A prairie story 08-04-14

In fourth grade kids learn about their home state, so I learned about Oregon.  And my imagination was taken with the Oregon Trail that led so many people to the new territory and, eventually, state.  I read lots of books about pioneers, both fiction and non-fiction.  Some fascinating memoirs from those who had been children on the Trail.  It was all so adventurous and exciting - imagine walking all the way across the country and seeing wild animals roaming, Indians in their natural culture, and, finally, the mountains after months of flat rolling land.  I've often wondered if these memories gave me the wanderlust to travel. 

 

At the end of the 1960's my husband and I took a two month tour of the country, driving north to Oregon and then east to see some of the sights along the route of the pioneers.  In my reading I knew that Chimney Rock was an important landmark; this spire of rock towering above the trail gave the travelers encouragement in a land with few outstanding features.  The day we were to travel the stretch of US26 from Wyoming into Nebraska I was prepared with maps, camera, binoculars and high anticipation.  There are lots of large bluffs along the way so the road follows the North Platte River which provided a pathway for the Oregon Trail, the Mormon Trail, the California Cutoff Trail and even the Pony Express route.  Not far beyond Scottsbluff, Nebraska, with the bluffs on either side is Chimney Rock.  I waited and searched as we drove along the highway.  After we had gone further than it showed on the map I knew we had missed it, or it was gone, worn away by the weather.  My husband turned around and we went back toward Scottsbluff.   I still didn't see any towering spur of rock, one that the pioneers traveled toward for weeks.  We turned around again and suddenly, there it was.  A little stump of rock atop a sloping base, pointing to the sky, only about 300 feet high!  It took me miles to figure out the discrepancy; the pioneers walking or riding in mule-drawn or oxen-drawn wagons traveled fewer than ten miles a day; on the modern highway in our powerful automobile we were doing 65-70 miles per hour.  So, in an hour we traveled as far as they did in a week!  I had a lot more respect for Chimney Rock after that revelation, but I had never driven that way again. 

 

On this Road Trip I detoured off of I-80, up US-26 just to see that stone tower again and visit the new interpretive center built a few years ago.  It was 102F when I returned to my car and the wind was rattling the dry grass and bushes.  I stood there for just a few minutes and imagined what it must have been like for the pioneers to have finally arrived at this way point in their long struggle to reach the Western lands.  But I couldn't imagine it, I'm sure I would have fallen by the wayside long before I reached this point of the journey.  Then I got in my air conditioned car and drove off in 70F comfort.

Chimney Rock in the distance.  

 

Sign directing to interpretive center.

Parked in the lot - to prove I was there!

Very dry - telegraph weed (Heterotheca grandiflora) against the sky.  A plant that may not have been there in pioneer days, but is everywhere in the country now.  It does "telegraph" seeds as it dries.

Chimney Rock (approx. 300" tall)

Chimney Rock Interpretive Center with the Rock in the background.

The rattlesnakes were surely there back in the day. 

Lots of sagebrush and wild grasses.

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