April 17, 2019
Today we had breakfast with the Portillo family at their house. Mr. Frank brought up a tiny turtle that he found while cleaning the pool. He was quite tiny.
We went to Duncan, OK to the Chisholm Trail Heritage Center. The Chisholm Trail was used by the cowboys to drive cattle from south Texas through Oklahoma and Kansas to load the cattle on the railroad in Abilene to go to market north to Chicago and further on into Canada.
Kyrah is standing in the parking lot next to a Redbud tree.
We watched an interactive movie showing the life of a cowboy on the cattle drive. We felt it raining, smelled bacon cooking, felt the cattle stampeding…it was neat.
The Chisholm Trail was the most used trail for cattle drives. There were others but none as used at the Chisholm Trail. It was a trail made by a trapper named Jesse Chisholm.
They had an art gallery.
These two are over 170 years old!
The cattle in this one actually look fuzzy.
Then there was a hands-on area where the kids got to play in a recreated general store.
How about a game of checkers?
They also tried their hand at roping a steer and calf.
Audrah was trying to make her horse ride.
We learned that the 2nd most important person on the trail, after the trail boss, was the cook. He took care of feeding the cowboys as well as pulling teeth, giving advice and dealing with their ailments.
They ate beans, biscuits and bacon every meal.
When we were done, we found that there was a Rib Crib close to the museum so we treated ourselves to supper.
In the evening back at the house, we watched an electrical storm in the clouds. It was so beautiful.
We were expecting a storm during the night but when we woke up, it hadn’t even rained.