Cheyenne was built around the railroad. The gorgeous museum has been restored and holds lots of interesting information.
Lovely painted boots stand proudly in front of many shops and offices around town. This one is by the RR museum. Coincidentally, the two signatures in the guest book were folks also from Tucson!
I photostitched two pictures to get this panoramic (almost) view from the second floor.
Upstairs in the museum a miniature trains winds its way around the tracks. All of the display was hand done, including the miniature workers and town folks.
The gorgeous lobby of the museum
A sample of the kinds of china one would use in the luxurious Pullman cars--isn't that a great logo on the plates?
Oops, this picture slipped into the wrong spot, but it is late and I am too tired to rearrange it!
Cute quilt shop along our walking tour
I loved this museum, but didn't take any pictures inside. Next door is the gift shop where I bought a book on Western women. Wyoming, in an effort to keep pioneers from just traveling through the territory, was the first to "allow" women to own property. Later, and well before the 19th amendment, they were also allowed to vote. When it came time for it to be admitted to the union, Wyoming was asked to repeal its law. It refused, which delayed statehood for another year.
A great place for lunch--full of car memorabilia, sports stuff (I worried about the ice skates hanging over Cary's head while we ate!), large portions of yummy food. Luckily, Cary and I see each other often enough that conversation wasn't an issue, because it was way too noisy to talk.
Dineen was the first car dealer in Cheyenne. It still exists behind this building. It had a special hydraulic lift that raised the cars to the second floor using only city water pressure--it took under 50 seconds. Cars were shipped on end in boxcars to other places!
After lunch we visited the historical museum downtown, Free! The special glass display cases that housed everything made it difficult to get pictures, but here is an example of a forest ranger's outfit, designed to imitate a military look.
A typical sewing machine and spinning wheel of over a century ago
I did not take this photo of the beautiful capitol building, nor was there time to tour the governor's mansion. But that means there is something for another trip!
We ended the day having shish-kebabs and cheesecake with Jeanne and Carl at their very neat home not that far from our KOA. Jeanne taught English at Chaparral and also my Sunday morning aerobics class at the gym for a few years. It was great catching up. They hope to move back to Tucson eventually.
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