Roadtrek Travels: Tuesday, August 13 Encampment, Battle Mountain, Savery

Tuesday, August 13

Nice breakfast with Tim and Buca. Tim creates a tasty smoothy and offers a rhubarb coffee cake too. Yum!

He is off to work and we are off to the Encampment area. Taking a different route this morning which goes through prairie, ranch land and then into wooded areas - Rte 230, which dips into Colorado for a second.

Through Riverside in a blink and into Encampment (2 blinks). Tim shared that there are many small towns in Wyoming, some (like these two) almost on top of each other. He says it is because there was a law passed in the 1800's that limited the number of bars in any one town - so they built more towns!

This dear was just standing in someone's yard as we came into town.

We head for the Grand Encampment Museum which both Tim and Tom & Sue recommended. Quite a museum for such a tiny town!

Encampment was a meeting place for early fur trappers, traders and Native Americans and then, between 1903 and 1908, became a boomtown for copper mining. A steam-powered aerial tramway carried copper ore over the Continental Divide to a smelter here.

There are 18 historic buildings here, including part of the tramway, timber, mining, railroad and agricultural history. Most were moved here from nearby locations. An old train, a one room schoolhouse, a stagecoach building, dry goods store and various homes filled with furniture and hundreds of daily living items. Lots of stories.

This room had one of the first fold out sofas and also was featured in a Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition.

This was a tie hack cabin. Tie hacks were lumbermen who cut wood to make railroad ties when the railroad was appearing everywhere.

This was a stage coach station.

The main building had photos and other paraphernalia, including this

"murphy bathtub" (our name for it) which looks like a wardrobe when closed and a nice size bathtub when opened!

Another highlight was a two story outhouse, which was built because of high snowdrifts. The downstairs holes were closed and bypassed and the upstairs ones used when the snow got very deep! Bet we will never see another one of these!

A young man, maybe mid-teens, was learning to give the tour, but has a ways to go.... so we stuck with him for only a few buildings.

From Encampment we headed west over Battle Mountain which is part of the Sierra Madre Mountain Range. Some pretty steep grades as we pass over the Continental Divide.

We passed several National Forest Campgrounds which we'll consider for tonight. A few stops for photos and then we wound down to the town of Savery (Population 25!) where we'll visit the Little Snake River Museum.

The Little Snake River Valley has been home to native people, explorers, trappers, settlers, miners, homesteaders, stockmen and outlaws and this museum tells the story of many of them.

Note that the Johnson Barber Shop also offered a "complete and understanding mortuary service". The Harris Mercantile carried a little of everything; farm equipment, clothing, fabric, shoes and food. It was also a place to share news and socialize.

Everything here is from local donations. Again, there are multiple homes, farming equipment, wagons, a garden, saddlery, blacksmith shop and more. Self-guided.

Pretty hollyhocks.

Then..

And Now.

This is a sheep wagon....we have seen a few of these in museums and saw one being used in northern Colorado a few years ago. Sheep ranching was once very popular in this area and in northern Colorado.

Rules for teachers included that women teachers that married were dismissed. Smoking, drinking alcohol, getting shaved in a barber shop or playing pool were reasons for dismissal. After five years a teacher received an increase of twenty-fine cents per week.

Rules for students (1860) included sitting up straight at all times no squirming, fidgeting or whining. Do not speak unless spoken to. Fighting, lying or cheating meant expulsion. There is a daily inspection of neck, ears and fingernails prior to class to ensure cleanliness of person. Young ladies must never show a bare ankle and boys and girls clothing should cover arms and legs completely. There was a note, too, that nothing should be dipped into ink wells except pens.

The main building has quite a lot of clothing.

We chat with the woman in the gift shop and ask about a gravel road we were considering for boondocking....probably doable, but we decide to stick to the paved roads for now and go back up the mountain to Lost Creek Campground. The temperature difference in the mountains draws us back there for a cool night's sleep.

Lost Creek is a small campground but other than the camp host there is only one occupied site. We pick site #7 which is a mix of sun and shade and Greg looks around for firewood. He points out some chicken-sized birds nearby and I go to take a few pics. There are 5 or so, I think an adult and some larger young ones. They don't fly away, just move through the underbrush.

We see two smallish snakes nearby too - both curled up in sunny spots.

I walk down to ask the camp host if he/she knows what kind of birds and snakes they are and Cheryl answers my knock. Her husband Ken is out on a hike. She says they don't see many snakes and doesn't know what kind they are, just that they aren't poisonous. The birds are blue grouse which are plentiful in the area. There are two racks of firewood by their site and she says to help ourselves. The forest service cut several trees this Spring and her husband has split the wood.

Back at the campsite, Greg gets the fire going and Ken and a friend come back from a hike. The host is from Tennessee and his buddy from Indiana. They stop and chat. Both are motorcyclists and engaging story tellers as they talk about various trips and we share travel stories.

After they leave, we are visited by this friendly doe grazing on grass and bushes. At first we are excited and take pictures, but she must have been fed by other campers because she has no fear and Greg has to wave a stick at her to get her keep her distance. She has two fawns with her, but the fawns come and go. They all finally disappear as we get ready for dinner.