Cheyenne, Wyoming

After an early breakfast and quick shopping trip at Wal-Mart we headed BACK into Nebraska to revisit Scott's Bluff, Chimney Rock, and a small museum in Bacard.   We didn't stop when we passed it yesterday, as we were unsure of parking with a 31 foot trailer behind us.

Scott's Bluff is named for a man who fell ill and was left behind by his companions as he was too ill to continue.   When his bones were found the next year, the area was named Scott's Bluff in his honor (at least that's the folklore).   We had stopped here several years ago, walked in the wagon ruts, etc., but our main purpose this year was to get my Passport stamped.   We did watch the movie before heading into town for lunch.   After lunch we drove 19 miles to Bayard to visit the museum in their railroad depot, checked out the rolling stock, and then went to Chimney Rock for the passport stamp. The Chimney Rock appears to have gotten lower since our last visit.   We heard it had been hit by lightning and a sizeable chunk fell off.  

Greeley, CO was next on our list of places to visit.   We had heard in North Platt that they had a great model railroad set up.   It's actually the National Model Railroad Museum.   It takes up a warehouse on the depot property and the layout fills 90% of the building.    The layout is huge, and several "engineers" walk around following their particular train and observing all the signals from the dispatcher, just like a real railroad.   A person must put in 200 hours before being allowed to be engineer, and even more to be a dispatcher.   After lunch we visited the local history museum to learn more about Greeley.