The Adventures of Platy and the Gang

2003 Volume 9
June 30, 2003
Thr Mickelson Trail Part 2

Prairie Pup Update !!!

We have ignored the ban on adopting prairie pups. While doing laundry in a truck stop in Edgemont, SD, we found a pup wandering around the gift shop. His name is Pete and Platy is now showing him the ropes. (That's teaching him bad habits.)
Pete is a vegetarian and Platy can't understand why he won't eat corn dogs. Well, maybe Pete will teach Platy to eat healthier food. He does eat ice cream so I guess he's not a vegan.

Mickelson Trail

We started biking again after a day of rain and a day to warm up a little (it only got up to 53 degrees, too cold for me to bike). We broke the day into two parts so as to take advantage of the downhills. We started at Crazy Horse Mountain and went North toward Hill City. We then moved the car South to Pringle and biked down to there. We then moved the RV to Edgemont, SD and stayed at the municipal campground. We were the only people there. They don't advertise anywhere. We saw it in a Mickelson Trail brochure. It's an honor system to pay. We stuck our money in the box and never saw anyone for 2 days. It was only $15/day for a full hookup with cable TV.

The only problem was that it was right next to the railroad track. Every 15 minutes a large train would go past in each direction. One would stop for a few minutes for some reason and would then blow his horn and start again with a loud bang as the cars started moving. Luckily the second night we were there it was the weekend and there wasn't as much traffic.

The last day we biked from Pringle south to Edgemont (32 miles). We took a break at the old Sanator Station location. People got off the train at Sanator to go to the state's tuberculosis sanatorium a short distance down the road. After serving as a sanatorium, the facilities became the Custer State Hospital. In the 1990's, the SD Department of Corrections changed it to the Custer Youth Corrections Center.
Judy is coughing because thought she might have caught something..

The map of the last section shows a long downhill in a canyon with no access to the road. The scenery was beautiful but the slope down was not very much. We had to pedal almost the entire way. No coasting here.
We only saw one rattler as it crossed the trail. By the time I got out my camera he was almost gone. I just caught his tail. He was about 5-6 feet long.

We finished very tired and sunburnt. The next day we did laundry and moved to Lusk, Wyoming. It was about 70 miles but we only passed one or two houses along the way. Nothing else but miles and miles of prairie. How boring.
The picture of the campground shows the prairie. There is a train track about 5 miles in the background and a herd of pronghorn antelope we can watch. lusk

Lusk, Wyoming

The day we arrived we visited the Stagecoach museum in Lusk .
The coach was built by Abbott and Downing at Concord, N.H., in the l860's. It had no springs-the body is hung on leather rockers or what are known as "through braces." The only other coach like it and used on the Black Hills line is in the Smithsonian Insitute.
This particular six-horse coach was first used on a stage line to the gold fields of Nevada, and later brought to Wyoming when the Cheyenne-Deadwood line was established in 1876. The trip from Cheyenne to Deadwood was a little aver 300 miles through Indian territory, over rough roads and treacherous river crossings where road agents often stopped the coach, robbed the passengers and looted the treasure boxes and mail bags.
www.luskwy.com

Oregon Trail

The next day we traveled south to Ft. Laramie. We toured the fort and then a couple of spots along the Oregon Trail. The first is at a cliff area where the wagons would camp for the night. The travelers would carve their names in the soft rocks. Many are dated in the 1850's. There are a few graves of people who only made it this far. register

This is Judy walking on the Oregon Trail in an area where the wagon wheels have worn down a path in the soft rock. That takes a lot of wagons.

Fort Laramie

Fort Laramie was a very busy place in the mid 1800's. The Mormon Trail, The Oregon Trail, The Pony Express, and the Cheyenne-Deadwood stage road all crossed here. It was abandoned and sold in 1890 to homesteaders. In 1938 it became a National Park and they have been restoring it since. They have rangers dresses in period costumes who explain what happened here. Judy went to the "soldier's bar" and had a cream soda. The bartender said only "loose" women came in there during the old days.

www.nps.gov/fola

We will be moving tomorrow (7/1) to Glenrock, Wyoming for 4-5 days. It's close to Casper where we will visit and wait until after the 4th to head for Yellowstone.