Friday, September 18, 2015

A Famous Outhouse


When you have an outhouse in a beautiful setting, you should leave the door open for the view. 

You hear of people relocating a historic cabin, timber by timber.  On this easement property the landowners relocated an outhouse.  The story is this:

Back in the day, this outhouse was located at the airstrip in Sinclair, Wyoming - about 50 miles from it’s present location.  When Amelia Earhart flew her famous cross-country trip in an autogiro (a ‘near-helicopter’) in 1931, she stopped at the Sinclair airstrip to refuel.  So one would assume that she probably needed to use the facilities.  

With a sense of humor that I can appreciate, the landowners relocated the outhouse to their land at the base of the Sierra Madre Mountains and named it the "Amelia Earhart Memorial Outhouse."

This is not a traditional ranching family but their property is a place that has brought the family together for decades.  Their children and grandchildren come from near and far every summer to enjoy this beautiful and special piece of land.   
  

Truly, this is my favorite area in Wyoming - the Saratoga Valley. My family is from a farm in northern Colorado and my grandpa used to fly fish the North Platte River near Saratoga.  He always said that Wyoming is what Colorado used to be.
The valley has a number of big ranches that are still intact - there are no subdivisions or summer homes littering the valley.  It’s remained unchanged over the last 20 years also because many of the private ranches are under conservation easements (held by a variety of entities).   I come here to the Valley and life slows down. Everyone waves as trucks pass each other on dirt roads, a throw-back to how the rest of Wyoming used to be.
Swing that was put up by the owners - for their grandchildren.