This morning, George and I both had to reassemble our cars again. When last night’s storm came through, I had new spark plugs put in and tightened, but the wires were still out and the wells needed to be cleaned out. And one of the plug wires needed … a miracle.
I used two layers of butyl and multiple layers of a super-high-temp flex-tape. We’re hoping that is sufficient insulation that, when combined with new spark plugs that would offer less resistance, keeps the lightning inside the cylinder.
After I sewed my wagon back up, I started it briefly — with great anxiety. But dammit if that motor didn’t fire right up and sound shockingly healthy. At least, compared to the last several days.
Casper
Evan needed a couple pairs of shorts so we stopped at Target needed to stop at the market for more sets of clothes on the way through Casper. I also picked up an O’Reilly order for a replacement distributor cap. Then we stopped off for lunch and watched a huge and rather sudden thunderstorm roll through.
Independence Rock
After Casper, Independence Rock is only about an hour’s drive. I’m unclear which came first, the date or the name, but conventional wisdom of the trail seems to be that if you left Missouri in early-to-mid-May and made it to Independence Rock, Wyoming by the Fourth of July, you were making a good pace.
From several miles away, it was easy to see why the immense natural wonder ahead, bounded by the Sweetwater River on its southeast side, had sheltered one of the largest campgrounds along the trail. The huge mound of naturally polished granite rises almost 140 feet above the desert floor, covers twenty-eight acres, and is more than a mile in circumference. Pioneers from the East and Midwest had never seen a freestanding rock of such huge proportions, and they knew that this gigantic signpost in the sky marked their transition from the muddy and diseased drainage of the Platte to the cleaner flow of the Sweetwater. The two-day run down from Fort Casper was desperately dry, and by early summer, places like Avenue of the Rocks and Prospect Hill had become animal boneyards. [… The morning and afternoon shade created a comfortable layover for pioneers to trade, rest, refill water, and wash.
Rinker Buck, The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey
It reminded me a lot of Enchanted Rock back home near Fredericksburg, but bigger, so obviously we had to get on top of it, despite a tremendous wind.
Devil’s Gate (or Martin’s Cove, if you’re a Mormon)
Another popular camping spot along what is now WY-220, about fives miles southwest, was Devil’s Gate, a grassland at the bottom of semicircular granite ridge.
American Indian legend says a powerful evil spirit in the form of a tremendous beast with enormous tusks ravaged the Sweetwater Valley, preventing the Indians from hunting and camping. A holy man told the tribes that the Great Spirit wanted them to destroy the beast. The Indians launched an attack from the mountain passes and ravines, shooting countless arrows into the evil monster. Enraged, the beast with a mighty upward thrust of its tusks, ripped a gap in the mountain and disappeared, never to be seen again.
Robert L. M[??], “Independence Rock and Devil’s Gate” [??], collected by Bureau of Land Management on a barely legible roadside placard.
Two miles to the northeast, nestled at the foot of the Sweetwater Rocks, lies Martin’s Cove. Here Captain Edward Martin’s exhausted company of Mormon handcart emigrants sought shelter from a severe early winder storm in 1856. The Martin Company, low on provisions and traveling late in the fall, first encountered winter weather in late October near present-day Casper. Of 576 men, women, and children, approximately 145 died along the trail before finally reaching Salt Lake City the last day of November.
Another BLM placard, with a different author…
For more information on Mormon emigrants or the handcard companies, visit the Mormon Handcart Visitor Center located at the old Sun Ranch [an LDS property one mile down the road].
Also at the Sun Ranch is a Mormon Youth Camp which, among other activities, does handcart-hauling pilgrimages in the area in the summer, as Rinker Buck (author of one of the books I keep quoting) and his brother learned when they stopped in. What surprises me is that here, at 7,000 feet, a winter storm was unexpected in late October — they left too late, and they knew it, but perhaps had nowhere else to stop? Needless to say, none of this made it into the videogame.
We walked around a trail and admired the incredible view, as we are now surrounded by mountains on all sides and have finally made it to the next river we’ll parallel for a bit.
Back at the car, Evan joined me in a little art direction exercise I’ve been sheepishly wanting us to do — circling the wagons. We’re a decidedly on-pavement-only clearance group, but no one else was here. So we circled up and he broke out his drone for a little fun:
(This is not a quiet video.)
Turns out that the drone and its accompanying app can just do this and put it all together for you, complete with sweeping shots, dramatic swings, and “mood” music.
Lander, Wyoming
Last time I drove through Lander, I guess I didn’t make it to the nice part of town, which is where we discovered quite a swanky little place for dinner. Open late, even, until 9! I decided we were celebrating.
My Wagon, which rolled 1,200 miles from my apartment and 200,000 miles total at Devil’s Gate, seems largely cured and is running better than it has since I bought it. Clearly my Pioneer-aged spark plugs and self-punctured plug wire were the core of my problem — and I have to admit, I’m grateful to have found that part myself, and to have been able to fix it. Or at least thoroughly bodge it.
Bodge (verb; Britain, Ireland): to do a clumsy or inelegant job, usually as a temporary repair; mend, patch up, repair.
Wiktionary. But we learned it from Top Gear.
George, on the other hand, was drinking to forget his troubles — which are deafeningly rattle-y. Something in his sunroof glass repair seems to have unrepaired itself. But as one commenter noted on Evan’s post noted:
And even George was forced to admit, as much work as he’s done on this car to get it here, he’s worried about the rattles now, rather than whether or not it is drivable. So it may be intensely annoying, but it is still a victory in its own way.