As I savoured the wonderful spinach and mushroom omelette whipped up by the ranch cook Sergei, and gazed out at some of the beautiful horses in the paddock with the first sun in days streaming down on them I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I had slept like a log in a bed that you seem to just sink into. I had had a lovely hot shower and strolled the grounds with Buster in the early sun.
Sam gave me the history of the name UXU. It seems that back in the 1930’s a couple had bought the land and started a dude ranch but the marriage didn’t last. In a very acrimonious split she moved up the road and started a competing dude ranch. The husband then set up a sign at the highway saying U Bitch U so that every time she drove down the road to Cody for supplies she would see the sign. The ranch is in the National Shoshone Park and the rangers didn’t like the word Bitch on the highway so they put a big X through it. And so the name UXU was born … It’s a great story and it seems to fit the place. The current owner looks kinda like Boss Hog but seems to be somewhat less ornery.
I would love to go there with a group of friends and do the trail riding experience. It would be incredible.
We settled our bill and headed on down that scenic Highway 16 towards South Dakota. It followed the Shoshone River for a while and then later after passing the town of Ten Sleep we followed the Ten Sleep River. It seems the name originates from the native groups that travelled through the area. It was a rest stop 10 days travel from the Fort Laramie trading post.
We travelled through mountainous terrain that smoothed out into rolling hills and then by the time we hit South Dakota we were back into more mountainous terrain.
We arrived at the Crazy Horse Memorial park around 5 pm. I thought we might be too late to see it but they are open quite late and end the day with a laser show on the mountainside. They had no issue with Buster in his carrier going through the museum and even into the theatre to watch the fascinating story of the birth of this beautiful monument. Two men are at the heart of this story – Henry Standing Bear, a Lakota Chief and a sculptor who had worked on Mount Rushmore – Korczak Ziolkowski. Standing Bear approached Ziolkowski with the idea because he felt his people needed to be honoured as much as the Mount Rushmore presidents. Korczak came up with the design and began work in 1947. He had ten children and he put all of them, along with his wife to work on carving the mountainside. He and his wife have both passed away now but the children are still working on completing the sculpture.
A bit further along the road was a KOA campground and so we actually set up the tent for the night. We found ourselves midst a huge contingent of campers in multiple variations of RV’s along with a lesser group of tenters. This is my first experience at a KOA campground. It even had a liquor store (yeah!) and a laundry (yeah!) and showers (yeah!yeah!)
