At the beginning of our journey, we stopped at every Oregon Trail and Pony Express monument.
We took sidetrips today around the campus of St. Mary University and Leavenworth Federal Prison.
Our first stop was to see this replica of a wagon with two oxen.
I learned a lot of history as we made this trip. In the movies, settlers seem to always ride in their wagon, but the fact was, they walked the whole way--over 2000 miles.
At first the going was easy for the emigrants as they shared the trail with Santa Fe freight wagons. But then the paths split from each other. They had to learn how to travel as they lost animals, had to "hitch up" the oxen, cook, keep a bedroll dry, find firewood and water, decide where to cross a stream or river.
Alcove Spring was a favorite stop on the early part of the Oregon Trail, before they needed to cross the Big Blue River. We took a back road between Blue Rapids and Marysville to get here. Then we made the hike back in to see the Spring.
Here Roger is looking at the Spring area and where emigrants carved their names into the rocks.
In this picture you can see a name and date.
There is a monument here to a grandmother who died as they prepared to cross the Big Blue River. She was part of the famous Donner Party.
We are now also following the Pony Express Route.
After we saw Cottonwood Station, where Wild Bill Hickok killed his first guys, we drove on to a preserved station called Rock Creek. (Plenty of other history along the way, besides the Oregon Trail travelers.)
There is quite a lot of history along the Oregon Trail, the Pony Express Route, the Mormon Trail, the California Trail and others. Historical places are not especially marked well. We had a 10-year old book we were reading and following. We would have missed a lot of sites if we hadn't read the book beforehand. Stopped for ice cream in a little town called St. Mary's.
It was a long first day. We just barely made it out of Kansas into Nebraska. Stopped in Fairbury for the night.
End of Day 1
