Cheyenne in 1868

Wyoming Family Reunion

(Sunday July 1, 2012)

hursday morning Mel announced that we were going to the July 1st Fertig family reunion in Cheyenne, Wyoming. My response was more like a groan, but I started throwing everything into the motor-home. Hopefully, we'd be ready to go later that afternoon. No matter checking whether or not everything was working properly...we were going, and managed to be on our way around 9:30 that evening. We arrived at Ray and Donnie's Five R Ranch near Cheyenne early Saturday evening where we spent the night. Donnie and I planned to pick up some food to take to the reunion in the morning. This was our first visit with them since they moved into their beautiful new home.

Mel's mother was a sister to Alex Fertig, whose family has a reunion honoring him and his wife Fern every year around the Fourth of July. They put a lot of planning and effort into this wonderful family event. The elders are gradually disappearing and being replaced by new generations. The number of young adults and babies is amazing....A never ending story.

Mary's busy as usual. Evelyn suffered a stroke not many days ago, but she told her doctors she wasn't going to miss the reunion. A very spunky, admirable lady. She looks so good it's hard to imagine what happened to her.

Mel and Mary's husband Calvin sharing some laughs. This bunch knows how to have fun.

Remember Wesley the great magic card guy?

A good ol' western shoot-out!

Horse shoe is just one of the games to enjoy.

Catherine and her little grand sons.

Donnie's constantly on the move.

Ray Jr. enjoying a cool treat on a very hot afternoon.

The Alex n' Fern Fertig bunch heads out for a family photo op.

Ray and Donnie are positively entertaining with their many adventure stories and jokes. Ray's type of political common sense would help America solve it's economic problems. Maybe that's why Wyoming has $Billions in it's rainy day account.

The kids getting their prizes for winning various games. We got a gift for coming the furthest, and another for being the oldest.

After the picnic we spent a few hours visiting in Ray and Donnie's cool garage where they have family dinner get-togethers every Friday. The next morning we went out to breakfast at a Perkins restaurant Ray's construction crew remodeled.

After breakfast we thanked n' hugged them, and hit the road for Wheatland where we visited with Calvin and Mary before heading home. Wyoming has miles of oil wells, underground pipelines, and trainloads of coal that we've watched being developed over the years.

Smoke drifting over the sun from the Colorado wildfires.

A ridge of operating wind-mills producing electricity. The road trip was tiring for this old pair, but the experience seeing those at the reunion was well worth the effort.  Traveling over this  hot, windy sage brush land brings to mind how many months it used to take travelers to get from one place to another on horseback or wagons. No trees, water or food for miles. Those travelers figured out ways to survive, and developed the wild west into civilization. Now it takes us a couple of days in our RV with everything we need, including air conditioning...thanks to creativity.

Below is an aerial view of what Cheyenne looks like today. Looking back, now and ahead...you have to admit that it's  a never ending story overflowing with memories.

When it comes to memories you might like to check out Wyoming Tales and Trails.

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