We made it to Cheyenne, Wyoming today from Casper and will spend the night. We visited the Trails Museum (opened in August 2002) in Casper and the Oregon Trail Ruts Historical Site outside Guernsey, Wyoming, where some wagon ruts still remain from the 1840s migration to the west along the Oregon Trail.
The National Historic Trails Museum in Casper had just opened in August
2002 and was a state of the art museum and very interesting to visit. The
view on the upper left is of the city of Casper, Wyoming from the museum.
The famous North Platte River runs through the town.
The top two views are downtown Guernsey, Wyoming. A couple of miles
to the east over a "washerboard" dirt road is the Oregon Trail Ruts Historic
Site, where you can still see wagon ruts made over 150 years ago by westward-moving
settlers along the Oregon Trail. Thousands rode over these very same areas.
We visited this site September 2, 2002.
Also near Guernsey, Wyoming is Register Cliff, where travelers along
the Oregon Trail inscribed their names on this rocky hill back in the 1800s.
Some names date back as far as 1829, but we couldn't find them. Many are
barely visible after 150 years. The gravesite was for settlers who died
enroute.
We ended the day in Cheyenne, Wyoming, the state capital of Wyoming.
Union Pacific Railroad has a large operation here and the roundhouse there
still contains their two working steam locomotives from the 1940s, the
844 and 3985 steam engines. I plan to tour this facility tomorrow. They
are the only two operating steam engines operated by a major railroad,
although more such locomotives survive in private hands across the country.
Cheyenne's large passenger station is still standing, now being used for
restaurants and other offices.