Ten Sleep, WY

The other day we drove to Ten Sleep, WY. Ten Sleep received it’s name because the Indians measured distance by the number of ‘sleeps’ it was to another camp. ‘Ten Sleep’ was half way between a large Indian camp on the Platte River (Old Sioux Camp) and the camp on the Clark’s Fork River near Bridger, MT and it took ‘ten sleeps’ to get to either camp.

Ten Sleep is a small town of about 150 people nestled in a beautiful valley flanked by red cliff walls, canyons deep and wide, and natural springs within the depths of these canyons. When we arrived it was a wondrous day with bright blues skies dotted with brilliant white clouds and a slight breeze.

Just a few miles east of Ten Sleep is the Ten Sleep Preserve & The Nature Conservancy that used to belong to the Girl Scouts (NCW). The Girl Scout Center was a haven where girls came from near and far to experience the OLD WEST. They could learn about the responsibility and care of a horse, ride into the sunset on their trusty stead to their hearts content and sleep in a tent. You can’t do that in Chicago!

When insurance costs became astronomical, it was no longer feasible to continue this adventure for young girls. It’s a pity that there is so little of the old west available to Girl Scouts now. Luckily, for the land, it was purchased by the Conservancy and the land remains pretty much as it was back “in the day”. It was not divided into parcels and sold off to the highest bidder with cross fencing and houses reaching up into the clouds. It remains wild and untamed!

Our lunch at the Ten Sleep Saloon was straight out of a Western Movie, and just like in the old days, they only took CASH. Luckily we DID have enough cash on hand for our meals, we did, however, have to dip into our laundry fund (quarters) for the tip. We visited some of Patti’s old Girl Scout haunts, the one’s that were left, and I got to take a ride down Patti’s memory lane.

After our trip down memory lane we saw the skies turing dark and the WY wind picking up so we decided to come back to the present and head home to Cody. As the winds blew in the rain we, at one point, had to pull over on the highway because it was a rain-out (if it were winter it would have been a white-out). We could not see the road and the rain was traveling on a horizontal plane.

Don’t forget to click on the picture to enlarge it.