Kevin – Wednesday. A rarity; it’s been raining – hard – here in Wyoming for almost all morning and into the late afternoon. They need it and I’ve stayed indoors pretty much all day. It’s so cold and humid that, out of necessity, I ate a bowl of grits this afternoon just to warm up my toes. I made a pot of broccoli, potato & cheese soup with bacon bits for dinner. Yummmm.
I spent the day down at the Glendo town offices using their internet service. Reception for our phones is so poor here that I literally cannot be productive at the trailer for anything requiring the internet or communications. After dinner, it’s back to the town hall so I can upload today’s blog and photos.
I also spent time getting acquainted with a new software to help identify property owners, property lines and cached maps for when I’m in the field. Inexpensive for what you get and a heck of a lot faster than how I had to do it previously. I’m anxious to try the cached maps in the field. Field software and GPS have come a long way since our 2008 trek.
And, I’ll be calling a few of the folks that were referred to me for information.
1847 Correlations: The Donner wagon train, Brother Brigham’s pioneer company, the Mississippi Saints and Battalion detachments all followed this same section of the Oregon Trail route. Why invent some new route if one was already started for you?
Communications of 1847 were by letter or a verbal message carried by a representative. It was far slower even than my present predicament. The Pony Express was a revolution.
On a few occasions, the main command on their way to California had to lay over a day due to storms, but the Pueblo group didn’t mention any layovers for weather that I can recall. As they came through what became Wyoming, the weather wasn’t terribly hot nor particularly cold. They did stop a few times to recruit the animals or for meetings, but they were moving along at a good pace trying to catch up to Brigham Young’s group. I doubt the detachments had grits to eat. The Mississippi Saints may have. (grin)
More prosaic correlations take much more mental effort. Not tonight.
