Over the past couple of days Parsons has made his way out of Colorado and into Wyoming. Between the 19th and the 21st, he hikes across the Medicine Bow mountains. On the 20th he notes, “Well, Saturday night I camped at the head of the Fall River, which drains into the Mississippi, last night I camped at the head of the Colorado River y tonight at the head of the Michigan Creek who runs into the Platte y then on to the Mississippi, so I actually crossed the divide twice although I have been going west the last 2 days.” By the 20th he’s out of the mountains and deep into the Platte River valley, “rather boring sagebrush country, nothing much of interest.”
On the 22nd he wrote “I hiked all the 20 miles to Saratoga today, arrived there at 12. There I bought a few supplies and struck out again, the road followed the Platte River which flows north y as I was looking on the river I said to my self, why not tie a raft together y travel by water for a ways. So I went down along the riverbank looking for some logs y collected some fence wire from an old fence.” The next day he floats the North Platt River almost all the way to Fort Steel, Wyoming, roughly 40 miles. The next morning he watches antelope from camp before hitting the trail again.
It was not uncommon for Parsons to build a watercraft on the fly and make use of it. Sadly, his collection does not contain a photograph of the raft he built and floated on the Platte River.
Look for a future post that explores his fascination with watercraft and showcases several of the boats he built over the years.