Trains and Rodeo Queens

The beautiful little park that runs alongside the Union Pacific tracks is an awesome place to enjoy a day like today.  The original U.P. Depot is still there, and is in the process of being restored.  There’s a museum inside, but it’s staffed by volunteers, so the hours are limited and it was closed when I got there.  Great example of western train depot architecture that will delight any train buff.  It is a long building, and I couldn’t fit it all in my shot.  But I got a picture of the U.P. plaque set into the front.

There’s a caboose, a car, and a couple of steam engines on display beside the depot.  I’ll have to look up the details on the locomotives (I’ve recently become interested in trains, largely as a result of seeing a video of steam engine 844).  The front loco is a snow plow.  Immediately behind the park are the active tracks, with U.P. trains constantly coming and going.  As I type this a fast freight is rocketing by, and I have a perfect view of it out the window of the Coal Creek Coffee Company.  The tracks are less than a block away, so it’s a great place to train spot if that’s your thing.  I’ve been told that the pedestrian overpass over the tracks is the last such structure in existence.

The park has swings for the kids, shade, grass, benches, and this morning it smelled like wildflowers and fresh air.  I have to say it again, I love Wyoming!  Of course I might feel differently if I had to be here in winter, but today is perhaps the loveliest day you could ask for, temps in the 70’s, sunny, gently breezy, and only a slight chance of thunderstorms this afternoon.

After the park, I thought I’d drive around downtown and stop if I saw anything that grabbed my attention.  The problem is, it all does!  To be really enjoyed this downtown should be walked.  I’m not up to canvassing the whole thing on foot this trip.  Time and being short on oxygen will keep me from doing this great little town proper justice.  But I’m making a vow right now to return and spend a few quality days here.  Laramie is a wonderful town, and its people should be proud of it.

I hadn’t gone very far when I spotted the Laramie Visitor Center, so I pulled in to see if they had a guide to the downtown businesses.  They did, and what’s more, I was greeted by Miss Rodeo Wyoming 2011, Brittany Richards.  She’s the Assistant Director of the Laramie Area Visitor Center.  She told me some fascinating stuff about the historic train depot, the 1930 pedestrian overpass, and she gave me a guide to a walking tour of the historic downtown.  She also suggested a multimedia walking tour that uses bar codes you scan with your smart phone to get more information on various points of interest around town.  She told me the depot is being restored and that the baggage scale was still there in working condition inside the building, along with all the records of the depot dating back to when it first opened, contained on many indexed cards.  It’s a treasure of Union Pacific train history, and I’m glad it’s being preserved by people who care passionately about that history.  It was just such people who saved the depot from being torn down in 1985.

I mentioned my blog in passing and Brittany asked if the visitor center could use some of the content for their tourism promotion efforts.  I gulped, and then said, sure, why not?  It seems that what began as a way to keep a few people updated on my travels has started to take on a life of its own.  Brittany said she blogged during her tenure as Miss Rodeo Wyoming and feels like she got more out of the experience because of it. She told me about a service that takes your blog content and turns it into a book, which is a neat idea, especially if you spent a lot of time on your blog (ahem).

Miss Rodeo Wyoming, Brittany Richards. (A. Richards/TSM)