Don Wildman

I do want to get to that, but I can understand the potential stench that's coming off of one of these dragon shells might be enough for Native Americans to say, yeah, go about your business.

We're not anywhere close here.

I'm kidding.

Of course.

We don't want to get into the details of that.

They would follow landmarks on this trail, signposts, I suppose you call them.

And these would be sort of morale boosters, I understand.

The Platte River.

Of course, they'd follow rivers.

We didn't even mention the fact that this was largely kicked off in the earliest days of all by Lewis and Clark, you know, whose tales of going up the Missouri and so forth come back and sort of become the fodder for legend and mythology already.

But as they're getting back, they're still following some of those same trails or that general tradition.

lay of the land.

Chimney Rock, a 300-foot tall natural spire would have been there.

Scott's Bluff, perhaps the most famous, marked the end of the prairies, beginning of the Rocky Mountains.

But by the mid-1840s, you had military forts along the way, which had established these outposts to aid travelers.

Fort Laramie, Wyoming, for example.

It really became quite organized that you could sort of measure out your route through these different destinations, right?

What would the average day experience be like?

Slow going for the most part.

Take me through the morning, afternoon and evening of an average wagon trail traveler.