Cheyenne, Wyoming - Cowboy Country with Railroads

What a combination, cowboys and railroads. And bison, wild horses and dromedaries thrown in. All this and more at the Terry Bison Ranch RV Resort in Cheyenne. Sounds good, doesn't it? Maybe 20 years ago it was. But the resort is kind of run down, past it's prime, not so different from me! None the less, it was fun, aside from the facilities being past their prime, the noise from I 25 which was only about 50 yards from our camp site was annoying, to say the least. Hard to get a good night's sleep.

On our way to Cheyenne, we stopped at Douglas, WY to visit a railroad exhibit. It featured a life sized jackalope together with a steam engine and several cars. The railroad interpretive center, as it is called, provided us a wonderful glossy brochure of the equipment on exhibit. Locomotive #5633 is a 4-8-4 that was in service from 1940 until 1962 on the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy line.. It was moved to Douglas in 1993. The tender held 27 tons of coal and 18,000 gallons of water. At left, Lill is in the dining area and kitchen of the CB&Q dining car. Built in 1947, it saw service until 1972.














And here we are photographed with a jackalope. This strange animal has a unique ability to imitate the human voice. Cowboys singing to their herds at night have been startled to hear their lonesome melodies repeated from afar. Jackalopes only sing on dark nights just before a thunderstorm. Jackalope sightings have the same aura as UFO sightings and are thought to be just as rare.








From Buffalo, WY it was another 304 miles to Cheyenne where we arrived on Aug 14th at the Terry Bison Ranch. So far, we have traveled a total of 3,613 miles. The state's capitol is a small city, about 6,000 feet above sea level. Here we feasted on bison, met Miss Frontier Days, rode a fake train through a bison herd, and visited museums and steam locomotive exhibits. Below are pictures of the capitol building, the Union Pacific yard as viewed from the railroad museum which is housed in the old UP train station pictured to the right.




















Below is the Big Boy located on display in downtown Cheyenne.











In Lions Park, downtown Cheyenne, we visited UP engine # 1242, "Old Sadie", the oldest coal burning steam locomotive in Wyoming. Its engineer, Floyd Young from 1921 to 1954, walked the old UP tracks after he retired and collected parts which he later welded together to make a fence around his home. This fence now forms part of the #1242 display shown below.











Below is a portion of Floyd's iron fence which is enclosed in the fence surrounding #1242..















We also visited the State Museum where Lill is shown with a painted cowboy boot. Such boots are on display throughout the downtown area.















Meanwhile back at the ranch, we went on a ride through a buffalo herd that is only a stone's throw from our campsite, as is highway I 25. There also were several dromedary on the ranch as well.














Below we see Lill in the train as we ride through the ranch.













The woman narrating the ranch tour turned out to be non other than Miss Frontier Days 2010, Rachel Shutter. Well it isn't everyday that I meet a Miss something, especially in Sun City, so I persuaded her to pose with me and show us her fancy buckle with her title and name.















At the Bison Ranch they had a fake frontier town facade behind which were the office, gift shop and laundry. So here we are, playing the part in a fake frontier town. Lill by the jail and me by the saloon.













On Monday, Aug 17, we left Cheyenne for Springfield, IL to absorb Lincoln history on the 200th anniversary of his birth. But, in Henderson, Nebraska, on I 80, heading east, fate dealt us a low blow. A stone or two hit our windshield and cracked it badly. We were lucky in that the glass still held together long enough for us to make the 380 mile trip to the Winnebago factory to get it replaced.