This blog post was originally created and published as a feature length video featuring Junior Ranger Leif on our Solstice Quest YouTube channel. Watch it here!
Hi. I’m Junior Ranger Leif Silva and over the next three days, I’m going to take you on an epic journey across the Oregon Trail in Wyoming and Nebraska.
My goal this year was to complete 40 Junior Rangers, and earlier in the year, I had already completed two back at home on the East Coast. That left 38 for our epic summer road trip. Spoiler alert – I completed 41 Junior Rangers on the summer trip alone, for a grand total of 43 completed in 2021. That brings my total Junior Rangers to date to 75!
The Great Plains
On this leg of my trip, I completed 9 Junior Rangers, all related to the American Pioneers and our country’s historic time period of Western expansion!
Today’s post is focused on the first day of my 5 week Every Kid Outdoors summer adventure. Every Kid Outdoors is a National Park Service project that helps to get 4th graders into as many National Parks as possible by providing us with a complementary entrance pass good from Sept 1st to August 31st of the following year. I picked up my Every Kid Outdoors pass last September in Acadia National Park.
We got up super early this morning and flew to Denver, Colorado where we picked up our home for the next 5 weeks.
Elsa is a Eurovan Full Camper. She seats and sleeps four people. For the first four weeks of my trip, it’ll be just my mom and I. But my dad and my brother Aras will join us for the final week of our trip, so we need to have room for them. We rented Elsa from our friends at Rocky Mountain Campervans. Mom says they were absolutely the best at supporting us to complete my goal.
Once we got Elsa all packed up, we headed off for a 4 hour drive across Wyoming.
National Historic Trails Interpretive Center in Casper, Wyoming
We’re here in Casper, Wyoming the site of 4 National Historic Trails including The Oregon Trail, The California Gold Rush Trail, The Pony Express, and the Mormon Pioneer Trail.
We’ll start our journey at the National Historic Trails Interpretive Center. It’s run by the Bureau of Land Management with support from the National Park Service’s National Historic Trails division. It’s free for you and me to explore.
You can get two Junior Rangers at the National Historic Trail Interpretive Center. Let’s go inside and take a look.
The Interpretive Center has different exhibit rooms with interactive displays that take you through the trials and tribulations of the over 400,000 pioneers who traveled through this area from 1841 to 1868. There is also a huge life sized diorama in the middle of the Center that comes to life during a 20 minute movie that takes you on the journey of early pioneers.
There are two different Junior Rangers that you can complete here.
The first one is the Junior Explorer Pioneer Program. All of the answers for this one can be found throughout the Center’s exhibits. When you complete it, you receive a Junior Explorer pin and you get to emboss your own Completion certificate with an old fashion press. It takes some muscles, but I did it!
The second Junior Ranger is called “Would You Rather” and this one is completed by doing a driving tour to nearby historic sites along the trails just outside of Casper. My mom printed it out from the BLM’s website before our trip, and we toured these sites and completed the booklet before we arrived at the Center. For completing this one, I received a super special Wyoming Bureau of Land Management Ranger wooden badge.
Riding the Oregon Trail with Historic Trails West
The best part of this day begins after the Center closes. Tonight we’re going for a ride in an authentic Conestoga wagon along the real Oregon Trail with a living history re-enactment company called Historic Trails West.
Morris Carter is an expert on all things having to do with the Pioneer Trails. He built his Conestoga wagons from authentic original schematics and has driven them from start to finish on both the Oregon and California Trails. Now he brings this history to life as a living history guide here in Casper, Wyoming.
We meet in the parking lot of the Interpretive Center as it is closing for the night, and follow in our car to their private property near Bessemer Bend and the North Platte River. Here Morris has the horses all hitched up to the wagon and ready for a bumpy ride along the actual ruts of the Oregon trail.
Morris let me sit up in the front next to him and help with the horses. Their names were Mike and Jordan. They are 19 hands tall!
Since I’m already ten years old, he told me that in the olden days I would have been expected to walk along side the wagons with my Mom for much of the 2200+miles of the trail. Only the very young, very old, and the ill rode in the wagons because the space was needed for all of the gear necessary to survive on the frontier. Older children like me and women like my mom would have spent the days walking off the wagon path in search for berries and other foods and gathering fresh water.
“They counted 50,000 people by Fort Laramie which is in Eastern Wyoming. One guy wrote this wagon train is 400 miles long. As far ahead as you can see and as far back as you can see are wagons, wagons, wagons. And those passing are making it unbearable for all. There must be 60,000 head of stalk, the trail is eaten completely bare a mile off both sides.” – Morris Carter
Morris explained that it was the covered wagon that made our “sea to shining sea” vision of America possible.
After our ride, we came back into the replica Indian Village for a Dutch Oven dinner.
Morris explained to us that contrary to popular belief, the early pioneers and Native Americans were actually friendly and helpful to each other. Attacks might have made the stories of legends but they were actually very rare, as the Native Americans viewed the pioneers as just another “tribe” to trade with. They frequently helped the pioneers to ford the swollen and flooded North Platte River.
All that bouncing around sure worked up an appetite for me!
We had steak, green beans, and potatoes prepared for us while we were riding on the trail. Mmm, the fresh baked rolls came with a big helping of honey butter. Our dutch oven steak dinner was so delicious that Mom got a second helping of sirloin steak and I got a second helping of the Conestoga cobbler.
As the sun began to set and we finished up our dinner, we took a walk along the North Platte River with our new friends and fellow travelers from North Carolina. Mom and I thought about taking a swim in the river but quickly reconsidered. Even though the daytime temperature was exceptionally hot at about 102 degrees, the river water was quite chilly!
Camping on the Oregon Trail thru Harvest Hosts
Once the other guests left, our first night’s adventure began. This day started with an early morning wake up in Baltimore, Maryland and now it was going to end with camping on the actual Oregon Trail in the sagebrush of Wyoming.
We learned about Historic Trails West through a program called Harvest Hosts. Harvest Hosts connects farms, vineyards, museums, and businesses like Historic Trails West that offer unique educational experiences with travelers who get to camp on site for the night after enjoying the activities.
Soon we were all alone, camping out in Elsa, on the actual Oregon Trail!
Mom got us set up for the night and then she pulled out a really fun card game. She says it is based on a computer game that she played when she was my age. You pretend to be a pioneer and try to make it to Willamette Valley along the Oregon Trail. It was fun but hard. The very first card she picked up killed her character from dysentery! Now that I’ve ridden in a real wagon along the trail, I can understand why this Oregon Trail game is so hard!
National Park Service’s 19 National Historic Trails
Finally, I used all the information I learned today to complete the Oregon National Historic Trail Junior Ranger booklet. The National Park Service has 19 National Historic Trails and 11 National Scenic Trails, and most of them have Junior Ranger activities associated with them. You can stop anywhere along the trails to gather information in order to complete the Junior Ranger.
We’ll be mailing the booklet in once we get home in order to get our badges, along with the booklets for the Mormon Trail, California Trail, and the Pony Express, all of which I’ll talk about more in my next post as I continue along these National Historic Trails across Wyoming and into Nebraska.
The next morning we woke up to a most spectacular sunrise on the Oregon Trail and headed off East across Wyoming.
That’s the end of my first day of the Every Kid Outdoors epic summer road trip, and I’ve already completed three Junior Rangers! Now I’m off again on my next adventure. Who knows, maybe I’ll see you out there!
This post includes an affiliate link to the Harvest Hosts program. If you choose to purchase a membership after clicking the link, I may receive a commission at no additional cost to you. I chose to affiliate with Harvest Hosts because I too am a member and absolutely love the program. Harvest Hosts offers RVers unlimited access to farms, breweries, wineries, and attractions across North America. Your membership allows you to stay overnight at any of their 4000+ host locations and in return, they ask that you support your host’s business during your stay. The program also offers tons of amazing partner discounts, route planning, and you can upgrade to include community locations and golf courses. It’s a great way to explore new places and try new things!
Leave a Reply