Cheyenne Wyoming

Well, it's been about three months since I have written this blog.  I will try to fill in the past but we have traveled so much, seen so many friends that I just haven't set down to catch up.  I decided to start today and move forward and add the past as I can.

We are in Cheyenne, Wyoming after visiting Glacier National Park, Yellowstone, and the Grand Tetons.  I told you we had a full summer. The parks were unbelievably beautiful! But it is nice to get into a town.  My hair is disgusting.  I had Pralines done in a little town called Rawlins, Wyoming and she has been mad at me ever since. She is slightly uneven on both sides and you know what a Diva she is.  I would put a picture in but she isn't posing for pictures for me.  At least she is clean.  After a month in the national parks, her white hair had turned to grey. My hair has turned to gray also.  I had hoped to get my hair done in Rawlins and now Cheyenne but it hasn't happened yet.  No matter what, in Colorado Springs, where we are heading tomorrow, I will find a hair dresser.  I have grown to depend on Yelp for recommendations and there was none for either Rawlins or Cheyenne, but many choices in Colorado Springs.  Enough about the only thing that is difficult with full timing.

Today, we took a trolley ride around the city of Cheyenne.  We started at the Cheyenne Depot Museum. The Central Pacific Railroad of California and the Union Pacific Railroad that connected its statutory Eastern terminus at Council Bluffs, Iowa/Omaha, Nebraska with the Pacific Ocean at Oakland, California.  By linking with the existing railway network of the Eastern United States, the road thus connected the Atlantic and Pacific coast of the United States by rail for the first time.

In Cheyenne there are boots all over the city.  These boots, " Are made for talking" is what the tour guide told us.They were done by various artist to raise money for the Depot Museum.  Here are a few examples:

This is the Governor's boot in front of the Union Depot.

This boot was on the Plaza in front of the Union Depot. It has the depot on it and a steam engine.
 Boots are 8' tall.

Next we went to the Nelson Museum of the West.  After our trolley ride and lunch Bob and I returned to spend some time here.  The museum has an extensive Native American and Cowboy collections.  It had silver artistry by Edward H. Boblin, who was the silver artist for the cowboy stars of Hollywood.  Bob and I have memories of his work that were on displace at the Tournament of Roses House, when Bob served on the Equistrian Committee.

Our next stop was the State Capital.

The cornerstone of the Wyoming State Capital was laid in Cheyenne on May 18, 1887. The 24-carat gold leaf dome is visible from all roads entering the city.

Chief Washakie was a renowned warrior first mentioned in 1840 in the written record of the american fur trapper, Osborn Russell.  In 1851, at the urging of trapper Jim Bridger, Washakie lead a band of Shoshones to the council meetings of the Treaty of Fort Laramine.  Essentially from that time until his death, he considered the head of the Eastern Shoshones by representatives of the United States government.  His statue  is on the Capital grounds and has been on display in the Rotunda in Washington, D.C.

Esther Hobart Morris has a statue on the Capital grounds.  She was the first female Justice of the Peace in the United States.  Mother of three boys, she began her tenure as justice in South Pass City, Wyoming, in 1870. One of her first cases was to convict her husband of  spousal abuse.  She never lost a case while she was in office.

This is the Seal of the State of Wyoming also on the Capital grounds.  The draped figure in the center holds a staff from which flows a banner bearing  the works, "Equal Rights."  The banner symbolizes the political status women have enjoyed in Wyoming since the passage of the territorial suffrage amendment in 1869.

Heather says I writes too much, that's why it takes me so long to get a blog on line, so I will stop for tonight.