Crossing into the "Enchanted Land"

One thing I've learned on the Re-Tramp is that a good portion of Lummis's route is shadowed by Interstate Highways, or more accurately, the "Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways". It's convenient when you can follow Lummis's steps by driving on one of these massive, limited access roads that a third of all car miles are driven on in the US.

But in a few places you have to get off the Interstate to stay faithful to the Tramp.  When Colorado Springs is well behind you and you begin to approach the Spanish Peaks in Southern Colorado, this is one moment the intrepid Lummarian must venture off the Interstate.  At this point, I-25 South follows the route of the Santa Fe trail east of the Spanish Peaks on the plains side.  But as I approach the Spanish Peaks I get off the Interstate towards La Veta.  Why does Lummis veer west at this point to take the more difficult La Veta Pass, north of the Peaks?  Author Mark Thompson speculates in his biography of Charles Lummis that he took the La Veta Pass route because it was the scene of the opening passage of a novel, White Chief, by one of Lummis's early literary hero's, Mayne Reid.

I had had 6 days of great luck with weather since I started this trip.  A few grayish days, but no serious impediments.  Winter weather had been one of my chief concerns setting out, and I had even told myself that I would ditch the trailer mid-trip if things got bad.  But so far I've had beautiful weather almost all the way.

Reports of bad rain storms in California had started trickling down to me, even in my tramping state.  I should have tramped to the first weather doppler 3000 or whatever I could find at the first hint of these storms, but instead I just let it be.  Scattered clouds the last few days in Colorado only seemed to add to the picturesqueness of the unfolding country.  Increasingly these clouds were starting to look a little darker.  But no precipitation yet.

The scenery I'm driving through once I get off I-25 is absolutely beautiful.  Some of best times on this trip were when I got off the Interstate.  I passed through small towns, notably Walsenberg, then continued winding my way towards the pass.  In the miles before the pass, you travel through a wide, flat-bottomed, fertile-looking valley flanked by tall mountains.  In this bucolic setting, about a mile before beginning the ascent up the pass, light, ethereal white stuff started falling from the sky.

At the first appearance of flakes I'm very nervous, but it's behaving like flurries so I hope for the best.  Soon after I start up the pass, the white stuff starts clinging to the road.  Soon after that I can start to feel the car shuffling side to side some.  I slow down to 15 mph and turn my hazard lights on as cars begin passing me.  There is now significant accumulation as I start up the largest hill yet.  I just hope by driving slowly and carefully I can get through the pass to lower elevation on the other side.

No dice.  My front wheels, the power wheels, are beginning to spin out and I slow down to a crawling pace up the hill.  The road is a two-lane highway with shoulders.  With my last ounce of forward momentum I steer the car and trailer onto the shoulder and stop.  I get out of the car.  Since I first entered the pass it has become a white out.  I can barely make out the mountainside next to the road.  Standing there in the cold with the flakes coming in at my collar, I consider my options.  I decide that I will not attempt to get this rig any further.  I call AAA and arrange a tow out of La Veta Pass.  It's funny, I think to myself, Lummis too experienced a sudden snow storm crossing this pass: "On the summit of the Pass I had the pleasure of wading through a fierce snow-squall, which was unlooked-for and unwanted."

Sitting comfortably in the roomy cab of the tow truck I feel a rush of relief and can finally enjoy the scenery around me.  I kick off my boots and warm my toes.  What's intensifying the relief is that about 10 minutes before the tow truck arrived, the previously impermeable clouds began to disappear from the pass.  In only a few minutes the white out conditions have been replaced by a gorgeous, blue sky.  I'm squinting as the sun peaks out between mountains, when just 30 minutes ago I was resigned to camping out in my car on the pass if necessary.  It's eerie when we pass a tracker trailer in a deep ditch on the side of the road.

All the sudden we are out of La Veta Pass and descending into the sunny San Luis Valley when a magnificent site greets me.  Off to my right: a massive bluish-purple mountain seems to be rising straight out of the level plain, its very top shrouded in lingering clouds.  This is the storied Mt. Blanca.  As we sit in the silence, the driver who has just pulled my car out of the pass says to me, "I bet you've had enough of these mountains."

"I don't know, it's kind of pretty country actually..."

SHU

Cañon City

My first stop after Pike's Peak was Cañon City in southern Colorado, a town that really captured my interest.  There are three things you should know about Cañon City: 1) It's one of the few US cities with an enyay (the letter 'n' with a tilde) in the name, 2) there's a huge gorge just outside of town, and 3) It's one of the prison capitals of the US, with 13 prisons located in or near the town, including an underground federal supermax lockup.

In his letter from Pueblo, Colorado, Lummis tells a thrilling tale about Cañon City.  As he passes a gang of laborers in black and white jumpsuits working outside a stone building, he notices something on the walk in front of him.  "It was only a shadow, but the shadow of a bull-necked ruffian, whose uplifted right hand held a stone hammer".   Lummis has just enough time to jump into the middle of the road, flip out his revolver and watch "the convict and his fellows jump back to their work with studied innocence".  Lummis has passed the Colorado State Penitentiary at Cañon City.

I came to Cañon City primarily to stop by the Royal Gorge (aka Grand Canyon of the Arkansaw).  I knew about the prison story, but had no idea if the prison still existed, or exactly where it would be.  I didn't expect the 1884 prison to be standing and hoped only to take a picture of a modern facility for the blog.

Pike's Peak took up a lot of time, so dusk was rapidly approaching as I made my way to the outskirts of town.  Route 50 is the main drag of Cañon City and leads you into town as well as out to the gorge.  Once the town begins to peter out and you enter the foothills on the edge of town, Route 50 elbows off to the right suddenly.  Right in this elbow is an odd-looking complex built snugly against a small mountain.  I only had time to catch a few glimpses as I drove past the building and rounded the elbow.  Could that be the...

With it getting dark fast I made my way for several miles on Route 50, signs periodically promising me the gorge right around the corner.  Stars are starting to appear on the horizon.  I'm trying to decide whether to just turn back and call it a day.  Eventually I pass an arch informing me I am entering the Royal Gorge area, and I make my way slowly in the twilight through a narrow, hilly road crowded with twisted piñon trees.  I'm still wondering if I'm being stupid, will I even be able to see the gorge if I get to it?  As I round a curve, a large deer appears next to the car and startles me.

Finally, I get to the main visitor area and lookout of the gorge.  The gate to the parking lot is down, and I see a ranger-type dude eyeing me as I park the car in a space just before the gate.  A short, winding dirt path takes me to a lookout area crowned with blacktop and chain link fence.  It's almost dark now so it's hard to see the gorge.  I feel like one of the only souls around.  As I approach the fence I hear a novel sound: it's the deep resonating of the river thundering below. When I walk up closer and squint and let my eyes adjust, I can see the soaring, ragged walls of the gorge that the river is reverberating off of in the dusky night.  OK, I'm impressed.

I get back in the warm car, turn on the radio searching for whatever it can pick-up, and make my way back to town, fairly satisfied with my Royal Gorge experience (driving real slow for deer).  The dark, lonely drive back through the hills in uneventful, though I'm determined to have another look at that building by the bend.

When I get to the bend outside of town again, my eyes dart around this weird complex, and I see tantalizing signs that I've struck Lummis gold.  It's definitely a prison, and appears to still be in use.  Among the modern guard towers with angled windows are old stone walls that blend in surprisingly well with the color of the mountain and short medieval-looking tower structures that don't seem to be in use.

I wasn't sure then, but this is the same prison, in modern form, that Lummis walked passed on his way to the Royal Gorge in 1884.  After re-reading his account and familiarizing myself with the location, I realized this old prison is exactly where Lummis says it is, "Half a mile beyond town, and a mile east of the portals of the canyon..."

Woefully, both the Museum of Colorado Prisons in Cañon City and the History Center are closed on Tuesdays in the off-season, so I can't fully dive into the interesting history of this prison-capital, but I gleaned interesting information from local people and from Nancy, the director of the Prison Museum who kindly returns my call.

- The prison was opened in 1871 as the Territorial Prison.  It became the Colorado State Penitentiary when Colorado became a state.

- The prison was built by convicts out of stone quarried from the mountain behind it

- It has held prisoners continually since it's creation and is still in use as a medium security prison.

- Residents told me that correctional facilities are the major industry of Cañon City.  It's generates lots of revenue for the city and accounts for a huge share of the jobs in town ("a lot of cops live here," I was informed).  When I suggested the Royal Gorge must also be a big industry, my informant replied that the Gorge was seasonal, while the prisons are year round.

By the way, I was told at the hotel that they give tours of the State Penitentiary.  This is not true, they do not give tours, do not attempt to take a tour.  The morning after my first trip to the Gorge and prison drive by, I returned to the facility, this time parking my car and getting out for a closer look.  With camera slung over my shoulder, and Letters from the Southwest in hand I strode through the front gate of the prison.

"Can I help you sir?" I hear a voice calling out.

I looked around for a second, then look up and see an officer looking down at me from the tower.

"Um...yeah, I heard they are tours here, can I take a tour"

"No"

"Is it OK if I take some pictures?"

"No"

"Alright, thanks."

"Have a nice day."

So I turned around and drove out to the Royal Gorge again.

By the way, these illicit photos are from an area near the Prison Museum, which is located adjacent to the facility.  I climbed a small hill and started taking pictures before I attempted the tour.  I'm worried they may have seen me doing this and were annoyed with me (maybe they were watching me from the towers the whole time as I pulled into the parking lot).  This area, I believe, is not even from the oldest section of the prison structure, but it gives you an idea of how cool it looks.  Imagine incredible, locally quarried stone walls and turrets 50 years older than these.


So, thank goodness, I escaped a free tour of the inside of one of Cañon City's prisons.  I wish I could have taken more pictures at my leisure, because this was one of the neatest old West buildings I've come across thus far.  If you're in the Colorado Springs area, I highly recommend a side trip to Cañon City to the see Royal Gorge, and the old prison on the way.

Sincerely Yours,
SHU

High on Pike's Peak

Cañon City, Colorado

I consider myself a bit of a train riding veteran.  I lived my entire 4 years in Chicago sans car.  I endured the annoyances of the Chicago Transit Authority, covered massive distances by public transit, performed crazy, multistep transfers to get where I needed to go.

But going from 6,000 to 14,000 feet via train is not something I've done before.  Yesterday I summitted the mighty Pike's Peak by boarding the Cog Railway. What is a Cog Railway?  A regular train can handle an incline of about 8%.  A train using a "cog" or rack system can climb inclines up to 48% (the Pike's Peak Cog Railway can do up to 25%).  Basically, a cog train rolls on slotted tracks, instead of smooth ones.  Slotted wheels on the train lock into these slots, so the train can "climb" steep inclines.

This was really neat.  It was a stroke of luck to be able to go to the top of the mountain this time of year.  The top of Pike's Peak in winter can be covered in feet of snow and experience winds of over 100 mph.  In times past no one went to the top of Pike's Peak during the winter.  Lummis reports that the US Signal Station on the top of Pike's Peak (where he crashed), was in "solitary confinement" until Spring.  The engineer said that for most of it's history the Cog Railway didn't run at all in winter.  It was not until the 1970's that the cog railway has been able operate into the off-season, thanks to the construction of a powerful snow plow that can clear the track.  This Martin Luther King Jr. Day was mild enough that we could go to the top.  So I made my reservation, paid my thirty bucks and took my seat.

I was excited as we began our slow ascent up the mountain.  Topping out at 9 mph, I watched enormous boulders, partially frozen streams, and remnants of rusted old water tanks and cabins float past the window.  The cog tracks seem to take up only a narrow swath in the forest without disturbing the surroundings.  As you near the top the vegetation peters out and the landscape becomes tundra.

The Top

We have about 40 minutes to explore the top of Pike's Peak before the train starts back down.  If we miss it we'll "become hikers, " as the conductor puts it. Feeling light headed, I can sense the elevation as I step out of the railway car onto the summit.  The space on the very top of Pike's Peak is about the size of a Walmart parking lot and savors of an extreme environment: rocks, ice, wind-swept snow, blue sky and clouds.  A couple small drab buildings laden with antennae cling to the rock.  The wind is stingingly cold.  I feel a bit like I'm on the North Pole.  The distances you can see all around are staggering, but you are so high the land looks unfamiliar (though you can clearly see Garden of the Gods below, which looks like a cluster of off-color pebbles sticking out of the dirt).  You can also now see the rest of the Rockies beyond the Front Range, as well as the infinite tawny plain to the east.  There's a gift shop on top where you can buy donuts, hotdogs, use the bathroom, and escape the cold wind, which gets tiresome real quick.  A cup of coffee from the gift shop tastes so good and is so refreshing up here after tramping around for a little while.

It's Business Time
Lummis penned his letter of November 5th, 1884 from this remote mountain summit.  The US Army Signal Corps built a small station on the top of Pike's Peak in 1873 to take measurements for weather prediction.  Lummis ran into one of the station agents just coming off the mountain, they chatted and Lummis was offered free board to sleep on the floor of the station.

Lummis hiked up, which is a significant feat.  He says he started at 10am and arrived at the station at 3:30pm.  We picked up two hikers at the top who said it took them 8 hours to make it to the top, so Lummis's time sounds pretty fast.

Anyway, it didn't take a lot of sleuthing to locate the building I am 99% certain is the one Lummis stayed in.  I asked the conductor of the train when I got off where the old signal service station was located, and he directed me toward this ruin.  This must be the one and only station building, because I doubt the powers that be would totally destroy any structure with this history (I mean, there's even ancient telegraph wire visible from the train on the way up, that's how long artifacts hang around here).

I've had a few adventures since coming back down to earth, but I've got to press on to Albuquerque, I'm trying to make progress south to beat the snow storms coming out of California.

Adios,
SHU

Live from Manitou, Colorado

Manitou, Colorado, near Pike's Peak

It's time for a little freestyle, off-the-cuff Lummis blogging.  I'm typing away right now in a little coffee shop in Manitou, called Yerba Mate.  I did not expect to find wireless in this little mountain retreat, but here it is.  Here's the scoop on Manitou, it's near the bottom of Pike's Peak, one of the prominent peaks in this part of the range and popular attraction, with a highway and "Cog Railway" to the top (we'll soon find out what that is).  The cool thing about it is appartently it has been a neat little mountain town for a while.  Lummis calls it in 1884, "a beautiful little town lying 7 miles up the canyon from Colorado Springs, and 6,500 feet above the sea".  Of the residents of Manitou Lummis says, "Half of its 500 people make their living keeping boarders.  The other half don't need to make a living at all, being wealthy owners of some as pleasant villas as you ever saw."

One of the charming things about Manitou I'm finding is mixed in with more recent construction are old stone structures, like little bridges  or parts of bridges, stone walls, etc.  Many newer houses are built on stones terraces carved into the side of the mountain.  Nice mix of old and new.  There's indeed, like Lummis says, a lot of stuff catering to tourists, a few boutique shops, antique shops, etc.  If you're into exploring neat little stores there're a lot packed in here.  There apparently is a little bit of a funky, new agey aspect too which I discovered when I wandered into this coffee shop.  But it's a very nice coffee shop, cool rustic wooden decor, good coffee, good food.

I'm waiting to board this Cog Railway at noon to get to the top of Pike's Peak, which I didn't expect to be able to do.  If, God willing, I make it to the top, I will be quite proud of myself, for getting to the top like Lummis did in winter, and on top of that taking public transportation to do it.  It's going to take a good chunk of the day to do it and slow me up (there are many other things to see ahead), but I just don't want to say I followed Lummis's footsteps and didn't go to the top of Pike's when I had the chance.  You can, by the way, drive to the top (Lummis mentions a road to the top under construction when he visited).

Manitou is also just down the road, so to speak, from Garden of the Gods, which really is an amazing place.  We're kind of entering the Heart of Darkness of Lummis's tramp (in a good way), where there are just a lot of sights Lummis writes about, and Lummis is spending a little more time exploring, not just booking it down the rail.  So for that reason I'm trying to be more efficient than I have previously on the Re-Tramp.  I got up before dawn in my Colorado Springs Super 8 and hit the road shortly thereafter towards Garden of the Gods, an amazing collection of rock features in the foothills.  I got there a little after 7:00am, and the place was spectactular in the morning sunlight, with few other people there.

 Lummis reports a lot of rabbits in this area, but I'm surprised he didn't mention the birds.  There was an abundance of birdlife as I wandered among the spires and sheer rock faces, adding to the atmosphere of the place: Magpies (I think), some sort of small bird of prey (a swift or something), a bluebird, doves, and some other really tiny birds (Audubon is turning in his grave right now).

Coffee is running out, so I'm going to go poke around Manitou a little more before I jump on the railway to PP.  Keep an eye on the blog, tomorrow I'm planning on going to jail.  Sorry, not in the way you all expected.

SHU

Western Kansas and Eastern Colorado, awesomely desolate

Boulder, Colorado

I finally had to depart from the easy road in the name of staying faithful to Lummis's tramp--with a nice payoff.   Earlier I reported that I-70 follows Lummis's Tramp through Kansas.  When I pulled out the map after my last update, I realized that was not so for the rest of the state and into Colorado.  Places like Wallace, Kit Carson, and Boyero, tiny towns Lummis mentions, are not along I-70, I have to get on Route 40 to pass these places.

I'm no longer navigating by GPS, but by old fashioned map.  I have to take a road south to get to Route 40, which I do.  Eventually, just like the map says, I get to the Route 40 junction.  Something that excites me and tells me I'm on the right path, is that this junction also coincides exactly with a railroad crossing.  And then thrillingly, for me anyway, is that these tracks parallel route 40 closely.  I can see the tracks rolling past me as I drive.  At last I feel I am really re-tracing the tramp, literally.  Me, driving along the tracks at 50 mph that he walked, seeing exactly what he saw.  Additional confirmation comes when the railroad tracks and Route 40 enter, like clockwork, the towns Lummis mentions in his Letters.

Almost as soon as I depart Colby, Kansas (with the Starbucks) where I stayed the night before, the landscape begins to open up considerably, and just becomes more empty the further west you go.  At I'm driving west I'm continually amazed at the increasing emptiness and openness of the landscape.

But it's not boring, it's not depressing, it's so desolate it's thrilling.  I think part of the reason is all this time as you're heading west you are slowly gaining elevation, so at over 4,000 ft it's actually quite high compared to the plains of say, Illinois.  The air seems rarified.  The clouds of earlier in the day have disappeared and the mellow winter sun is out, giving the air this ethereal tint.  The landscape seems so dramatic.  Every spot, every vista seems like the location of a Hollywood western.  I don't know if it's the landscape itself that's so dramatic, or it's just that the landscape is a foil making everything that occurs in it more poignant, like a stage that makes the everyday and mundane seem extraordinary.

As I head west on Route 40 I have this feeling that I am going somewhere, that something great lays ahead of me.  I'm so eager to get there I want to lay on the gas.  I want to get to First View and see if I can see Pike's Peak.   But I drive 10 mph below the speed limit.  Route 40 is just a small two lane ribbon through the plain, no shoulder.  The speed limit is 65, so you can make good time if you want to, but there seem to be a lot of trucks with wide loads.  One truck in particular carrying two parallel bales of hay side by side sticking frighteningly out of the sides scares the crap out of me.

On this drive the Colorado/Kansas border just seems like an arbitrary line, the two regions, Eastern Colorado and Western Kansas are the same thing.  I doubt there is much more out here than when Lummis came through, if anything there may be less because the railroad passing through is less important.  Many of the towns seem to have no commercial enterprises open to the public-- no restaurant, no place to get a cup of coffee, although many do, I had a burger at Cheyenne Wells Colorado near First View.  Many of them are just a grain elevator, a clutch of houses, and maybe a couple other agricultural buildings.  A few have Post Offices: a small trailer-sized building with a satellite dish (the one I went into had no postal worker on duty, though you could still access PO boxes).  Generally there are trees in the towns (absent from the rest of the landscape).  The trees seem kind of like fortifications built up around the small collection of houses.

The larger towns like Kit Carson have a couple tiny motels, gas stations, some car service stations (often you can't tell if they're still in business or went under decades ago), and a small neighborhood.  When I parked my car in Kit Carson there were a couple dogs walking around in the street, eyeing me attentively.  But there was something very romantic about the town.  It really seems like a small oasis completely surrounded by the empty high plains.  It seems like a place from a different time.  Almost every sign is old, there aren't retail chains out here.  A lot of the houses are in major disrepair, but people seem to be living in them, but others are pretty, well kept houses, some all brick.  Really old broken down cars from the 50's or 60's just sitting in a backyard is not an uncommon sight.

Let me get back on track.  About 10 miles past Cheyenne Wells is "First View", supposedly the very first point at which you can spot Pike's Peak (on a clear day), one of the tallest mountains in the front range, 150 miles away.  Previously I was confused about whether this was a town itself, a lookout, or what.  Lummis reports a section house and a couple buildings here.  Today, First View is just a sign that says "First View".  There is an old dilapidated tower-like structure near by, and I was trying to surmise whether this had some agricultural purpose or was meant to facilitate said View.

I'm sorry to report that I, like Lummis, could not see any distant peaks at First View.  Maybe if I knew what I was looking for, or exactly where to look on the horizon I could have picked it out.  But I was also hindered by the fact that I couldn't stop the car, because there were very few turn-offs where I could be assured of enough room to pull a u-turn with the trailer.

I was filled with anticipation to begin closing in on Denver and the front range of the Rockies out of this vast high plain, but amazingly this openess and emptiness seems to last right up until you hit Denver. Denver seems like a massive, unexpected oasis.  I arrived at night so I couldn't get a good view of the landscape.  I'm in Boulder now in the company of my kind hosts, looking forward to exploring more of Denver, a city that impressed Lummis for its size and modernity in 1884.
Glad to be here,
SHU

High Plains Drifter, somewhere in Western Kansas

Yah Teeh everyone,

I'm writing you from the only Starbucks within at least 200 miles.  And it's not that busy, that's how remote the region is.  After my last update I had an unexpected Lummis "moment" in Lawrence that kept me there another night.  The small, newly opened Indian School two miles south of town that Lummis visited in 1884 is not only still around, it is today one of the largest tribal colleges in the country.  I couldn’t suppress a big grin as the GPS closed me in on Haskell University, still at the end of historic Massachusetts Ave.

I had to drive around the small campus for a while to find a parking spot to accommodate my car and trailer.  Once parked in my remote location, I eagerly popped out of the car, camera in hand.  I wasn’t sure what the game plan was to experience Haskell.  I think at first I was looking for an administration office.  The first place I found was a small snack bar located in a student union-type area on the bottom floor of a building.  I was hungry so I ordered a turkey wrap (I was tempted to get the buffalo burger, but I thought it would be tacky).

As I noshed on my tasty wrap I cast furtive glances at the people around me.  Everyone looked like college students you might find on any campus in the US.  Except everyone here is a member of a federally recognized tribe, a requirement for admission to Haskell.

I was dying to know more about student life at Haskell, so when I was buying a Haskell t-shirt I struck up a conversation with the clerk at the student union.  She eventually suffered the misfortune of getting my Lummis Re-Tramp speech, but I was gratified when she said, as I busted out the map, "Yo, that's coolest thing I've ever heard," (she had a little hip-hop style going).  She ended up directing me to the cultural center on campus.

The cultural center was extremely illuminating.  I got a personal tour from curator Bobbi Rahder giving me the history from those original three buildings there when it opened in 1884 (the same year Lummis toured it) to the present.  The school has evolved as US Indian policy and America's tribes have evolved.  What started as a small three building boarding school teaching students agricultural and industrial skills has become a college offering two 4-year degree programs as well as a host of Associates degree level programs.  One of the things that makes Haskell University unique as a tribal college is that it serves students from all different tribes across America.

One interesting happenstance that helped make this a "moment" and connect me to the Lummis Tramp, is that the cultural center actually has a booklet available for visitors with the names of the original pupils of the Indian school.  Lummis in his account makes fun of how the students are given names at the school, which is a "gratuitous" Christian name, followed by an English translation of their father's Indian name, producing names like "Fred Eagle".  His favorite name, he says, is "Moses Bears Ears".  So I thought I'd have a look at this booklet for Moses, and sure enough, I found a Moses Bears Ears, arrived at the school August 30th, 1884, from the Ponca tribe, which had been relocated to the Indian Territory in present day Oklahoma.

It's important to note that today those early days when Lummis visited the school are known as the "Survival" era of the school.  This was when US policy was to keep pupils separated from their families, not allowing them to visit home.  This was also a time in the history of the school when conditions were hard, deaths not uncommon, and students had to look out to for each other.

This is a great example of how Lummis evolved as a person on the Tramp.  In Lawrence he kind of takes a passing interest in the school and expresses his admiration for the new school and optimism that it will help alleviate the, "vexing Indian Question".  On the tramp he will become a passionate admirer of Native culture, and later in life distinguish himself as an ardent and opinionated crusader for better Indian policy.  In fact, one of his notable achievements was getting children released to their parents from the Albuquerque Indian school.

The woman at the cultural center talked me into attending a lecture scheduled for that night.  The lecture was being presented by a distinguished student on "Mindfulness" and was scheduled to last the long duration of 6-10pm.  More on this another time.

Are we West yet?
Western Kansas has a reputation that proceeds it: flat, dull, ultra-rural.  I wondered where I was heading, it sounded a little bit like Tatooine, the desert planet in Star Wars.  Lawrence Kansas in the east is not like this, being hilly and wooded, similar to Missouri.  When does it change?  This is what I was thinking as I hit I-70 in the morning to put some serious miles behind me.

A quick word on the route at this point.  Some folks at the Free State Brewery on Mass. Ave in Lawrence had suggested I not take the Interstate because those are bad for experiencing the state, and suggested an alternate, parallel highway.  I agreed and resolved to do this until I looked at a map and realized that every single city Lummis mentions in Kansas (Abilene, Hays, Ellis, etc.) is along today's I-70.  Definitely proof that this modern Interstate shadows the old railroad line in this part of the country.  In fact, I think I found tracks that are indisputably ones trod by Lummis, right next to the Kaw river just like he says.  I found this on kind of a cool excursion off the highway, more on this later.

In Lummis's letters, Kansas is kind of where the country becomes the West.  Here he meets for the first time unadulterated, "all wool", hardcore cowboys.  Kansas, though extremely flat and dull, is still where the scenery starts to become a little more exotic.  He sees cacti for the first time, rattle snakes, prairie dog towns, and antelope (in fact, spends hours crawling on his stomach on his first antelope hunt).

Where I am now, I haven't quite gotten to these things yet.  Although one noticeable thing in the wildlife department are these fairly large hawks with white breasts and black heads that you see with so much regularity along the highway that they almost seems like mileposts as they perch on fences and poles on the side of the road.

About 20 miles West of Topeka, the mild woodedness of Lawrence becomes sparse woodedness, although it remains a little hilly for quite a while.  There are ups and down, but overall you seems to be descending from a high plain, and here in Colby Kansas the so far ubiquitous snow is all but gone.  Now I'm pretty much in pancake flat plains.  Although I wouldn't say it's flatter than Illinois yet, which Lummis reports (in fact, he begins a letter by apologizing to Illinois for casting any aspersions on the state for its flatness, after seeing Kansas).

I got to going, I want to make Boulder CO before night.  My main mission today is to see if First View, Colorado is a "fraud" or not.  Lummis says, "They showed me a little white cloud which they said was Pike's Peak, 150 miles away.  If it was, then Pike's Peak is portable, for I saw that cloud float a mile."  By the way, Yah Teeh is "Hello" in the Navajo language, something I learned at the lecture on Wednesday.

Adios,
SHU

Lawrence, Kansas, 594 miles out.

I'm writing from an Econolodge in Lawrence, Kansas, getting ready to sit down to a dinner of leftover ribs from an East St. Louis BBQ joint.  I've driven about 594 miles since leaving Chicago 2 days ago.  Considering I'm retracing the path of a man who was walking all this distance, yes, it is a little weak to complain that all this driving is tiring, but it is.

Before I say anything about Illinois and Missouri, I want to point out something about Lummis's experience during this early portion of the Tramp.  As Robert E. Fleming notes in his introduction to Lummis's A Tramp Across the Continent, Lummis devotes a mere 10 pages of his book to the entire Tramp through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri, and then just another 10 pages are to Kansas (out of a book of 200+ pages).  So obviously, Lummis's interest increases as he moves West, and indeed, Chapter 2, which describes his first entry into Colorado, is entitled "Really 'Out West'".

So one question going through my head as I begin this "tramp" is, are these states really so uninteresting?  Do we just fail to find the interest and beauty in them?  And if they are so uninteresting to us, is it something inherent about them, or is it just because we are accustomed to them?

Goodbye Chicago

I set out from Chicago on a bitterly cold, grey day.  This week has been filled with goodbyes and last hangouts.  The night before setting out, a palpable feeling of leaving Chicago began to hit me.  I’m not good at goodbyes.  Not good with pleasantries.  But I’m sincerely going to miss all the good friends I’ve made in Chicago.  Call me in Arizona and we will hang!

I failed to get up at the crack of dawn as planned, and by the time I finished loading my UHaul trailer, it was already after noon, with my goal of St. Louis ahead of me.

A word on this trailer.  I decided to take most of my things with me to Phoenix, so the option I settled on was renting a 4x8 trailer from UHaul (the size my car is rated to tow).  Pulling this trailer with my smallish car was one of my chief sources of anxiety going into the trip.  But this small trailer o' mine has been doing great.  Yes, acceleration and stopping is slower, gas mileage is down, but otherwise driving isn't so bad.  It stays close behind me as I make turns, and it's small enough that I can see pretty well around it in my side mirrors.  Probably the biggest headache is parking, because the trailer doubles the length of my vehicle.

Leaving Chicago-- Chicagoland is a better word-- on a cold, grey winter day is not the most uplifting start to a roadtrip.  It's many miles of unattractive scenery of car dealerships, fast food joints, powerlines and other miscellaneous stuff along the road that's not particularly pleasing to the eye.  And it goes like this for a long time.  What's interesting though, is that when the city and suburbs do finally give way, they really give way.  Once you're clear of the suburbs, you quickly feel like you're in the middle of nowhere.  It seems so vast, and in the winter so desolate.  Also striking is the fact that it's like this almost the entire 6 hours to St. Louis.  As you traverse the middle of the state, it's all ultra-rural, flatness.

This is one part of the trip that may not have changed too much since Lummis (although I'm sure all these lonely farmhouses have cable and Internet).   After crossing the Wabash river into Illinois he notes, "For three or four miles there are various faint attempts at hills; but thenceforward you might almost see across to St. Louis."  Lummis is like me and is sentimental about mountains.  "The flatness hangs over at the edges.  I would have given the heel off one of my shoes to see a good old scraggy New England hill dumped down the middle of that howling area of monotony."  Ouch (but in a couple states he'll forget all about those New England mountains).

Lummis's chief concern in Illinois (and other places leading up the to the Presidential Election of 1884), is politics.  He talks a lot about the political winds in the state, and each candidate's chances.  Lummis himself is a staunch Republican, and abhors Democrat Grover Cleveland.  He also notes that, "Farmhouses have been my chief reliance across Illinois, for the stations are so far apart that it is often hard to make the distances fit in right".  I thought it was interesting that he could stay in farmhouses out in the country, and I wondered if this is an established custom, where farmer's let travelers stay with them to make a little money, or if it was out of friendliness and something Lummis had to cajole each night?

I hate to cast judgement on the landscape of Illinois, and undoubtedly it has its virtues, but I'd have to agree with Lummis, I found the countryside to be dull (although I bet on a mild summer evening it might seem very lush and tranquil).  The most interesting part of drive for me were the huge modern windmills off in the distance in Odell, Illinois.

These things are massive and beautiful.  Especially when they are spinning.  And it's renewable energy.  There's something cool and almost unearthly about seeing that much kinetic motion in something so large.  They are beautiful and I like t hat it is green technology.  I got off the highway to try to get close to one.  I was able to get close, but the back road I was one was a little icy and snowy and narrow, so I didn't want to stop the vehicle.

St. Louis


After a great night's sleep at my brother's house in St. Louis, I hit the road determined to see a bit of St. Louis before pressing on west.  I had planned to do the Budweiser brewery tour, but I got sidetracked by a bit of Lummitology that turned into a wild goose chase.

Lummis's route through Illinois is pretty far down state from Chicago, so I decided I would just take the direct route to St. Louis and pick up his tramp there.  So St. Louis was my first opportunity to truly "walk in Lummis's footsteps".  What I wanted to do was locate the train tracks Lummis would have tread on in 1884 when he came through the city, see what was around them now, take pictures of the tracks, symbolizing my first contact with Lummis.  Brewery tour got sidelined for a stop at the Missouri History Museum at Forest Park (with the thuggish web address of MoHistory.org).  I walked up to the information desk with Letters from the Southwest in hand, query on my lips, and was then directed to the Library and Research Center also in the park.  The library is an interesting building, built in 1927 as the fourth permanent home of the United Hebrew Congregation.  One dominating feature is a large central dome, with a star of David at the apex.  It seems they have left the interior decoration largely intact, which is good.

I learned something, it's hard to play History Detective in under an hour.  But you'd be surprised what you can accomplish in a relatively short time.  With the help of the librarian, in about 20 minutes I had a Rand McNally map of the railroads from 1884 spread out in front of me, with inset details of major cities (St. Louis included).  One quick observation: Illinois appeared totally saturated with capillary like railroad lines, which struck me as odd considering it looked like a whole lot of nothing from the road.

What I was hoping to get from this was the location of the rail line Lummis walked in and out of St. Louis on, and ideally with a address I could punch into my GPS.  For that, the helpful librarian brought me a modern map of St. Louis.  The problem was the inset of St. Louis was not very detailed, but with that bare detail, Lafayette Park here, a major street there, by comparing the old and new maps I did come away with an address that stilled exist and should be close to the old rail line: 100 Market St.

The GPS is speeding me to this location.  I'm going downtown, getting closer to the Gateway Arch, but then veering north, now moving farther away from the arch, buildings get a little more rundown, definitely away from the main downtown area.  I turn onto Market Street and, lo, tracks galore.  But there's the rub. There are plenty of train tracks, but I have no idea how recent these are, which are going where.  There's a train track on a trellis overhead.  There's train tracks in front of me, tracks behind me.  There's a scrap metal place around here with noisy machines shuffling scrap metal into piles, and convoys of trucks are moving in and out of a blocked construction zone identified as some sort of riverfront project.  The Gateway Arch is visible in the distance.  I'm expecting to get yelled at by an angry worker as I poke around for a minute or two with my camera.  I realize I'm hungry and get out of there pretty quick.

Here's where the ribs enter the story.  I ended up taking a wrong turn and end up on a bridge going back over the Mississippi into East St. Louis in Illinois.  I'm hungry, so I start looking for McDonalds on the GPS, but then I think, screw it, I should get some local flavor and settle on Sandy's Suthern Style BBQ.

Anyway, it's time to check out of the hotel and launch into Kansas.  So as the French have it, au revoir.

SHU

Finding the Lummis Trail

The first problem retracing Lummis’s tramp is a surprisingly large one: what was the route?  How exactly will I retrace it in my Ford Focus?  Unfortunately, navigating by book jacket is not going to cut it.

Lummis made the walk from Ohio to Los Angeles by walking along the railroad tracks.  This means that in theory, with enough research, a highly accurate map of Lummis’s precise route could be compiled. Lummis is careful to note the rail line he is walking, so a good knowledge of the railroads running in 1885 should yield this. Has this been done? Does this detailed map exist?

A few weeks ago I fired off a Hail Mary email to the Autry National Center of the American West (http://www.autrynationalcenter.org/), which encompasses the Southwest Museum of the American Indian originally founded by Charles Lummis, requesting a "detailed map" of the tramp.

Last week I got a response from Kim Walters, Charles F. Lummis guru and Director of the Braun Research Library located at the center.  She said for the 100th anniversary of the Tramp (in 1985), the librarian and staff compiled a map of the route.  I didn't know what exactly this map would look like, but I figured it would be much better than what I was currently working with (next to nothing).  Kim was kind enough to Next Day the the booklet with the following map:

Overlaying the route on a map from the 1873 Gray's Atlas of the United States is a cool choice for the 100th anniversary booklet, but not as useful for my purposes.  Since I'm driving a car in 2010, ideally, I need the  overlayed on a map that includes modern highways and byways.   In the 21st century, I could also use GPS waypoints or a Google Map.

I've made a decision: retracing the exact route is not the priority for this trip.   Lummis writes about so many places along the way, that by simply taking a reasonable route between each destination, I should approximate the route very closely.

I have to express my admiration for Google Maps here.  By starting out with their suggested direct route from Chicago, IL to Phoenix, AZ, I was able to contort and twist that direct route into a good approximation of the Tramp Across the Continent.  So here is the 21st century Tramp map:


View Larger Map

I noticed something interesting while creating this map.  As I dragged the route over to significant towns on the Tramp, I noticed that Google Maps frequently adjusted itself quickly into something resembling the historic Tramp route.   While I still don't have sufficient evidence, this does make me wonder if modern highways do shadow historic rail lines to some degree.  Does anyone know how true this is?

-SHU

A Re-Tramp is Inspired

One of the scroundrels of Lummis’s Tramp Across the Continent is the pied piper who leads people out West on trumped up visions of wealth and prosperity, only to bring these hapless Easterners to a hardscrabble land of poverty.

So it really says something when Lummis gets on a stump and pitches hard for Golden, New Mexico, giving his readers an earnest and heartfelt sales pitch for the tiny upstart mining town.  Ladies, he said, you’ll have your pick of the finest men in the country out West for a husband.  He extolled the likelihood that Golden would blossom into a prosperous mining town, if only a few good men with the gumption worked up the will to sink some mines and wells.  He in fact, was strongly tempted to set some roots down here himself, he said.  In addition to praising this small settlement on the make, he also recounted the heroic struggle of the poor indpendent miners fighting the greedy, unscrupulous monopolists out to own all the land and mining rights.  He tells us about the Golden Retort, a highly admirable rag fighting bravely against the mega companies for the miner’s rights.

His description of the town was so intimate, so filled with human interest, that I was prompted to write down “Golden New Mexico” on a scrap of paper to look up later.

Thus produced one of the more poignant “moments” of reading the Letters.  Lummis’s strong pitch and predictions practically beg the reader of today to wonder about it’s current state.  So knowing nothing about the modern Golden New Mexico and genuinely curious to see how history unfolded for this little town Lummis spent several days in, I googled it, and here’s what came up first: “Golden New Mexico – A Ghost Town Near Santa Fe”.

As I looked at desolate pictures of the modern abandoned Golden and read about the history, I was genuinely moved.  My heart seemed to rise up inside me a little—I was sad for Golden, New Mexico.  I felt like I had made a genuine emotional connection with history—something that is usually elusive.  How often do we really connect with historical people and places on a human level?   Lummis had visited Golden, talked to people, visited mines, really brought the town to life.  But lo, it didn’t make it, it became one of the West’s iconic ghost towns.   How many people really comprehend the full meaning behind these famous ghost towns?

Check out the photo to the right by
http://www.panoramio.com/user/1129730

Experiencing the land and its history first-hand and seeing how it has changed since Charles F. Lummis walked over it 125 years ago is the goal of the Re-Tramp.

So here is my simple premise:

Drive the route Lummis walked on his tramp across the continent, reading his letters closely as I go, then visit where he went, take notes, take pictures, share.

But here’s the thing: I don’t really know exactly how this is going to go down.  Other than reporting on the state of the sights Lummis saw, I also hope to bring to this blog the process of the journey, the decisions that have to be made.  It’s not really as simple as saying, I’m going to drive where Lummis walked.  Lummis walked on train tracks crossing the country 125 years ago.  First of all, how many of these railroad lines still exist?  I wouldn’t be surprised if a number of them do.  Even assuming the same rail lines are still in the same basic place, I can’t hop up on the tracks with my Ford Focus and start rolling down the track, a la suicidal Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.

When I showed a friend who lived in New Mexico a basic map of the route, he speculated an interstate highway exists where Lummis walked (how convenient that would be).  Would I find that many of the train routes had been turned into roads?

Introduction to The Tramp

It turns out the 1891, Strange Corners of Our Country, was not Charles Lummis's first contribution to the literary world.  A blurb on the back of Strange Corners tipped me off to an almost unbelievable stunt that brought Lummis national celebrity the previous decade.  Beginning in 1884, Lummis, a 25-year-old who had just quit his post at the Scioto Gazette, walked from Chillicothe, Ohio to Los Angeles, California in 143 days.

The trip is recorded in two books, Letters from the Southwest, a modern collection of the weekly letters he sent back to an Ohio newspaper, and A Tramp Across the Continent, Lummis's own prepared account of the trip published in 1892.  The blurb I read about the tramp enticed me to seek out Letters from the Southwest, by promising that the letters would, "more closely reflect the author's thoughts and observations on the trail and that offer a more candid look at the Southwest than Lummis was later to bring to print."  Sold again.

So I turned to the web and sought out Letters from the Southwest.  Let me tell you, Letters is not a New York Times bestseller.  It's not a popular favorite on Amazon.com.  In fact, its kind of hard to find anywhere.  I ended up having to order it directly from the publisher, which happend to be located at my alma mater, The University of Arizona Press.  The asking price of Letters was pretty far out of my zone of comfort for a book, and I literally hestitated before finally pulling the trigger.   Buying Letters from the Southwest: $45 plus shipping.  Creeping people out at the coffee shop when you whip out this cover: priceless.

Let's get down to some of the technical aspects of "The Tramp."
Lummis set out from Cincinnati, Ohio for the small town of Los Angeles on September 12th, 1884.  The picture on the cover of the book is a promotional photo taken just before he set out.

Lummis made the walk from Ohio to Los Angeles by walking mostly along the railroad tracks (sometimes on, sometimes along the side if there was a path).  Some exceptions to this were short cuts to save distance, and side trips. I imagine this was the only way it was feasible to make a cross country walk like this alone in 1885.  Walking along the railroad tracks did many things for him. First and foremost it gave him a road to follow so he wouldn’t have to concern himself too much with navigating and risking getting lost.  But even traveling by this method he recounts with surpringly fierce anger instances where he was given bad directions, causing him to get lost (in some cases dangerously lost) and walk many extra miles.  Lummis reserves most his ire for two classes of people: people ungenerous about giving him a place to lay down for a night, and people who give inaccurate directions (willfully he usually speculates).

  The railroad tracks also gave him, when nothing else was available, at least a decent walking path through all this rugged territory.  Although, as Lummis makes notes of in his letters, not all railroad tracks are created equal in terms of walking.  Two common problems were snow and ice on the tracks, and tracks set with large, jagged stones, which were very difficult to walk on and tore up his shoes (he notes having to have his shoes resoled many times, although he's very proud of how well the leather uppers held up).

Following the tracks also gave him some degree of assurance of food and shelter each night.  Although the interval varied depending on the territory, he could expect to find a section house about every 10 to 30 miles or so.  A section house was used by the local railroad crew tending that section of the track.  The actual accommodations might vary considerably, but usually they consisted of a bunk house or two, a small kitchen, and maybe a small house for the foreman.  Although, as Lummis noted with some consternation, they might sometimes be nothing more than a shed.  At the section house he could beg for a space in the bunk house (sometimes denied him), and purchase dinner if available (although frequently, as he notes, at exhorbitant prices, especially in the more remote locations).   If all else failed (which was not such a rare occurrence), he could build a shelter and fuel a fire with wooden railroad ties, often found in piles along the side of the track.

Lummis thought of himself as a well-conditioned athlete-- not a backpacker.  His interest was not in hauling around all the gear he needed to be completely self sufficient: he was comfortable trusting in his luck and the railroad for his next meal or next drink of water.  For example, he says he only started carrying a water bottle once he entered the desert, and it took a dangerous experience to teach him the necessity of this.  He only carried small trifles of food with him if anything.

Not that he was without impressive survival abilities.  This is a man who broke his arm in a very remote area of Arizona, set it himself, then walked 52 miles straight to Winslow.  Lummis was also a passionate hunter, a useful survivial skill, and an important way that he experiences the West during the tramp.  He often makes note of the change in game or the availability of game in his letters.  This was definitely a big part of the fun for Lummis.  I think of it a little like an avid golfer experiencing California through playing different holes of golf.  It's worth noting that some of the most dangerous situations he found himself in were the result of hunting excursions.

Consequently, he ate a lot of meat he hunted himself, and he was not an entirely picky eater.  He praised the virtues of the praire dog for eating, and wondered why the locals thought it unfit.  He hunted and ate a lot of rabbits.  He periodically took larger game like deer.  He was estatic the first time he got a chance to hunt antelope.  Of course, he wasn’t usually in a position to process a whole deer, especially when he was out alone and one of his prey had lead him way into the sticks.  So several times he killed a deer and then carved a few pounds of steak from it and carried on his way.

All in all, “pounding the ties” was the most convenient method for Lummis to see the country by foot, and requiring the least advanced planning.  What Lummis was doing was incredibly dangerous, but his letters are not about highlighting how dangerous the journey is.  In fact, Lummis's attitude seems to be that he has it easy compared to the rugged pioneers who made the trip decades before him along the Sante Fe Trail and other western routes.  Lummis is writing from the perspective that the country has been tamed with bands of railroad stretching from coast to coast, and now the traveler has it easy.  He's just taking advantage of this new technology and infrastructure to enjoy himself and really experience the country.

An old author is discovered.

It all started in a used book store in Phoenix. I was browsing a shelf in the store's Southwest section when a title caught my eye: Some Strange Corners of Our Country. Something about the title was odd. It struck me as a little too, gee whiz, for a modern travel writer. 

As I flipped the pages, old fashioned engravings of Sonoran desert scenery drew me in.  I was especially charmed by some gloomy, Gothic-looking prints in a chapter entitled, “The Grandest Gorge in the World”. This chapter introduced readers to an attraction known as the “Grand Cañon” (the unusual Spanish enyay spelling adding intrigue).  Flipping ahead further I found chapters such as, "The Witches' Corner", and "Homes That Were Forts".  I realized I was holding a travel guide to the wonders of the Southwest originally published in 1891, an age that could fairly be called the region's "pioneer days". Sold.

Why is a hundred year old Southwest guide book so alluring?  I think it was the hope of getting a little closer to the experience of the people who were among the first to see these sights.  I wanted to get closer to the time when you couldn't hop in an air conditioned car and be at the rim of the Grand Canyon in a couple hours, stopping for burgers on the way.  1891 is really old when you consider how much the region has changed in a relatively short period.  Infrastructure and population in the Southwest have increased exponentially in the last 100 years.  During WWII the population of Arizona was 499,000 (400,000 of whom lived in Phoenix alone).  Since then the population has grown 12-fold to 6.2 million.

    1891 is early enough that adequate food, water, lodging and transportation were a matter of serious consideration for the prospective visitor of the Southwest's wonders.  For example, the author felt the "Grandest Gorge" chapter warranted the following remarks:
      "There are comfortable hotels in Flagstaff, the stages are comfortable, the three relays of horses make the sixty-seven-mile journey easily in eleven hours [yikes!], and there is nothing in the trip to deter ladies or young people. [other than the eleven hour stage ride]"

  The Southwest was still being discovered by mainstream America.  A major theme of the book is "Did you even know this existed right in your backyard?"  As proof that the details of the Southwest were still seeping into the consciousness of Americans, I will point out that the Grand Canyon was not yet the Grand Canyon.  Say to an American of the late 1880's that you were going to the Grand Canyon, and they might not be sure what you were talking about.  It could be the "Grand Canyon of the Arkansaw," the "Grand Canyon of Yellowstone," or the "Grand Canyon of the Colorado".

Here's what endeared Charles F. Lummis to me as I read this first chapter in Some Strange Corners on the plane back to Chicago.  He understood that the only reason the Grand Canyon was not yet THE Grand Canyon, was that people hadn't seen it yet.  Once they did, there would be no other Grand Canyon.  This is the spirit that is captured in his book: Lummis himself has seen these things, and he knows how special they are, and he earnestly, earnestly, wants his readers to go see them.

Am I romanticizing the West, am I trying to get back to a mythological West that never really existed?  No.  Some Strange Corners is not an unvarnished account of the West, but it is much closer than most lay people like myself ever get to the actual Old West.