Date: 2006-05-20
From: at home

To: at home
Miles today: 0.0

   I am still at home. Will be back on the trail tomorrow. For now another installment of stories from the past.Mama Wyoming 1921 Part 2    So, with the order to stay away from the house, and an order from Papa was to be feared and obeyed, the children sat about their tasks. Robert gathered wood and supplies canned supplies from the root cellar. Virginia started the fire. The kids arranged the bunkhouse at first as if it were a game with each getting half as their room and the stove in the middle. The kids were competent at basic cooking and could make beans, cook the deer meat from the fall hunting. There was cured fish and canned vegetables and soups. They would not want for food. Robert did his best over the next few days to care for their limited livestock and other than that the kids played.    Sometime around the 4th day the sky started turning a leaden grey and the always present biting wind began to ratchet up from the ever present hum to one where the gusts would make the sand they carried sound like rain on the side of the bunkhouse. Soon the snow began to mix in with the sand. The Wyoming winter snow was not the pretty fluffy flakes of Wisconsin drifting down, like where the Eddy¢s were from, but the smaller grainier kind which more resembled the sand they were mixed with. During the day the snow and wind intensified and soon being outside was painful and to be avoided.    The snow continued thru the night and by morning large drifts were growing from anything which protruded above the plain and confronted the wind. Drifts were higher than a man around the buildings and the one which stretched from the bunkhouse to the barn and beyond was much larger. Those from fences were several feet. However most of the ground was bare as there was no purchase for the snow to fight the wind. Throughout the second day the storm increased and Robert, having learned of the coming danger from his father strung ropes from the bunkhouse to the barn. For when the full blizzard arrived it was impossible to see for more than a few feet and one had to hold onto the rope in order to be able to find the barn. To let go of the rope was possibly fatal as the only chance to survive would be to find a building by running into it in the driving snow. Many lives had been lost in this very way out here on the plains. Robert did not allow Virginia to leave the bunk!house even though he was forced to move back and forth to the barn to care for the animals. Virginia attempted, as well as a child can, to keep the fire going and prepare food.   After about three days the blizzard cleared and the wind dropped from the shrieking howl to a more mournful moan. The drifts stood at shocking heights with the one on the lee side of the barn being almost as high as the telegraph pole by the railroad tracks.   With the dying of the storm and decreasing winds the cold air from the north settled in. In the clear Wyoming air the temperatures plummeted towards despair. As frightening as the storm had been the cold was terrifying. Virginia was to learn later that the temperatures in during the following days dropped below minus 50 and of course there was the wind. Soon the cots were squeezed up next to the heater and the bunkhouse, with only a single board wall, was like an icy tomb.   To be continued ...WyomingWhich way is North?