Western USA 2003
Ash Hollow, Nebraska to Park City, Utah
--A native Marylanders homestead at Windlass Hill
Ash Hollow/Windlass Hill is where I spent the night before and was one of the more difficult places along the Oregon Trail for travelers. It is a steep downgrade and the wagons would often careen out of control down the hill. Lots of wagon wheel rut marks around. There is a cabin at the bottom of the hill where an old man from Maryland had once lived, right next to where I spent the night.
--On the trail to Oregon.
--Whoa!
Nearby is Blue Water Creek Battlefield (1855) and I went looking for it along back dirt roads and found with the help of the GPS, it is unmarked on private property and I could look only from a distance. It looks unchanged and is easy to picture the battle. The battle (really a massacre) was the first Indian incident that eventually escalated to the Plains Indian Wars and Little Big Horn 25 years later. Crazy Horse was a 10 year old boy at Blue Water. "The sight . . . was heart-rending--wounded women and children crying and moaning, horribly mangled by the bullets." Two dead women were found clutching their dead children.
The rest of the day was about driving as far west as quickly as possible. I barely even stopped for food it was highway miles on I-80 going like a speed demon. Arrived at Park City, Utah much after dark and checked into a Best Western, I scared myself when I looked in the mirror, my face looked terrible! Exhausted. Not only that I had not gone to the bathroom in days and was not feeling well. No Internet access in days either. Connection?
Posted by stbalbach at August 26, 2003 02:35 PM