Heritage Gateways

Wendy Westergard Journals

June 14, 1997

Location: Casper, Wyoming - Location: 42:52:00N 106:18:45W

Summary: normal rest day

Journal entry: We have been in Casper for the day. There have been many programs that have been going on. There were indians dancers, fiddlers and other sorts of entertainment. Many of the full timers did not go because we were catching up for the next little bit. We had to do laundry and shop for anything we might need because we will be heading into BLM land shortly. In BLM lands our numbers are limited and it will be quite rough and primitive. No support vehicles will be able to follow us through. Everything will have to be packed in and packed out. This will be adjustment for a lot of us.

After finishing our chores for getting ready for the long primitive stretch, we were able to have fun. This was later in the evening. Oh I forgot some of us got prepared for the dangerous mosquito that we are going to be encountering soon. The locals swear by vinegar and water. What we will do is spray this solution on ourselves. One town we went through had a donation for the community to spray so that their children could play outside this summer.

We have been kind-of homesick for something for the old world, or rather this century. Living in the 19th century---their way of life and their clothes....walking and talking like them is wonderful, but we sometimes get homesick for something familiar. We went to dairy Queen and had ourselves a fatty treat that was heaven. Ice cream has become a commodity. We are on cloud nine when we have any kind of ice cream.

After that we (Ryan, Brent, Amy, Cyndi, Sarah, Lacy and I) decided to join the group that were going bowling. We used three lanes and each one had around 7 people on it. We made a game of it. We though of the most creative ways to put the bowling ball down the lane. I got Amy to lay down...and laid down with her and pushed the bowling ball down the lane. We looked quite odd wearing our pioneer dress with all of our petticoats and bowling shoes and bowling. It looked quite out of place. Everyone looked at us funny. We had a wonderful time. We became a lot closer to our friends along with a lot of new people.

Sarah and Lacy were new onto the train a couple of days ago and have been a great addition to the clan. We got back to camp about 10:30 pm. We didn't want to go to bed yet. We wanted to feel like normal young people.

We debated and finally decided to play cards in the Whitaker's tent. I don't know what we played, but it was fun. Our game ended around 12 midnight. Amy and I went into someone's car and talked for a long time so that we wouldn't disturb anyone. It think we went to bed around 1:30am. It felt good to feel like a normal young person again, instead of going to bed around 10 o'clock every night. I wouldn't want to make a habit of it, but it was nice. We would be dead if we did that every night.

It did seem weird not to move today. We are used to only one rest day and that day being Sunday. It was nice, but it felt really odd.