{"id":541,"date":"2016-07-21T06:30:40","date_gmt":"2016-07-21T06:30:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/?p=541"},"modified":"2017-05-12T03:04:33","modified_gmt":"2017-05-12T03:04:33","slug":"like-a-great-sea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/2016\/07\/21\/like-a-great-sea\/","title":{"rendered":"Thursday, July 21 Like a Great Sea"},"content":{"rendered":"

SUMMARY:\u00a0 <\/strong>We spent the morning today walking the pioneer trail\u2014the California Trail and the Oregon Trail were still together. The pioneers described the scenery as being like a great sea of grey-green, undulating in great billows, with rocky islands here and there. Yes!\u00a0 That’s exactly what it looks like. Their goal at this point was the Sweet-Water River, and that was our goal, too. We cheered when we saw it\u2014a beautiful blue river winding among green meadows and trees.<\/p>\n

After lunch, by the river, we headed for Atlantic City\u2014several bikers we met said “Great food, and you can stay for free in a big teepee”. Well, due to a loud, rowdy party at the saloon next to the teepee,\u00a0 we went to Wild Bill’s Guns & Ammo and rented a nice, quiet cabin instead.<\/p>\n

DETAILS:\u00a0 <\/strong>A good night’s sleep, and we feel WAY better this morning!\u00a0 Actually, it’s like that pretty much every morning–we go to bed at night with sore feet, sore shoulders, sore hips….and then wake up feeling fine.\u00a0 And for much of this morning, we felt like we were on a “living history” trek, following the same route the pioneers did.\u00a0 At first it was a combo of Oregon Trail and California Trail, but finally the Oregon Trail split off and went on its own.\u00a0 How do we know?\u00a0 Because there are cement posts with the trail names on them along the way!\u00a0 The pioneers described this land as being like a great, gray-green, undulating “sea” with islands of rock here and there.\u00a0 Well, it hasn’t changed!\u00a0 And another fascinating note is that the whole ground is covered with many-colored bits of flat rock, and the gray-green sagebrush is very dwarf and low.<\/p>\n

Fixit and I had fun talking about the pioneers as we walked along, and we tried hard to imagine the huge herds of bison that once roamed this area.\u00a0 Even though it looks rather barren, I could not help but think that in a way this land is also beautiful, sort of like a giant abstract watercolor painting.<\/p>\n

The morning was very cool and pleasant till about 9:30, and then it really started heating up.\u00a0 Sure enough, right on schedule at 11:00, the wind came up, and blew fiercely for the rest of the day.\u00a0 Typically it dies down around 6:00 pm.\u00a0 Wind or no wind, we pushed pretty hard, because our goal was to have lunch at the famous Sweetwater River.\u00a0 And it did not disappoint!\u00a0 What a welcome sight–blue water winding through green grass and shady trees, in the middle of a desert!\u00a0 We had thought about getting water there, too, but there were so many cows around that we decided, “Forget it–only 11 more miles and we’ll be in town.\u00a0 We can survive.”\u00a0 So we sat in the shade under the bridge and watched fish jumping in the water while we ate our lunch.\u00a0 It was tempting to jump into the river ourselves–it was such a hot day–but we now had set our sights on reaching Atlantic City by tonight.\u00a0 Several bicyclists we met told us “Go to Atlantic City–there’s a great saloon\/restaurant, and you can stay in their big teepee outside for free.”\u00a0 So that’s our plan.<\/p>\n

When we crossed the river on the road bridge, we soon reached a ROAD sign about Atlantic City.\u00a0 The CDT, however, leaves the road at that point and wanders off among the sagebrushed hills, on very rough tread.\u00a0 It took Fixit and I about half a second to decide “Phooey on the trail–roadwalk!”<\/p>\n

So in spite of the afternoon wind and heat, we gave it our best, even though we were awfully low on water.\u00a0 Thankfully, along the way, we were able to get a bit more water from some people in a car, and from a guy on a bike.\u00a0 Atlantic City, it turns out, is down in a valley, and the downhill to get there is pretty steep.\u00a0 It’s a very old town, and sadly, every other house is for sale.\u00a0 We headed straight for “The Miner’s Grubstake” saloon to get something to eat.\u00a0 We found the staff all in a tizzy getting ready for a big birthday party that’s being held tonight (for one of the local ranchers). \u00a0 But inbetween tearing around trying to get everything ready, they were very kind to us, and we had a great meal of buffalo burgers, salad and pie.\u00a0 Our entertainment was watching the beginnings of the cowboy birthday party.\u00a0 Ummm…..it seems that cowboys are really into whiskey.\u00a0 They were sure going through a lot of it really fast–one bottle after another emptied.\u00a0 Whoa.\u00a0 They also had a cowboy singer, and he was really good.<\/p>\n

But the lady in charge of the saloon knew we were planning to stay in the teepee and she came quietly over to us and said, “It’s gonna be really loud for a long time tonight.\u00a0 Why don’t you go over to Wild Bill’s Guns & Ammo–he’s got a couple of cabins– and stay there?\u00a0 Otherwise, you may not get much sleep tonight.”\u00a0 So that’s what we did.\u00a0 And we had time to wash clothes and take showers, too, before we collapsed on the very comfortable bed in a cozy cabin.\u00a0 I’m glad we went to Atlantic City instead of South Pass City.\u00a0 From what I hear, there’s no place to stay or to eat there, whereas here, it’s great.\u00a0 I’m so glad we met the bikers who tipped us off to come to Atlantic City!<\/p>\n

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SUMMARY:\u00a0 We spent the morning today walking the pioneer trail\u2014the California Trail and the Oregon Trail were still together. The pioneers described the scenery as being like a great sea of grey-green, undulating in great billows, with rocky islands here and there. Yes!\u00a0 That’s exactly what it looks like. Their goal at this point was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wyoming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":923,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541\/revisions\/923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}