Pony Express Museum - October 24, 2012

The Kansas City Power & Light Power Partners retirement club visited the Pony Express Museum on our monthly outing in October.  The museum is located just south of the downtown area of St Joseph, Missouri.  I believe that around 40 people participated in the tour.  Here are a few photos from the visit.

 The horse shoes are mostly from supporters of the museum.  However, one of the shoes is an original from the Pony Express days.

 The Pony Express route stretched from St Joseph to Sacramento, CA.  Typical times fro delivered mail from the East Coast to the West Coast had been about 4 weeks.  The Pony Express cut that time down to 10 days.

The service used 400 horses and 184 stations along the route.  Stations were 10 to 20 miles apart depending on the terrain.  Riders switched to a fresh horse at the stations as quickly as possible.  They blew a bugle to announce their pending arrival so the station manager could have the new horse ready to go.  The rider grabbed the mochila (mail pouch) from one horse and put it on the new horse as he mounted it.  Riders would work 10-12 hour shifts without stopping.  Occasionally, they had to do a back-to-back and would ride for 20 hours straight....talk about saddle sores.  Riders averaged about 10 miles per hour across the entire route.

Riders were paid $25/week which was big money in those days.  The average worker only got paid $1/week at that time.  A letter cost $5 at the beginning of operations and then dropped to $1 after operations settled in.  That was still too expensive for most people to afford in the day.  In today's dollars, that $1 letter would cost $24.  William Cody (Buffalo Bill) was the most famous of all the riders.

Riders were only allowed to weight about 125 lbs so a 40 lb load of mail and other necessities like water and rifles would not be too much for the horse to carry.

The Express operated from April 3, 1860 to October 1861.  At that time, telegraph communications were established eliminating the need for the Pony Express.  The transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869 and opened up communications with the west for greater volumes of mail.

 A recreated transfer station.

 A Pony Express saddle with the mochila mail pouch.

 A nice Louisiana style lunch at Boudreaux's followed the tour.

Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge

On December 29th, Sigrid, our friend Krista Klein, and I got up very early and hit the road to the Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge is just south of Mound City, Missouri which is almost a two hour drive from our house. We arrived just before sunrise. If you want to see the birds on the water before they look for food, you have to get there early.

You really need to click on the photos to enlarge them to see the birds and the beauty of the refuge better.

Even though it was December, the temperature wasn't too bad.....a jacket was enough.

Sigrid and Krista.

The birds were all the way across the lake from us but we had to view and photo them from here because of the light from the rising sun. My 200mm lens was not quite enough.

The noise from all the birds was amazing.

There was just a little ice on the lake.

A Bald Eagle is resting on the Muskrat lodge. There were quite a few eagles around the lake.

This tree reminded me of my old Gateway Computer.

A young eagle near the nest.

If you look in the tree, you can see five eagles.

Bird watching can make you hunger. We stopped at Boudreaux's in downtown St. Joseph for lunch on the way home. I highly recommend Boudreaux's for its New Orleans style food. We all had crawfish and shrimp etouffee.

After eating, we toured around town and took a few photos. We especially enjoyed the old homes.

A great day!