Monday, October 23, 2006

Exited thoughts now long to travel

We had a flurry of out of town visitors this fall. All those folks who said they were coming Montréal this summer left it to the last minute. And they all came at once. We didn’t quite get to spend time with everyone who passed through town in the past few weeks. But we really enjoyed those we did see. The spare futon is folded up for winter now. In less than a week I hitch up the horses and head west to Wyoming.

iam mens praetrepidans auet uagari,
iam laeti studio pedes uigescunt.


Exited thoughts now long to travel;
Glad feet now tap in expectation.

Catullus, XLVI

I pulled my suitcase from the closet so my dog would get used to seeing it around. But so far I’ve put nothing in it. It’s hard to pack for six weeks in a place you’ve never been before. What to wear in Wyoming in November? Correspondence with the Ucross Foundation indicates that the weather will be highly unpredictable save in this one fact: there will be wind, lots of wind.

Where is Ucross? People keep asking me. It’s in Wyoming, in the foothills of the Big Horn Mountains. Where’s that? You know in the movies, when the wagon trains are slowly advancing westward across the plains and then finally some mountains appear in the near distance? That's my idea of where Ucross is: on the ranch just before the mountains begin.

USGS Topographical map of Ucross, WY

Aerial Photograph of Ucross, WY

The Ucross Foundation website offers up this historical narrative:

The Ucross Foundation occupies a cluster of buildings collectively known as Big Red. The Ranch House is one of the oldest standing houses in the area and tepee rings on the hills hint at a much earlier history as first nation hunting grounds. Built in 1882, the Big Red Barn was a former Pony Express stop, and was on the stagecoach route that serviced Buffalo to Clearmont from 1891-1911. Having missed the last coach by 95 years, I’ll fly into Sheridan on Big Sky Airlines out of Denver. And now that the Internet has put the Pony Express out of business, I’ll rely on wi-fi for communication with the outside world.

The village that grew up around Big Red went through several name changes, eventually settling on Ucross, named after the original Pratt & Ferris brand. Here is a photograph of ranch hands taking a break at the Big Red Ranch in 1898:


American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming

So far, this is the only photographic indication I have of what to wear in Wyoming. See the seated guy with the beard on the bottom right? That's the look I'm going for. Minus the beard though.
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