Joann’s Wonderful Wild Journey West

Joann, Group Tour Planner, shares her adventures in the Wild West on a Boscov’s Travel Escorted Western Tour. Thanks, Joann!

My travel companions and I were chauffeured at a gentle pace through the picturesque, mountainous landscape, soothed by soft, sweet songs of cowboys and tickled by Cheryl’s witty re-telling of pioneer times, lesser known facts and descriptions of local culture. She even taught us a real western cheer: “HEEEE HAWWW!”

What made this experience most special was the leisurely pace, stunning scenery, delightful tour guide and seeing some of the United States’ most famous attractions; like Mount Rushmore, Old Faithful and Yellowstone National Park. Our group bonded over meals and site-seeing, sharing pictures of loved ones and a mutual love for expanding horizons.

It’s one thing to learn American history in a classroom, but quite another to see first-hand amazing sights such as the wagon wheel ruts along the Oregon Trail in Wyoming.

Thousands of men, women and children traveled the Oregon Trail in the 1840’s, many times risking their lives to reach what they hoped would be a better life. I have a greater appreciation now of the hardships they had to endure.

It was fun seeing the animals of Bear County USA, riding in a jeep into a bison herd in Custer State Park and visiting the Coors Light Brewery.

The inspiration for the iconic Coors Light mountain range logo can be seen from the brewery’s parking lot. Where else in the world but the western US could you taste a fresh brewed Coors Light and then have a bowl of delicious bison stew? The national park views and wildlife were absolutely breath-taking. What great foresight some had in preserving these areas so future generations would be able to enjoy them.

Other attractions included quaint towns, the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, a real western rodeo, a performance by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and perhaps my favorite: Deadwood, South Dakota. Deadwood is where Dances with Wolves was filmed and Kevin Costner has taken quite a strong interest in the town. He owns a local restaurant, casino, attraction and town tour all dedicated to the film and his other movies. The restaurant features costumes from Kevin Costner’s movies, as well as a guest book that had me joking to my husband and new friends I was leaving a message with my phone number and the words “Call me, Kevin”. A lady can dream, right?

Our group had bonded so much that it was difficult to say goodbye at the end of the tour. We left each other with promises to keep in touch through emails and letters, as well as lots of pictures and souvenirs.

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Click here to see Boscov’s Travel Escorted Western Tours scheduled for 2012.

The Wonderful Wild West

This is post two of our “Wild West Series”. For those of you just tuning in, I am going to Washington and Oregon in a few weeks, and plan on visiting some other cities/states while I am out there. Basically, I am going to try to see and do as much as possible, since I don’t know when the winds of fate will blow me out that way again. I started the blog post series with “10 Cool Things to do in Colorado” , and now want to share with you some exceptional things I found to do out West, in states that I won’t actually be visiting this time around. I’m saving these for my next visit out west, whenever that may be!

Call me a nerd, but having grown up on the game “Oregon Trail” it has always been a goal of mine to go see the actual Oregon Trail, and get a better sense of what it is really like out there.  Knowing that I will be spending some time in Oregon, I thought it would be cool to see if I could tour a portion of the trail. Turns out the best portion of the Oregon Trail is in Wyoming! The trail itself reaches over 2,000 miles from Independence, Missouri, to the Williamette Valley of Oregon, so traversing the whole thing would be quite a feat, and a vacation on its own.

The trail isn’t a single path, but a series of connecting roads and branches that have slightly different trajectories. The major stop on the trail is Fort Laramie in Wyoming.  Once a fur trading post, then a military outpost, now a tourist attraction, it has been around since 1835. Fort Laramie was the first glimpse of civilization that journeyers would see in six long weeks. Can you even imagine six weeks without seeing a building or people? I can’t, and the sight of real live people was enough for a lot of emigrants to turn back and head for the “known” versus the “unknown”.

It’s a bummer we’re not visiting South Dakota because there are so many neat things to do there.  There will be a future trip planned to go there for a four-wheel drive jeep tour of Custer State Park & Wild Animal Preserve.  As a true “nature lover” and self proclaimed “tree hugger” I go gaga over all things animal. Here you can see buffalo, mountain goats, antelope, and prairie dogs from the comfort of your open-air jeep!

Also in the Black Hills of South Dakota is the Crazy Horse Monument, the only on-going mountain carving in the world! Part of the Crazy Horse Memorial, the Thunderhead mountain carving, Indian Museum of North America, and Native American Cultural Center comprise the Memorial, and create a tribute to Native American culture and history. With Mt. Rushmore being a scant 17 miles away, and the drive-thru-zoo Bear Country it makes this area a great place to go to see some sites that are truly unique to South Dakota.

Me being the optimist, I was also hoping that we could make a stop on the way home at America’s first national park, Yellowstone National Park. It spans across Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, and is home to loads of wildlife including grizzlies, foxes, wolves, bison, and elk.  If you are an avid blog reader you know that I am a Hot Springs fanatic, and the Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone are like nothing I have ever seen. At some point I will make it there to check out all of the geysers, and get an up close and personal look at “Old Faithful”, the most popular geyser in the world.

Boscov’s Travel offers a series of Journey West tours that include stops at all of the places I have discussed above. There are a number of tours, some of which incorporate different elements of my list, but the tour that does it all is called “The  Wonderful Wild West”, and you can click here for a full package description.