Location: East Canyon State Park, Utah
We slept like logs last night. It was the only night that we've used our sleeping bags for warmth since the first few days of our trip, since it got down into the 50's rather than the 70's. The lake next to our campsite was like a mirror this morning and really beautiful.
The Russell family in 1929 had camped at Laramie, so that was our first stop this morning. We bought groceries there and admired the beautiful parts of town near the college campus, but quickly moved on. Laurie's journal describes at great length the harrowing ride in pouring rain that they made down the mountain from Laramie. "I cannot forget the horror of side-slipping in mud on those narrow mountain roads...We progressed those 50 miles of the worst of it in nearly four hours." Meanwhile, the steepest decent for us was between the Lincoln Monument and Laramie. However, we are now driving on an Interstate Highway (in Wyoming, the Old Lincoln Highway becomes one with the Interstate), while Laurie describes "we find there is one place in the thousand or so miles of the Lincoln Highway that is not completely surfaced and there are notes that rain makes it dangerous." In contrast, this was about the steepest that the highway got for us today.
Laurie's group stopped at Parco, a huge oil refinery coupled with a company town which was designed in 1925 to be not only functional but aethestically pleasing. We drove through the same town today, which is now called Sinclair, since it had been purchased by Sinclair Oil in 1934, during the depression. We thought the houses had not aged well in the intervening years, but the fountain in front of the Parco Hotel is still quite charming.
Laurie reported that they camped that night at Wamsutter. "Out there on the lonely prarie where the railroad tracks were the main street, the Broadway Hotel and Cafe lifted its noble one story".
We were delighted to drive into Wamsutter today and locate what we think are both the former Broadway Hotel...
and the still-operating Broadway Cafe.
Their first stop the next morning was in Green River. We stopped there and saw this great old building which still operates as a brewery, just as it did in 1929.
On the other side of the tracks we found a wonderful park, complete with water park, lots of grass and trees, and a beautiful place along the Green River which is perfect for floating down a few hundred yards to get cooled off in the blazing summer sun. This place felt like the epitome of summer. Debi read that this was the place where John Wesley Powell set out for his 3 month expedition of the Colorado River and Grand Canyon in 1869.
Their next stop was at Granger, which Laurie describes as "no municipal center, no trees, only sagebrush round and about. There WAS one shady spot though, underneath the water tower beside the railroad track." There they met an aviator (rather drunk, apparently) who carried airmail on night flights through this section of the country, and thrilled the whole family with his stories of flying a plane. We drove into Granger today, and found that the poor little town even lacks paved streets, but by sheer good luck, found a historical plaque that had a picture of the town taken in 1928, with the water tower!
Here's what we think is the same view today, with the water tower now relocated elsewhere.
Our final destination tonight is East Canyon State Park in Utah. As we entered the park, we were greeted by a welcoming committee of sheep playing on the roadway, with lots of spunky little lambs. After finding a campsite, we quickly got on our swim suits and took a cooling soak in the lake. This made Debi really happy!
Here is Debi with Winnie at our campsite.
This park is where the Donner Party camped. They were the first group of wagon trains to come through this way on their way to California. Don't worry about us though. Here is Debi cooking chicken for our dinner, making sure that we are both well fed.
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