(Posted 251010) Millions of children know about the Oregon Trail - thanks to the popular classic video game that had them dying of dysentery on a regular basis - but fewer know of the equally important California Trail. We spent some time in the California Trail Interpretive Center while in Elko to learn more about it ourselves.
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We were up at 8 am Thursday morning, and after our morning routine headed 15 miles back west on I-80 to the California Trail Interpretive Center. We loved the creative little "welcome" sign that greeted us by the gate.
Being managed by the BLM, we weren't 100% sure whether the Center would actually be open or not - given the government shutdown - but the Center actually has a fair number of displays outside the building so we started with those. The displays give a brief overview of the first pioneers to travel the California Trail, and why the portion of the journey through the Great Basin and westward was particularly difficult.
We were relieved to find when we went to the door that the Center was, indeed, still open - probably thanks to the non-profit partner organizations that fund it. The lobby had a large wall-sized map showing the various routes west.
The first display we encountered as we started our way clockwise around the circular display route was this rather curious one, that talks about a phrase that appears in many pioneer journals: "seeing the elephant". Of course there were no actual elephants on the westward trail, but the idiom appears to have started as a way to describe something that is so powerfully life-changing and different that you can't really convey it to someone who hasn't experienced it themselves (similar to how it's difficult to describe an elephant to someone who has never seen one before). It eventually came to represent the experiences and hardships encountered on the westward journey, and only those who made the journey themselves could finally really "see the elephant".
The displays followed a typical pioneer journey from beginning to end, through a creative use of traditional signs, reproductions, mock-ups, and dioramas. The wagon on the right is a life-size replica of an average pioneer wagon that you can climb up onto to get a feel for the space available; narrower than Hollywood would have you believe, the "driver's bench" was barely wide enough for Tom and Christine to both squeeze onto next to each other (and not comfortably). The displays went on to talk about "jumping off" towns on the Missouri River where thousands of pioneers would supply-up and then camp-out in the spring waiting for the magic window to begin their journey when the prairie grasses would be tall enough to sustain their livestock, but before it got so late in the year that they wouldn't be able to make it across the Sierras before the snow started falling.
The next area talked more about the wagons in-depth. We found this display that talked about measuring distance traveled particularly interesting: folks used things as complicated as a fancy gear system to automatically tick off the miles, while others simply tied a handkerchief around a spoke and counted how many times it went around (you probably didn't want a daydreamer doing
that job).
Figuring out what to bring on a westward journey and how to pack it was rather similar to figuring out how to pack a Travato for an 11-12 month trip. 😉
The portion of the journey that followed the Platte River was difficult - but at the same time "easy", compared with what was to come. It provided trading opportunities with the Native Americans along the way as well - if you were daring enough.
A number of signs threaded throughout the displays followed the journeys of two parties in particular. One was the Bidwell-Bartleson party, notable for being the first wagon train to journey the California Trail. We found it vaguely ironically amusing that the party's first fatality was a man who accidentally shot himself by pulling a gun out of a wagon by its barrel - and that the man's name happened to be (of all things) "Shotwell".
This display is intended to show the point where the trail split into the Oregon Trail or the California Trail, but further along also shows the Hastings Cutoff - that path that largely doomed the second of the two parties that had signs threaded through the displays: the Donner-Reed party. Long before the days when there were Yelp reviews to check, Donner - after already starting the journey later in the season than recommended - decided to take the Hastings Cutoff to try to save time. The Hastings Cutoff was completely untested, and despite being advertised as a shortcut that would save 300-400 miles it was actually 125 miles
longer than the traditional route, and over much worse (and almost waterless) terrain. That, combined with a week wasted chasing down straying livestock and an earlier than usual snow season, caused the Donner-Reed party to get stuck in the Sierra snow for the winter. And the rest, as they say, is history . . .
The Great Salt Lake desert was the first of the Great Basin trials pioneers had to endure. The solid looking thin crust of salt gave way to thick mud that mired both livestock and wagons, making progress through the desert excruciatingly slow.
Then came the 40 mile desert, a stretch so treacherous that it was said to be littered with dead livestock carcasses and abandoned cargo that was jettisoned to try to lighten loads. Some pioneers chose to abandon their wagons altogether in this stretch, choosing instead to pack whatever belongings would fit directly onto their pack animals to increase their chances of making it across. Others would repair / rebuild their damaged wagons from parts left behind by their predecessors.
Tom found this display very interesting. It is one of the Paiute tulle (reed) boats that had been described in the Pyramid Lake Museum - but they didn't actually have one on display there. It looks small and light enough to fit on the T42's roof rack . . .
We were very disappointed to find that the Donner Theater was closed for repairs. We peeked inside anyway, and saw that it wasn't your normal run of the mill projector screen type theater. Instead, it looked like it had a 3 dimensional scene staged with a fine mesh translucent screen in front of it; we're guessing pseduo-holographic images would've been projected onto that screen, similar to the small living dioramas we saw in Edo Castle - but we'll have to return some other day to find out. (We're also vaguely curious what the "content some viewers may find disturbing" was going to be; recipes for how to cook friends and loved ones? 😜)
Other displays covered arriving in California, the Gold Rush, and the Transcontinental Railroad.
All in all, we learned quite a bit and found the Center to be a rather enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours.
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When we visited Sherman Station the afternoon we arrived in Elko, we had noticed the large sign on the restaurant across the street advertising "all you can eat sushi". Now, Elko (and Nevada in general) isn't the first place that flies to mind when we think of "places we want to go for sushi" but after (learning from the Donner Party's mistakes) checking Yelp and finding many favorable reviews we decided to give Blue Moon a try. We arrived just before 1 pm and found a small handful of other patrons finishing up their meals in the small, tastefully decorated dining room.
You'll notice there's no buffet here - it's one of those "order as much as you want from the AYCE menu, and we'll prepare it fresh and bring it to your table" places. Unlike the last such restaurant we visited, Blue Moon lets you order as much as you want at once - but charges you if you don't finish it all - instead of limiting you to 3 items at a time, which is a nice time saver. There are a few items that will bump up the price (sashimi, or certain rolls) but Tom found it easy to avoid those and stick to the standard AYCE items. For his first round, he ordered Miso Soup, Seaweed Salad, Shrimp & Vegetable Tempura, an assortment of Nigiri (double Eel, Smoked Salmon, Albacore, Octopus - which the kitchen ended up being out of and substituted Squid for without asking, and Scallop), a Rainbow Roll, and a Magical Roll. The items came out in a sensible order and with sensible spacing, with a new dish arriving as he was close to finishing the previous one.
Meanwhile, Christine (who is not a sushi fan, so did not do AYCE) ordered the Vegetable Lo Mein.
Not being quite AYCE-full yet - but not wanting to order anything rice based either - Tom ordered Gyoza and (on a recommendation for the folks at the next table) the Kenji Mussel.
Overall, the food was quite good. While not quite the "best fish ever", all the sushi was fresh and tasty. The fact that the Gyoza were deep-fried seemed a little odd, and the Kenji Mussels weren't quite as great as we were led to believe, but Tom left with a happily full tummy and Christine had enough Lo Mein left over for another meal.
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Our last "fun" activity of the day was to go downtown to try to find and photograph as many of the Centennial Boots we could find using the map we had obtained from Sherman Station our first day.
Along the way, we also stumbled upon Centennial Park, and the Chilton Centennial Tower. The signs around the base tell about the history of the city, and in particular talk about Mark Chilton, for whom the Tower is named. The city of Elko grew up around the Transcontinental Railroad - which unfortunately meant that the heavily used railroad track ran right through the center of town, dividing it in half. The signs describe a time when cars would sometimes have to wait an hour or more to be able to cross the tracks and get from one side of town to the other (which could be a real problem for ambulances and school busses). Chilton lead a ten year project, named Project Lifesaver and completed in 1983, to relocate the track to run along the Humboldt River instead.
We also passed by a number of the town's colorful murals.
An actual phone booth, with an actual working landline phone in it! (It costs $0.35 to make a local call these days, in case you were wondering.)
About 1/3 of the boots were missing from where the map said they should be (which maybe isn't surprising since they were originally created almost 8 years ago, and who knows when - if ever - the map was updated since then) but two were hiding out on the side of the courthouse.
After some mundane boring tasks (a grocery and gas run) we returned to the Valley View RV Park where Tom finished the second Nevada blog post, publishing right before bed. Christine made IP Lasagna for dinner - but Tom wasn't feeling the need to eat dinner that night so there were lots of leftovers for our upcoming boondocking nights. Christine continued to rejigger our travel plans, until bedtime around midnight.
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Next post: (coming soon)
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