Weekend Hunts

Trails West Dry Run

I hope everyone had a great Easter weekend. Friday, I had a long but fun day following emigrant routes as a dry run for tours next month. We started our morning at Stockton Well, meeting with Carolynn from the Battle Born Stockton Well Grange. The land, including the well, former hotel site, and wagon ruts, has been donated to the Grange. They will be building the first Grange Hall in Nevada, creating a display for artifacts from Stockton Well, and preserving the emigrant wagon ruts. I look forward to seeing their progress.

The next stop was Buckland’s Station. My fellow travelers Delia and Jack built and organized a display case of artifacts found along the trail. They designed it to be the entire length and half the width of a traditional wagon used on the California Trail. They painted it blue, the conventional color of wagons; I had no idea!

I can’t imagine having all my possessions in a wagon only double this width!

Next, we visited Trails West markers around the Fort Churchill area.

We had a quick lunch in Dayton and made a few stops including the original wall from the Pony Express station.

My Trip

I didn’t get a lot of photos on my portion of the trip. We spent time hiking around Snowshoe Thompson’s Cave and found more evidence of pioneer’s wagons than I have noticed before, it helps to have a “rust expert” teaching me what to look for.

It is amazing how clear some portions of the trail are

Easter Bear

My kids said they were too old to hunt Easter eggs. So, the Easter bunny talked with Mr. Bear, and they got to do a trash hunt instead. Edel was barking Saturday night, but I didn’t see anything outside. Mr. Bear was apparently having a good time; we had trash everywhere. Based on the 8″ prints, people think he is huge and between 300-400 pounds. We believe this was the bear we had last fall that my little one ran into in the chicken coop.

East brunch at Gold Hill Hotel

Usually, I cook Easter brunch, but we decided to splurge at Gold Hill Hotel. They had a great buffet including eggs, bacon, sausage, cheesy potatoes, yogurt parfaits, french toast, and my favorite, eggs benedict. I did a horrible job trying to grab a few pics of the food before eating. After the trash hunt, a Bloody Mary from the historic bar seemed like an excellent way to recover.