Wagon Train

A new company in Colorado plans to let vacationers try their hand at being Old West pioneers, with weekly trips every Saturday May 30 through August. For three days, guests can ride a wagon train pulled by Belgian horses around the 18,000-acre Budin Ranch near Sterling, Colo., covering a mile or two each day and bedding down at night in the 19th century wagon replicas, in tents or on the ground.

If you're hunting for signs of travelers lost in uncharted space, what better place to look than the land of flying saucers? That's where anthropologist Jerry Freeman of Pearblossom found himself when he set off to follow the trail of the Lost '49ers--the wagon train that ended up in the desert instead of the gold fields when it made a wrong turn about 150 years ago.

Local businesses in Northern California's Gold Country are organizing the first-ever Sonora Pass Wagon Train, rolling across 94 miles of California 108 between Bridgeport and Twain Harte, Calif., from Aug. 27 to Sept. 5. As of last week, there were still spots open for outriders (horseback riders with their own horses) and teamsters (drivers with their own wagons). Passenger slots were filled, but organizers said there may be last-minute openings.

So what do people do after spending three months pushing and pulling handcarts and wagons 1,100 miles across the plains? For the most part, they go back to their homes and their ordinary lives. Ted Moore will return to gold prospecting and finish setting up a mobile home park. Tom and Linda Whitaker will return to run their hair salon in Washington. But saying that we will be returning to our ordinary lives is not to say that we will return as we left.

After 97 days of walking, riding, pushing handcarts and pulling wagons over more than 1,100 miles, the survivors came to the end of the trail Tuesday when they arrived at This Is the Place State Park. When Brigham Young uttered the words that gave the site its name 150 years ago, there was no welcoming party.

Forest Schmidt has one foot in the past, one foot in the future. One minute he has his hands around the reins of an 1880s wagon pulled by two of the biggest draft mules a city boy has ever seen. The next he is sitting alone behind the joystick of an ultra-light airplane buzzing along the treetops of his 40-acre ranch east of Paso Robles at 55 m.p.h.

Today's sampling of local records turns up a diverse and solid batch of new releases. There's blues from Sydney Ellis, bluegrass from the Andy Rau Band, alternative rock done with cerebral care by Volkwood Ghost and with grungy loudness by Ragabash, plus the genre-jumping pastiche of Sublime. Ratings range from * (tedious) to **** (transcendent). Three stars denote a solid recommendation.

Back in 1950, John Ford directed the Western drama "Wagon Master" about two young cowhands (Ben Johnson and Harry Carey Jr.) who join a Mormon wagon train traveling to Utah. That classic, which was filmed in Monument Valley, became the basis of the long-running TV Western "Wagon Train." Repeats of the series currently air Saturdays on the Family Channel. "Wagon Train" premiered Sept. 18, 1957, on NBC.

Willie Keil's pickled body was strange cargo, even on the Oregon Trail in 1855, where unusual sights were commonplace. Willie was 19 that spring in Bethel, Mo., and excitedly looked forward to joining his family on the great migration that opened the West and changed the course of American history. When Willie took sick with cholera and died, his father, William Keil, a self-proclaimed physician and preacher, kept his promise to take his eldest son to the Oregon Territories.

The "pioneer spirit" is making a comeback in the travel industry this year. Because the 150th anniversary of Oregon Trail migrations are being observed in various cities along the Trail from May through September, more travelers than ever are expected to sign up for summer wagon train trips. A number of outdoors-oriented tour operators are offering journeys along the Oregon Trail. Stretching 2,000 miles, the Oregon Trail began in Independence, Mo.