From Colorado, I did a short but noteworthy part of the Oregon Trail. Even though home was east, I made a point to do this section heading west because doing it backwards just felt wrong.
It was extremely windy both days, and I was plagued by tumbleweeds.
Tumbleweeds are actually an invasive species and weren't introduced to the US until the 1870s. So very few emigrants on the Oregon Trail would've encountered them.
The first landmark I came across was Courthouse and Jail rocks. They kinda reminded me of the watchtower from the first Lord of the Rings.
You really can see these landmarks from really far away. I saw this next one when I was still over 10 miles away.
Chimney Rock was smaller than I was expecting. In fact, it's a lot smaller now than it was a hundred years ago because of erosion, but having played hours and hours of the Oregon Trail game, I was still breathlessly excited to see it.
Bedded down in Scottsbluff. On this leg of the trip, I stayed at the weirdest but best (and cheapest) hotels. I forgot to take a picture of the outside so I'll have to resort to street view.
It looks like a prepper or gun nut hotel, but it's actually ran by a really sweet asian family. Their 2-ish year-old tried to climb me as I checked in. The walls were all cinderblock and the furniture was old, but the room was immaculate. It was like staying in your grandma's doomsday bunker. Five stars.
The next day, I went to Scotts Bluff (the namesake of Scottsbluff). There's a trail that goes to the top, which I aimed to take.
I heard prairie dogs from all around me on the way up, but I didn't see a single one.
You can get up real close to all these landmarks. They're very impressive.
About halfway up, I was thwarted by tumbleweeds.
I tried to force my way through but it was no use. And I kept imagining a rattlesnake hiding in the dense tangle of branches (...foreshadowinggggg). Fortunately, there's a road that goes to the top too so I took the easy way up.
I reluctantly enjoyed the somewhat unearned views.
I stopped for lunch back in Scottsbluff at a Runza, which I understand is a Nebraska institution.
It tasted like a fast-food pasty with a HEAVY emphasis on fast-food. I didn't really care for it, and it gave me a stomach ache.
I didn't really get dysentery (probably), just a suggestion of it.
Next up was the Guernsey Ruts, a half-mile section of the trail that's shockingly well-preserved.
Very cool to walk in those ruts and in the footsteps of the people that made them. It was also just a really pretty area.
The last Oregon Trail site was Register Cliff, which is where pioneers would etch their names into the cliffside on their way past.
Pretty cool. You can definitely find some old ones, but people from every decade since have scratched their names into it too, which makes it hard to spot the older ones.
I was walking along reading all the names and out of the corner of my eye, I see something jerk back and hiss and start rattling. It was a rattlesnake! And he was pissed.
With reflexes I didn't even know I had, I immediately jumped back and over a bunch of rocks and the next thing I knew, I was 30 feet away. I treaded a lot more carefully after that. I should've heeded that sign back in Independence, MO; rattlesnakes are proverbially abundant.
I spent a bit more time there but away from the snake. It overlooks the Platte River, which is also historically significant being a source of both life and death for those that took the trail.
And that closed out the Oregon Trail part of this trip. I stayed in Guernsey that night at another weird, nice, cheap hotel. This one had a cat. His name is Garth, and he's awesome.
It was a real treat seeing those landmarks in real life. I wanted to get a sense of what the Oregon Trail was like. Between the stomach issues and the rattlesnake, I'd say I got a lot more than I bargained for!