Out in Places Like Wyoming, 4d

Vedauwood

A brochure from the Laramie Area Visitor Center notes that Vedauwoo "is a sacred place" to "young Arapaho men [who] travelled the region on vision quests." When we visited Ames Monument in the morning and decided to wait before crossing the road to Vedauwoo, it was easy to imagine spirits on the move.

Snow that had fallen overnight was still blowing on strong northwesterly winds, the sky was forebodingly dark, and rock formations for which Vedauwoo is known appeared treacherous.

On our way back to Laramie from visiting my grandparents' churches in Albin and Golden Prairie, the hills were inhabited by an entirely different set of spirits.

The sun was shining, the overnight snow had disappeared, and the wind for which Wyoming is famous had calmed to a breeze.

 Vedauwoo is as close to I-80 on the north side as the Ames Monument is on the south side. A well aimed arrow shot at the entrance to one would reach the entrance to the other with ease. According to the same brochure I cited earlier, these attractions are no more than 18 miles from Laramie.

My memories of Vedauwoo, I realize, have been shaped more by family stories we have told and retold than by actual memories of doing something there.  We always came to have a picnic, perhaps at the Happy Jack area, which is now comprised of campsites. Mom always made a big production out of picnics -- I can remember her "setting" the picnic table -- but all I remember for food is peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cool-aid, and brownies or cookies for desert.

As with any place we had to travel to, I had no idea Vedauwoo was so close to home and so accessible. The ride was always long, often hot, and sometimes contentious -- if we brothers were not at that moment getting along. My memory wants to blame one of them for most of the contention, but my adult mind says leave it alone.

 As kids, once my father had stopped at a likely spot for our picnic, we hit the ground running. We would disappear into the rocks until someone heard Mom calling us back to eat.  It was easy to see the lure of the place, both for the original Arapaho inhabitants and for more recent adventurers.

Both Stefan and I started taking pictures instead of running down the trails, but I left the rock climbing to him. Perhaps on another visit, in warmer weather, I will attempt to reprise the old feelings of exploration.

 The interesting feature of these rock formations is that the rocks appear to have been set in place with a kind random precision. So if you imagine there were spirits involved in the landscape rather than natural forces, it is fairly easy to see the long straight crevasses and cracks as a form of creative play. If only we were big enough.

With other formations, such as these with random cracks and signs of vertical upheavals, it is easy to see the strong power of nature at work as if the whole enterprise were an ancient engineering project. If my father, the civil engineer, were still around, I would like to hear his take on this pile of rocks.  Or on the one below, where a boulder the size of a house seems to have been perched with just enough balance to keep from tumbling down the slope.

 Soon enough the clouds returned and the wind turned sharp again.  We decided to head into Laramie before the afternoon was completely gone to see if we could wangle an invitation to step inside the old homestead, 1933 Custer, leaving this sacred place to visit another.