I started this post thinking I could do it quick and simple.

I wuz wrong …

So I’ve added a new menu item called “Articles” for … articles! Those writings too long for a basic Post; turned into Pages. In this case, many pages.

Since before this site started, I’ve been working on a whatever-it-may-be-called … article, I suppose … on an exploration I undertook following the old stage route across Colorado and Wyoming. I’m still putting it together; it’s a monster at – so far – around 20 “pages” long. A mini-book it appears. But for those interested, I’ll be adding pages as I finish them as installments. The pages themselves won’t be posted; I’ll put a post up announcing a new page but they’ll be accessible under the Articles tab in the Header menu.

Follows will be the only Post of the series.

I grew up on westerns. Wagon Train, Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, The Lone Ranger, Rawhide, Bonanza … and more
… including Tales of Wells-Fargo.

Being from the Great Lakes country, I grew up with deciduous forests and large lakes. Water not scarce but long distant views were. Dry, dusty, mountainous western scenery was as foreign to me as any overseas country; something from a movie set.

All filmed in Panavision – I wanted to visit Panavision someday …

As I got older, I came to realize those TV shows weren’t documentaries – perhaps no more true than Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, or Build Back Better.

And as I got even older, perhaps those TV tales – while not documentaries – were not necessarily fully false either.

While I was younger, I was exposed to Mark Twain through the regulars: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (did you know there were two other Tom Sawyer books? Tom Sawyer Abroad and Tom Sawyer Detective) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I enjoyed those tales and as I got older, I dug into Mark Twain’s “more adult” writings, “Roughing It” among them. A “true” account of those TV tales – a stagecoach journey through the wild west … to The Ponderosa. Well, Carson City – close enough.

I lived in Nebraska for a short period … and dated some local girls who showed me around the area. The Oregon Trail, Cozad – at the “dry line” on the 100th meridian. Plum Creek – the Cheyenne attack on railroad workers in 1867. The Pony Express – a few stations till existing – two in Gothenburg perhaps the best known. Fort Kearney. Cozad is still a town; only a marker on US30 exists at Plum Creek. Ft Kearney was an open field of “once-was” …

I started exploring the segments of the Oregon Trail, Pony Express, and Transcontinental Railroad – all for the most part following one side or the other of the Platte River; all had turned into modern transportation routes. The railroad was an up-to-date and busy version of the Transcontinental Railroad – no “remnants” of the old times there … and the immigrant and Pony Express trails had become highways: US30 and I-80. No excitement there either.

Later, I moved further west and had the time and funds to explore deeper into “what had been”. And for now, I had the opportunity to explore the stage route that Mark Twain travelled. I lived on the Front Range and Virginia Dale was just up the road. Virginia Dale. Jake Slade. Mark Twain. It was real and I was there.

“A high and efficient servant of the Overland, an outlaw among outlaws and yet their relentless scourge, Slade was at once the most bloody, the most dangerous and the most valuable citizen that inhabited the savage fastnesses of the mountains.“
Mark Twain; “Roughing It“

Why didn’t the history of my home land affect me the same way?

I started this post thinking it would be fairly short and sweet. It ended up turning into a monster … publication length at least. Therefore, I changed the format from Post to Page(s) for those that may want to dig deeper into the rabbit hole.

It will be a deep and long rabbit hole: pictures, maps, commentary … almost as long, dry, and dusty as the ride itself.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you …

The first page is up and running: The Central Route