch house a base for our driving
expeditions.
We were on the beautiful Lord Dunraven Ranch, with its rich meadows
admirably adapted for cattle grazing. Our host was the manager of the
ranch, now largely owned by Mr. Stanley, the manufacturer of the Stanley
Steamer. Farther up the valley was the beautiful Stanley Hotel.
I had thought that Estes Park was a smooth and shaven park region, not
realizing that it was a vast mountain territory, with high mountain
meadows overlooked by lofty peaks and diversified by tracts of mountain
forest. There are scores of miles of driving and horseback riding in the
Park, plenty of hotels and camps in wonderfully beautiful situations,
and glorious fishing and mountain climbing. One may gaze at the
mountains from great open meadows and camping sites from 8000 to 9000
feet above sea level. We lamented the fact that we had only a day in
which to see Estes Park. We could have spent a week there in driving and
walking about.
Colorado is rich in mountain scenery and in beautiful camping places for
the lover of hills and streams, the pedestrian and the fisherman.
We came down from the high plateau of the Park by the canyon of the
Little Thompson; a still more precipitous road than that of the Big
Thompson Canyon. Reaching Lyons, we turned toward Boulder, driving along
with alfalfa meadows to the left and the foot hills of the Rockies to
the right. Our undulating road was an excellent one.
We enjoyed the wide sky, the rich grassy plains stretching away to our
left, with ranch houses marked here and there by clumps of cottonwood
trees. We knew that this was irrigated country, reclaimed from what was
once a wide desert. After a time we passed a wagon, canvas covered,
drawn by two plodding horses. I thought the driver must be foreign, as
he turned out to the left when we came up behind him, but he quickly
recovered himself and turned right. We soon left him far behind us.
But suddenly there was a grinding sound. The machine halted and refused
to move. We were stalled on the road and no amount of effort availed to
move us. Something had gone seriously wrong. There was nothing for it
but to push the machine to the side of the road, and wait patiently for
the travelers in the covered wagon. We were six miles from Boulder, and
evidently had a serious break in the machine. Later it transpired that
our gears were broken.
After a time the wagon came toiling along and its occupants most
hospitably invited me to drive into Boulder with them. Two men, one
elderly, the other young, were on the driver's seat. In the wagon were
their two wives and a troop of little children, the family of the
younger pair, and the grandchildren of the older pair. A happy collie
dog climbed wildly about over the children. "He's the biggest kid in the
wagon," said his master.
The party had been camping in a mountain canyon for their holiday and
were now on their way home. The men and women were English, the older
couple having been thirty-three years in this country. "I've dug coal
for forty-five years," said the older man.
"Tell them you rode with one of the striking miners, one of the sixteen
who was put in jail. Put that in your book," he said with a grim
twinkle. (How did he know I was writing a book?)
"We're poor but we're gentlemen still. We wouldn't be slaves to
Rockyfeller," said the younger man.
A little later he asked for the jug of spring water, and for "the
bottle." The women looked at me dubiously, and tried to quiet him. "Come
now," he said laughing, "there's no use delayin' matters. Where's the
bottle?" So with some embarrassment on the part of the women and much
laughing on the part of the men a full whiskey bottle was produced. Each
man had a nip of whiskey and a nip of cold water.
The children were merry little creatures, climbing over one another and
playing with the dog. The youngest little girl slept peacefully, being
tenderly watched by her mother and grandmother.
When we came into the wide streets of the university town of Boulder, I
offered as delicately as possible to pay for my six mile lift. But they
would have none of it. "No, no," said the younger man cordially, "we're
glad to help anybody in trouble." So I hastened over to the candy shop
and bought a box of the best chocolate candy for the children. My last
sight of them as they drove out of town was of the little faces crowding
happily around the box.
In Boulder we found The Boulderado a delightful place in which to lodge,
and the Quality Cafeteria a place for admirably cooked food.
We had several days to wait for our machine to be repaired, so we were
free to enjoy Boulder and to take the interurban electric car for
Denver. Boulder has a most picturesque situation, and is a town of
delightful homes and of fine State University buildings. I saw at
Boulder the same soft sunset colors, the same delicate blues, pinks, and
greys that one sees in an Australian sunset.
Later we drove to Denver in our own car and were free to enjoy the
drives about the city. "The Shirley" is a very well kept European hotel,
and if one wishes to take one's food elsewhere there is "Sell's" with
its delicious rolls and excellent coffee, tea, and chocolate; and there
is the Hoff-Stauffer Cafeteria, presided over by a woman and offering
excellently cooked food to hosts of people.
Every traveler should view the sunset from Cheesman Park in Denver. One
can drive there easily over the fine streets of the city. Beside the
pavilion, modeled on classic lines, one may sit in one's car and look
off at one hundred and fifty miles of mountains, stretching from Pike's
Peak on the south to Long's Peak on the north. It is a grand view and
should be seen more than once to be fully appreciated. One may sit on
the steps of the fine Capitol building just a mile above sea level, and
enjoy the same view.
Or one may take a famous mountain drive, winding up and up a stiff
mountain road until one has reached the summit and can look down on
miles of plains and on the city of Denver in the distance.