I did manage to climb down from the unexpected wagon this week.
Jones Wood mid-week, for a couple (Ed: it might have been more than a couple), just to let them know that I was still up for a cask or two.
Besides, somebody had to finish off the Gun Hill Chicha de Jora (corn lager to you and me), which had only gotten more refreshing as it aged in the cask under the bar.
Somebody also had to sample the Old Glenham Spinners Stout, which is one of three new brews from them (for me at least), the other two coming up over the horizon at JWF.
But I know that you are all eagerly anticipating the beery tales from the Old West of 2001, so who am I to disappoint?
[Slow fade from shades of red to shades of green]
When we left our intrepid heroes, they were hunkered down in Vernal Utah, a relatively moist town in a relatively dry state.
When news of a brewery in Jackson Hole reached their ears, they made a run for the border.
Day 10 – Vernal UT to Jackson WY
Well, maybe not a run but a pretty fast drive; we had a five and a half hour trip ahead of us and a stop to make on the way.
We started by heading north from Vernal on the Flaming Gorge-Uintas Scenic Byway to the border with Wyoming, before cutting across the bottom-left corner of Wyoming, making our stop at Fossil Butte National Monument, and then heading due north along the Wyoming-Idaho border, finally following the Snake River through the heart of the Rockies and into Jackson WY.
We stopped briefly at an overlook of Flaming Gorge; after spending days in red-rock country it was stunning to see only greens ahead of us.
Our shortcut across the southwest corner of Wyoming took us through the high-plains coal town of Kemmerer, the surprising location of the original J.C.Penny dry-goods store (founded 1902); it brought a smile to my lips as I had originally been sent to the U.S. for a software assignment (it didn’t happen) at J.C.Penny, but not in Kemmerer.
Fifteen miles to the west would find us at the Fossil Butte National Monument, our main stop for the day.
Hiking through the beautiful green sagebrush hills it is hard to believe that this was once the bed of an ancient lake, and is now the home of one of the best collections of aquatic animal and plant fossils from the Cenozoic (Age of Mammals) era in the world.
We paid a brief visit to the museum and the visitor center to get a close-up look at a sampling of the fossils unearthed there, before enjoying a four-mile hike on the two main paved trails; we pretty much had the trails to ourselves.
After all of the dramatic scenery of the preceding parks, there was something very serene about the surroundings and especially the sky.
There were rattlesnake warnings posted on both trails, but we managed to avoid them again.
And then on to Jackson Hole, heading north and cutting into Idaho for a fifteen-mile stretch, arriving at Jackson WY in the late afternoon giving us just enough time to check out the Jenny Lake Trail in Grand Teton National Park; we would return to the park twice more before moving on to Yellowstone.
We had our first wildlife encounters in the woods and rocky outcrops beside the lake; friendly marmots on the rocks and a grumpy bull moose amongst the trees.
We heard him first; the sound of tree branches being shredded and trampled, and some decidedly heavy breathing, we weren’t sure if he was a bear and fortunately, he wasn’t, but he could have been just as dangerous.
Luckily, he had no interest in us, he just had someplace to go in a hurry; he burst out of the underbrush, about two car lengths behind us, stomped over the trail we were on, and stormed off into the trees on the other side, giving us a single opportunity to get a picture of his butt.
That was it for us, with the completion of the lake trail we had completed enough of the southern end of the park and had another day and a half to do the other bits.
So, we returned to the town of Jackson to check into our motel and wander off in search of food and drink.
Food was consumed in the Million Dollar Steakhouse, where we dined expensively on several critters that we would be seeing in the wild over the next few days, but we skipped the associated Million Dollar Bar and found our beer elsewhere; there were rumors of a brewpub in town.
The rumors were correct; about three blocks off of Main Street stood (and still stands) the very modern-looking two-story Snake River Brewing Company.
By far the most impressive brewery that we had come across so far (although Moab Brewing was a close second), and joy-of-joys there was a handpump sitting alongside all of the draft taps (it doesn’t appear to be there anymore).
As we did with all of the other brewpub visits on the trip, I grabbed a couple of samplers for sharing, but then went back for pints of cask Zonker Stout.
This was (and is) a foreign export stout, around 6%, deep opaque black with a nice foamy tan head and big roasty taste and chewy texture.
We knew where we were coming back to tomorrow.
Day 11 – Grand Teton National Park
We actually had two places that we wanted to return to, Snake River Brewing and Grand Teton National Park.
But first we were going to mess about in boats, well rafts.
After our gentle paddle on the Colorado River the previous week, we were all set to tackle something a little more adventurous, we were going to spend a large chunk of the morning white-water rafting down the Snake River; I wonder if they named it after the brewery?
This was not my first rafting outing, that would be the prior year with my wife on the Rio Grande just below Taos, but it was a couple of notches wilder.
I would consider it white-knuckle rafting, and to make it worse, my son and I were on the wet side of the raft.
A couple of hours later, battered and soaked, we made our way back to the park to drive to the overlooks, walk the trails and take pictures of the peaks and the wildlife, who apparently have the run of the place.
They may not be the tallest peaks in the country, but they sure look like it, as they rise straight up out of the high plains.
We stuck to the middle section of the park this time, as we knew that we could cover the northern reaches tomorrow as we headed out to Yellowstone.
Dinner was in the brewpub, and it may have consisted primarily of cask stout, but there could have been some pizza involved too.
Day 12 – Jackson WY to Cody WY
Today was all about Yellowstone National Park, but we did a brief detour at the north end of the Tetons to get a view of the peaks over the oxbows, and we were distracted a couple of times by wildlife; a bison crossing, and a mama moose with her calf.
It is about sixty miles from Jackson to the south entrance of Yellowstone along the John D. Rockefeller Memorial Parkway, and luckily the drive was quiet and quick despite the distractions.
We only had the one day to explore and wanted to drive the full loop, so we skipped West Thumb and Grant Village by the south entrance and headed to the west, clockwise to Old Faithful first.
We checked out the visitor center to get the lay of the land and hung around long enough to watch Old Faithful live up to its name, before moving on northwards to Midway Basin and the Grand Prismatic Spring; we really loved the views of the Firehole River whenever it crossed our route.
We then moved on to the Lower Geyser Basin and Norris with its Artist Paintpots and the Steamboat Geyser.
But then we had a decision to make.
It was getting late, and we could either continue on our planned route north to Mammoth Hot Springs, or cut the loop short and head straight across the middle of the park for the canyon and falls.
Up-to-date notices at Norris Basin indicated that there was a lot of wildlife visible along the shortcut, so we bailed out and went due east to the Yellowstone Canyon area.
The notices were correct, we saw bison and elk all along the shortcut, and even saw a white wolf off in the distance as we were driving.
And with the time saved, we were really able to give the Yellowstone River, Canyon and Falls the attention that they deserved, hitting all of the overlooks.
Finally, we followed the Yellowstone River southeast to the lake and the east entrance, exit in our case, to the park; stopping briefly to check out the Mud Volcano on the way out.
From there it was a straight-line drive through the mountains for an hour to our destination for the night, Cody Wyoming.
We checked in, and walked about twenty minutes into the downtown area, where we ate at the Irma (you have to) and had the prime rib (you have to).
There were a lot of bikers in town, but they didn’t bother us at all, they just seemed quite happy to be cruising up and down the main drag.
A couple of the local kiddies gave us some serious side-eye as we walked past them, and we heard some muttering about “tourists”.
I can understand, they probably get a lot of “foreigners” in town as it is so close to Yellowstone.
But we weren’t going to let that go unanswered.
Day 13 – Cody WY to Gillette WY
Next morning, we made sure that our windows were rolled down and our Navajo mix-tape was cranked up as we slowly crawled out of town and headed to the north and east again.
Petty? Dang right!
Hey-a-oh-oh-heya-hey!
We had three stops planned for the day but ended up adding one as we headed northeast towards Montana; later in the day, we would be driving due east to our prime destination Devils Tower and next overnight in Gillette WY.
The extra stop was a result of picking up a brochure at the motel, and discovering that the Bighorn Medicine Wheel was pretty close to where we were planning on crossing into Montana at the Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area.
So we went for it.
Just ninety minutes northeast of Cody and way up Medicine Mountain; a snow-covered mountain it turned out to be.
We managed to make it up to the trail head, but there was no sign of the trail; everything was blanketed in hard crunchy snow.
Oh well, it was worth a shot.
So, we doubled back for half an hour, turned right to go north to the border and within another half-hour we were driving along the rim of Bighorn Canyon.
Dodging wild horses and the namesake sheep.
We had seen many canyons on our trip so far, and this was quite different from all of the others; well maybe a little like Island in the Sky if you could have actually climbed down to the rim of either the Colorado or Green River.
This particular crack in the high desert was created by the Bighorn River, which we then followed for almost three hours northeast into Montana, to the Little Bighorn National Battlefield.
This turned out to be the other highlight of the trip for me; very different from Chaco Canyon in the New Mexico desert, but it had the same eerie almost spiritual feel about it.
The ghosts of the past were still here, patrolling these windswept ridges of the high grassland.
We spent a long time here, in silence; there was something holding us, and we were in no hurry to move on.
We did eventually move on, staying in Montana as we went east and then south to Devils Tower National Monument.
Three and a half hours under the big sky with not a single gas station in sight.
We puttered into Hulett WY, just ten minutes from our destination, and were lucky to spot a couple of old-fashioned gas pumps in front of a ramshackle shed, and somebody attending who was happy to sell some gas to us.
It was a close one.
What can be said about Devils Tower?
I am sure that a lot of folks have heard about it, thanks mostly to the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
It is probably not the most visited of the National Monuments, although it was first to be designated as such.
It is a unique place, a singular place, but just so far from everywhere.
And it is surrounded by prairie dogs.
We spent much of our time in the park finding interesting angles to snap the tower, and we also managed to clamber up the rocks around the base to get a view out over the surrounding prairie.
But we made sure to save time to spend with the prairie dogs, watching them pop up at several different lookout mounds, taking turns to guard the town tunnels, and yipping out warnings.
From the park it was an hour’s drive back west to the nearest budget accommodations in Gillette WY, and it was getting dark when we finally checked in for the night.
If we went out to eat or drink, it wasn’t memorable.
Day 14 – Gillette WY to Custer SD
We had several targets for the day all in South Dakota, the most distant being Badlands National Park, an almost three-hour drive to the east.
While there, we dropped into Wall Drug first; one of those roadside attractions that seem to pop up in the strangest places, we would stop at another very different “attraction” in a couple of days’ time.
If you can imagine a drug store the size of the Mall of America (well, maybe not quite), then you can imagine Wall Drug.
We poked our heads in, just to say we did, and then drove ten miles south to Badlands National Park.
We spent several hours driving from overlook to overlook on the northern loop, just marveling at the strangeness of the place.
We had seen photos and videos of the Badlands before, but nothing prepares you for the real thing; each vista was more surreal than the previous one.
We didn’t have much time to spend walking any trails, but we did manage some short strolls at several of the overlooks.
And just like Devils Tower the day before, it appeared that we had the entire park to ourselves.
We certainly couldn’t say that about Mount Rushmore National Memorial, eighty miles back to the west, and our next stop.
The parking lot and official viewing area was packed out with loud GWB fanboys and fangirls, so we quickly wandered off to do some of the quieter trails and got some very interesting views and snapshots of the monumental sculptures.
We also figured that it would be a good place to crank up the Navajo chants again when we got back to the parking lot.
Hey-a-oh-oh-heya-hey!
Our sincere apologies to any Sioux within earshot that we may have offended.
We kept quiet at our next and final stop for the day, the Crazy Horse Memorial.
Now this is a monumental sculpture!
Only about fifteen miles west and south of Mount Rushmore, you could see it from miles away … it is a freaking mountain (mesa perhaps), folks!
The small visitor center-cum-museum was busy but much quieter than Rushmore, and some would say, it had a more curious clientele.
There was also a small diner-like restaurant associated with the place that had some interesting dishes, including Navajo fry-bread taco and bison stew … we had an early dinner.
Fascinating place, I wonder how much progress they have made in the past twenty-three years.
With our three planned stops accomplished, we found ourselves barely five miles to our next motel in Custer SD, where we would be spending the next two nights.
Pulling into town, we noticed what appeared to be an old-western saloon, complete with swinging doors, right on the corner on the main street, and made a mental note to check it out for our evening meal tomorrow.
Day 15 – Jewel Cave and Wind Cave
We had subterranean adventures for the day, with Jewel Cave National Monument just twelve miles to the west of Custer, and Wind Cave National Park under twenty miles to the south.
We elected to explore Jewel Cave first, as Wind Cave appeared to have many more options for exploration, both underground and above ground, and we wanted to make sure that we at least got to sample Jewel Cave.
We started below ground on a scheduled guided tour, exploring the many passages that appeared to be carved or molded out of white and rust-colored wax, with accents in green, red, and black.
We also got to experience total darkness and total silence for several long seconds, as our tour guide instructed us to turn off our lamps and try to let our eyes grow accustomed to the pitch blackness.
We didn’t grow accustomed to it, there was absolute darkness with not even the faintest spot of light to focus on; very unsettling.
We were very happy to get above ground again.
Above, on the surface there were only a couple of trails, but we found time to hike them, all in woodland and with what appeared to be a sizeable deer population; we saw a lot of deer, very curious deer.
We made sure that we had plenty of time to double-back through Custer and visit Wind Cave, and as with Jewel Cave, we had pre-booked a cave tour.
This was a very different cave system, larger than Jewel Cave, with irregular rigid but fragile-looking boxwork walls and ceilings instead of the Daliesque melting walls of the former.
We had entered through the modern official entrance, but once we were back up top, we were shown the historical entrance to the cave system; you wouldn’t get me going down there, but my son volunteered to back himself in to demonstrate just how small the opening was.
We had made good time underground, and spent the rest of the day hiking the wooded trails and rolling grassland, keeping well clear of the many bison that called this place home, and once again, enjoying the antics of the resident prairie dogs; you can never get bored of prairie dogs.
We hit the saloon back in Custer in the evening, for beer, whisky, and burgers; the beer was meh, hence the whisky.
One other observation regarding our two days driving around the Black Hills National Forest, was just how stressful the driving actually was; not that the roads were particularly fast or twisty, but because you could come across one or more bison, hanging out on the road or on the shoulder, just around any corner.
And they showed the same amount of attitude and situational awareness as the average NYC pedestrian or delivery bike.
Day 16 – Custer SD to Scottsbluff NE
After Custer we were finally starting to head south again, although we would have to pass through one more state, one more panhandle, that of Nebraska, before we got back into Kansas; we would also take one more brief detour to the west, back into Wyoming.
More on that shortly, but our first stop of the day was Agate Fossil Beds National Monument, in the far northeast corner of Nebraska.
Agate celebrates both the fossils found at the location, and also the collaboration between rancher James Cook and Red Cloud of the Lakota Souix.
The fossils are from the later Miocene era, and are mostly prototypes of modern mammals, such as hippos, camels, rhinos, horses, giraffes and beavers.
There is also a large collection of artifacts from the Lakota of Pine Ridge SD, gifted from Chief Red Cloud to the rancher at Agate, James Cook.
We spent time studying both kinds of exhibits before taking to the trails and hiking the prairie grassland up to the quarry sites.
We found some more modern wildlife while hiking; firstly, a large moth took a liking to my son and decided to land on his arm and stay awhile, and later up near the top of one of the trails we finally found a rattlesnake (one not sunning itself in the middle of the road that is).
We laughed when we saw the prominent snake warning sign at the foot of the trail; over the past two weeks, we had hiked through rudimentary trails in all manner of potentially snake-infested terrain and hadn’t gotten a bite, so to speak.
It was as we were about to turn around on the paved trail at the end of a quarry site, when my son told me to stand still and pointed at my feet, one of which was at the edge of the pathway.
I did as I was told and as I looked down, I saw the back half and rattle of a large snake slither into a burrow barely six inches from my foot.
We picked up the pace on the way back, carefully scanning ahead for more snake action, but it would be a one-and-done.
Back in the car, we took another couple of detours from the direct route to our next overnight stop, which was to be Scottsbluff NE.
First, we drove about 70 miles to the east to check out another well-known and well-mocked roadside attraction, Carhenge near Alliance NE.
I had never visited that other more famous henge on Salisbury Plain where the primitive rock Lego bricks are all stacked up at the top of a hill, so I was happy to add another couple of hours to the day’s drive to see what the imaginative Nebraskans could create out of natural resources.
The bulk of the mockery that I see online regarding Carhenge concerns the great distances that a potential visitor has to travel to see some amateur artwork, but we were practically passing by, so it was a no-brainer for us, and a real change of pace from the more cultural and historical sites on our agenda.
And we were both impressed with the art itself.
Well worth the detour if you happen to be anywhere in the Nebraska panhandle.
Our next diversion was about 110 miles to the west and back in Wyoming.
This was Fort Laramie National Historic Site, once the largest and most famous military post in the northwest plains.
One of two forts we would be visiting on our trip, we were surprised just how isolated and seemingly unprotected it appeared to be, especially given its location in “hostile” territory; maybe it looked more imposing when fully staffed with a division of active servicemen.
The site itself is pretty cool, with a handful of scattered buildings situated around a rough parade ground, with the Laramie River (a tributary of the North Platte River) running close by, and the wild prairie beyond.
The buildings were fully kitted out as museum pieces and included a working bar complete with a pool table; I had a beer (historic bottle and label, but basically Bud) and my son a sarsaparilla.
I wish I had gone for the sarsaparilla now, but didn’t want to be seen as a tinhorn.
With the detours over, we finally got back on track, said farewell to Wyoming for the last time, and headed southeast back into Nebraska and towards Scottsbluff, just an hour away.
We found that we still had time to briefly check out Scotts Bluff National Monument before closing out the day, so we headed straight up to the overlooks at the top of the mesa; we would be returning in the morning to check out the scheduled activities.
Rising some 800 feet above the surrounding plains and the North Platte River, it was a landmark on the Oregon Trail; it was used as a way marker by travelers on the California Trail and Mormon Trail, as well as being an outpost for the Pony Express; more on that tomorrow.
We were ready to eat, drink and sleep.
No breweries but there was an Applebee’s (our first) close to the motel, so we wandered over to impress the locals with our strange eastern accents; no kidding, we had all of the waitresses take turns to come by our table to listen to us tell tales of our adventures, but mostly just to hear us speak.
We went to sleep feeling very important.
Day 17 – Scottsbluff NE to McCook NE
We returned to Scotts Bluff National Monument in the morning, as we had seen that there was going to be a Pony Express demonstration/reenactment.
The mail arrived right on time, the horses were exchanged after spending some quality time up close with us visitors in the parking lot, and the ongoing mail went out just as promptly; maybe we need to go back to pony delivery, especially during an election year.
After leaving Scottsbluff, we drove southeast out of the panhandle, following the North Platte River, until turning south to the Kansas border, staying overnight on the Nebraska side at McCook.
It was pretty much a straight drive for three and a half hours, across prairie and cornfield, passing through numerous small towns, each with just a single stop light, more churches than houses and most importantly, a massive grain elevator.
We did make a single stop at Chimney Rock National Historic Site, a little over thirty minutes into our drive.
This is another one of those waypoints on the Oregon Trail, and has a small museum on-site dedicated to the pioneers who passed by in the 19th century, in the opposite direction to us.
Without realizing it, we had actually been following the Oregon Trail in the wrong direction all the way from Fort Laramie, and would continue to follow it for another three hours to North Platte, where we would detour to the south.
We spent a lot of time in the museum, as we had nothing else planned for the day except to take a bite out of the remaining distance back to Dodge City KS.
We were in no hurry to get to our next overnighter in McCook NE; there were no obvious drinking options and the dining looked uninspiring.
We grabbed offerings from Pizza Hut and hid out in our motel room for the evening.
Day 18 – McCook NE to Dodge City KS
The Nebraska/Kansas border was just fifteen minutes due south, and Dodge City another three hours beyond, but we would be heading out to the east for a while as we had just two more places to visit.
Our first planned stop was at Nicodemus National Historic Site, ninety minutes into north central Kansas and east of our border crossing.
We passed by Prairie Dog State Park on our way, so we stopped in to spend a little more time hanging out with the cute little critters, but were disappointed; they were all sleeping, even the lookouts.
Nicodemus was difficult to find, there were no signposts in advance and the locals that we asked (at gas stations) had no idea where it was, or if it even existed.
We eventually spotted a small National Park sign at the entrance and drove to the visitor center, which was also set up with a small lunchroom offering tasty and filling meals – we feasted.
Nicodemus is the oldest Black settlement west of the Mississippi River and was established by freed slaves from Kentucky who headed west after the Civil War and the Reconstruction period that followed.
The historic buildings that remain consist of two churches, the town hall, a family home/hotel and the school; at the time we were there most were under conservation, so we were only able to view them from outside.
We did get to walk around the entire site and get up close to each building and had the park to ourselves while doing so.
But we actually spent a lot of time there, viewing the exhibits and talking with the staff and volunteers, several of whom were descendants of the original inhabitants.
A fascinating place, and one that I would love to return to … if we could find it again.
Our next and final stop was two hours south, and another historic military post, Fort Larned National Historic Site.
Where Fort Laramie looked over the Oregon and California Trails, Fort Larned served a similar purpose guarding the Santa Fe Trail.
A similar layout to Fort Laramie with several buildings surrounding a central parade ground, Fort Larned is much more complete and tidy.
It also has ongoing living history exhibits, including a working blacksmiths shop; pretty cool, or maybe pretty hot.
And that was it.
4,650+ miles over 18 days.
The car rental folks were a little put out, but cheers to unlimited miles.
We were barely an hour’s drive to Dodge City and our train home; yes, we had to traipse out of town in the dark and stand beside the tracks, hoping that we were in the right place and that the train would arrive at the right time, and that it would actually stop to pick us up.
Phew!
Thanks for putting up with my indulgences over the past two weeks.
I don’t know about you folks, but I am ready for a beer!
Scorecard w/e 07/30/24
In the past week, The Cask Whisperer has enjoyed the following casks:
- Gun Hill Crusader Pale Lager @ Jones Wood Foundry
- Old Glenham Spinners Stout @ Jones Wood Foundry
Upcoming Cask Events (Festivals and Otherwise)
9/7/2024: Noah Webster House Real Ale Harvest Festival, West Hartford CT
11/8/2024: Two Roads Cask Fest at Area 2, Stratford CT
11/9/2024: 20th Annual Blue Point Cask Ale Festival, Patchogue NY
Upcoming Random NYC Casks
- Sadly, no erratics have been identified so far this week.
NYC Cask Venues
Known Operational/Active Beer Engines
- Jones Wood Foundry (x2)
- Fifth Hammer
- Wild East
- The Shakespeare (x3)
- Cask Bar & Kitchen
- Drop-off Service
Occasional Pins (worth a follow on Instagram)
- Strong Rope
- KCBC
- Tørst
- Blind Tiger Ale House
- Threes Brewing
- Brouwerij Lane
