Wyoming Territorial Prison

 Last Saturday we headed out to a Quilt show... only to find out that it had been cancelled due to weather. Whats a girl to do? Keep going north....

The Wyoming Archeological Society was putting on a History Day at the Wyoming Territorial Prison - and we thought - why not... lets keep going....

(PS my son was working at it but he did not know we were coming)

Oh by the way - there are a lot of photos in this post.... As usual I can't pick just three!!!

But the clouds - you can see the weather that put a damper on the Quilt show.

So we got to the Prison and surprised my son - while we were annoying him for 3 minutes -( he truly had NO break during the day) we saw the Indian dancers come out - 

Oh man!! I have seen photos, but never live... it was SO cool!

and you know as a lover of crazy fabrics.... this dancers outfit intrigued me!!!

So this woman did a dance that made her skirts sway and sound like bells

Black and White thrown in to cleanse your color palette

This young man did a Grass Dance. When the tribes would come upon a new place to set up camp, they did this dance prior to setting up. I assumed it was to flatten the ground a bit , and check for snakes, but he said it was more spiritual in tying themselves to the land.

Dancing fascinates me... I have no rhythm

This is the fort surrounding  the Prison

We saw a demonstration on tanning hides, and getting them ready to use for clothing. It was quite labor intensive, and the hides are quite fragile until smoked.  

A demonstration on Forging and Blacksmithing. this guy was awesome, he knew so much stuff, and was really fun to listen to. He even encouraged the shy kids to ask questions!!

The Prison Wagon - above.... below the inside of it. 

There is a Reason that Man is inside... keep reading!!

I'm not a fan of small spaces - so I just kinda looked inside

Another Prision wall

I loved the lookouts!

We didn't spend a lot of time in the Prison because I wanted to see all the exhibits from the Wyoming Archeological Society - and they had an Atlatl throw ( kind of like throwing spears... I wanted to try)

But look!!! NO QUILTS!!!! I guess prisoners were just allowed to keep warm, not pretty!!!

and in the kitchen they had wheat from Greeley ( I live east of Greeley)  that was fun to see!

The in processing room had an old camera.... Isn't that cool?

The prison cell. I am 5'10" and hit the top of my head walking in. Of course, I did not stay - I went in, backed out and took a photo.... dang they were tight spaces!!!

They had food Vendors there - Indian Tacos and Ice Cream... K would not buy me Ice Cream because it was too cold - so they came and LOCKED him up!!!

It was a really fun time. My son did the Virtual Reality Tours of the Dig site that he worked at this summer. Of course, I had to take the tour . It was really cool, he could show you the places they worked and the things that they found. The way the processed the artifacts and more.

There were a LOT of kids, and he is SO good with kids. One little girl let us know that this was mainly for kids, not adults like me.... When I told her I was a tall 12 year old she wasn't sure what to think. But! I wasn't missing out... so apparently I am still a kid haha!!!

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