We spent the night in Hot Springs SD, at the “Prairie” RV park, which is the closest we have come to thinking that we may as well be camping in a covered wagon on the prarie. 
Nonetheless, the visit to the Mammoth Site in Hot Springs was well worth it. This was not originally on my list of destinations, and may not be as well know since it was only discovered in 1974 but it is a dig site where they have uncovered close to 60 full mammoth skeletons so far. Many have been left “in situ” and are just uncovered but still in the ground. Apparently it was an ancient sink hole, and like the La Brea Tar Pits in LA, it is full of layer after layer of animals from the Ice Age. We left burdened with a few stuffed mammoths but other than that, a great stop.
We headed into Wyoming (yet again) and stopped at Fort Caspar to see where the Mormon’s built the first commercial ferry across the Platte River. The fort is rebuilt and was interesting to walk through.
We headed to Independence Rock – we all climbed to the top to see the hundreds of names carved there. There were great views of Devil’s Gate and it was easy to imagine what this valley looked like to the pioneers 160 years ago. We decided to walk the trail to Martin’s Cove next. It was a little further than we thought and we left sort of close to sundown, so we were the only ones on the trail. The kids picked up a handcart at the start of the trail (they are just sitting there for you to use) and Mason told them stories about the pioneer trek he went on last year. When we told them the story of the Willie Martin Handcart company, it was actually starting to get a bit dark and cold (we were in flip-flops) and it really made an impression on the kids to think of those families out there in a blizzard, starving with no place to go - they were truly grateful to be heading back to a warm RV and never once complained about the 2 mile hike - It was a great stop. We headed towards Colorado but never made it out of Wyoming, but did make it to Peggy’s 24hr diner for dinner – our server was missing 4 front teeth.
Kaele, Greg, Mason, Kambria, Dane, Drake and Avalon,
ReplyDeleteIt is so fun for us to follow you adventures. I loved the story about your handcart trek to Martin's cove. Some of the scenes fro the movie we made for the church, Legacy, were filed along the Sweetwater River just south and east of Matin's cove, at Devil's gate and of course Independence Rock. In face we put cameras on top of independence rock for the big wide shot of the wagons wending their way westward.
We also loved the picture of you guys holding the big mammoth bone. It will start to sound like my only reference points in life are MOVIES that I made or worked on, but it reminded me of the research and explorations I did for the 3-D Dinosaur movie we developed [but unfortunately never got made.] What is amazing to me is that in all of that I didn't hear about the Mammoth dig. Of course mammals came much later than dinosaurs but wow, that must have been way cool.
Keep up the blog. We love it. If you are not limited by the number of pictures you can post with each blog we would love MANY MORE. The first thing Dagny and I do every morning is check in on PORTER FAMILY TRAVELS.
Whoops.
ReplyDeleteA LOT of typos in my last comment. Hard to catch them in that tiny little box, but when the post, BOOM - they are really big. Oh well....
Love you guys
Dad
i loved this post! that is exactly where brins and i were last summer for our 32-mile trek! i have so many great memories of that place.
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