My friend Kathy remarked that I hadn’t posted my planned routes for this ride, so I thought I’d post them now. I’ve broke it up into four segments of roughly…
I’ve had a few days now to walk and ride a little around St. Joseph, and have really come to like it here. So much so that now the ride…
“In time or course climbed slightly to a flat upland covered with grain. This was evidently Nine Mile Ridge, where in staging days stood Lone Tree Station. The solitary tree…
“According to our maps, “the Narrows” was the next place of interest. It is mainly notable because, at this point on the Little Blue, the emigrants seemed to forget all…
“Near Kiowa Station the nature of the terrain changed. The hitherto smooth slopes broke into rain-gutted saddles and deep-washed gullies. The wagons had steered a dizzy course like a line…
“For years Marysville, Kansas, marked the end of the truly settled country; but the Little Blue Valley, so, charming and so fertile, sheltered a sort of border zone of ranches…
“Except under abnormal conditions the camp site under these old trees [by the Big Blue] was an oasis, comfortable and even luxurious with fresh-water clams from the river, berries from…
“Our way led over a succession of grassy swells spaced at intervals with breezeless hollows. What a country to have traveled before the day of the graded road and the…
At the risk of exposing myself to public ridicule, below is my packing list for my ride from St. Joseph to Salt Lake City. I know: the list is absurdly…
During the summer of 2020, I went on about two dozen socially-distant scouting rides in California and Nevada to check out portions of the Pony Express Bikepacking route. And it…
Oxen could tolerate lack of water fairly well because their third stomach, the rumen, stores extra water. It was the dust that killed them. “The worst enemy they had was dust,”…
“Oxen can do very well on sagebrush,” notes Ford, “and in the spring when the sagebrush is frst starting to grow, they can eat evergreens . . . but dry…
Draft animals were the single most expensive component of an overland Ford draws on his historical knowledge of the period to point out the economics of buying stock. “In 1847,…
Unlike horses and mules, oxen are not directly controlled with bridle, bit, and reins handled by a driver seated in the wagon behind them. Instead, the drover walks to the…
Now, suppose you have three teams of horned steers, all yoked up and pulling your wagon along the Oregon Trail. Ford will point out that you still don’t necessarily have…