Wagons West
An American Boy’s Summer Vacation
by Billy O'Donnell
Litchfield, Connecticut
Waterbury Sunday Republican Newspaper Article
September 14, 1952
Editor’s Note: Billy O’Donnell, of Litchfield, son of Mr. and Mrs. William P. (Hank) O’Donnell, has returned from a summer vacation trip by station wagon and trailer to a ranch in the Colorado Rockies. Here he tells how he and 12 other boys had some memorable experiences. Billy won the Director’s Prize given by Mr. and Mrs. Charles H. Pavek of Rumsey Hall School, Washington, Conn., who supervised the trip. The prize was given to him as the “rancher who has contributed the most to Vagabond Ranch, and who by his spirit of cooperation, dependability and willingness to do more than his share, has set a good example,” and he can return to the ranch as a junior counsellor in 1954. Godfrey Rebmann, Bryn Mawr, Pa., a Gunnery School student, also won and can return next year.
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A long-awaited dream came true for me and 12 other boys, when, on the morning of June 25, two station wagons and trailers pulled out of Rumsey Hall School in Washington, Conn, on a 2,000-mile trip, headed by Mr. and Mrs. Charles H. Pavek of that school. The trip, which took the caravan through 11 states to Vagabond Ranch, high in the Rockies in Granby, Colo., was looked upon with great enthusiasm by all of us. A happy, expectant lot we were. For to all but two of us, it was a new and thrilling experience.
My fellow vagabonders came from many places. They were: Ted and Frank Bessell of Manhasset, N.Y.; Maurice “Spike” Gaffney of Lawrence, N.Y.; Lee Norris, Hewlett, L. I.; Buell Hollister, Oldwick, N. J.; Peter Miller, Greenwich; Ford Doepker, Richmond, Va.; Michael Hedges, Havana, Cuba; Bob White, Cornwall, N. Y.; Godfrey Rebmann, Bryn Mawr, Pa.; Josiah Bunting, Torrington; George Deconick, Waterbury; and Tammie Day of Litchfield, and they were all complete strangers to me at the outset but we quickly became friends.
We journeyed westward to Cornwall, N. Y., where we had breakfast at the home of friends of the Paveks. Here, also, we picked up Bobby White, a fellow camper, and his sister, who was to help her mother, Mrs. Dorothy White, cook at the ranch.
We traveled into Pennsylvania via the New Jersey Turnpike to Bryn Mawr, a Philadelphia suburb, where we had lunch and a swim at the home of Godfrey Rebmann, another camper. After an enjoyable stop here, we traveled west via the Pennsylvania Turnpike to Cowan’s Gap State Park in the Allegheny Mountains.
The next day, all through Ohio, we saw acres and acres of wheat roll by. The weather was hot and we welcomed a thunderstorm at our campground, Mt. Gilead State Park in Ohio. Though somewhat damp, we enjoyed a hearty meal and soon closed our eyes on the second day of vagabonding.
Rising the next morning early, we went through Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois to Chicago, where we spent the night in a motel. We were the guests of Mr. and Mrs. F. T. Day at a sumptuous dinner, going on to the night baseball game between the Cleveland Indians and the Chicago White Sox which I particularly enjoyed.
Through Rolling Prairies
After a wonderful sleep, we pushed on through the rolling prairies of Iowa. Marvelous and vast was the acreage of corn stretching out on all sides as far as the eye could see.
That night we camped at Clear Lake, Iowa, and had a swim in the clear, warm waters of the lake. After supper we bedded down for a good night’s sleep. After 300 or 400 miles on the road, you don't have any trouble getting to sleep.
The next morning, which was Sunday, we went to church, after which we had a refreshing swim in Clear Lake and then we were off on a jaunt that took us to the prairies of central South Dakota, where we pitched camp amid the prairie grass. We were really West! After supper, we played games, a pleasant change after the long, hot drive of the day.
Cross the Missouri
Next morning we crossed the rolling Missouri at Chamberlain, S. D. and pushed onward to Rapid City at the foothills of the Black Hills. Starting to climb now, we passed the Mount Rushmore National Monument and camped at Horsethief Lake in the late evening. We were amazed at the beauty of the hills and the sunset and bedded down looking forward to seeing the scenery in the morning.
After breakfast, we visited Mt. Rushmore, amazed at the beautiful work of art carved out of the granite of the mountain with the heads of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt easily recognizable, even miles away. The museum there is exceedingly interesting with its description of the work.
We enjoyed a swim in Horsethief Lake before lunch and afterwards, six boys including myself and our counselor, Neil “Prunes” Pronay, Katonah, N. Y., climbed Harney Peak, the highest peak between the Rockies and the Swiss Alps, attaining an altitude of 7240 feet. A forest ranger station and fire tower greeted us after the three-mile hike up the steep mountainside. After taking pictures and viewing the scenery, we returned to camp.
After supper, we visited Mount Rushmore again, this time with the floodlights on it. It was an amazing sight. I was tired after the day's climb and had a good sleep.
Reach Estes Park
Next morning we broke camp and drove 400 miles to the southwest, through windswept Wyoming plains into Colorado and Estes Park Campground on the eastern slope of the Rockies. Here we pitched camp for the last time on the trip out. After supper, we sang songs around the campfire with a group of girls from a nearby camp. We were sorry to leave but the last day of the trip remained before us.
Early on July 3 we headed up the Trail Ridge Drive from Estes Park, pulling up over 5,000 feet of steep upgrade with the two heavily laden trailers. We attained the top at well over 12,500 feet and enjoyed a stupendous view of the surrounding countryside. We proceeded down in the valley on the western slope into Grand Lake and Granby. We shopped for food and had lunch in town and then headed north on Route 125 for 17 miles over a country road. Excitement ran high among all of us for, after traveling over 2,000 miles, we were within four miles of our goal. Twisting up the winding road, we struggled up the last knoll, the hardest of all, where we had to get out and push. Clambering aboard, we rounded a bend and there, standing in the late afternoon sun was the Ranch. We had arrived at last.
The first few days at the ranch were busy ones. There was a great deal of work to be done. The day after our arrival we started rebuilding the ranch, a job which took all summer and still may be improved upon. From my own point of view, great progress was made.
Big Cleanup Job
Throughout the summer, work was assigned to us by Mr. Pavek, but in the first few days everyone pitched in without much formality. Willing hands mopped floors, painted roofs, chopped wood and mended fences. Within a week we were a first-class ranch with running water, electricity, supplied by our own power plant, and beds to sleep on. Improvements were continually being made, but the effort put into the first week was never surpassed.
However, it was not all work. The horses were ridden over the Continental Divide to our ranch, and we welcomed them for now we could ride all over the surrounding area, a sport looked forward to by all of us since we left the East.
We took time out from our chores to visit the Granby rodeo on July 5th. This was a new experience for us and we enjoyed it very much.
Indians In Full Dress
Our first trip away from the ranch was to the Cheyenne Frontier Days on July 24 and 25. This is the greatest rodeo in the West and is called “The daddy of them all.” The parade was tremendous with Indians in full dress, feathers and all, and cowboys (real ones) in 10-gallon hats and real silver and gold buckles on their belts. Our trip to Cheyenne will long remain in our memories.
One evening after supper, Mr. Pavek informed us that Wrangler Joel Pettingill of Colorado A&M was taking five boys on a 5-day pack trip into the rugged North Park Country where there is some of the most spectacular and beautiful scenery in the world.
The remainder of the boys were to take a five-day camping trip to Yellowstone Park and the Tetons in Wyoming. I was one of the boys who went to Yellowstone, and although the boys on the pack trip later told us what a wonderful time they had, I'm sure it couldn't have surpassed the thrill of that Yellowstone trip.
We camped near the famous Old Faithful geyser while in Yellowstone and so many of the geysers in action. We didn't turn south to the Grand Teton National Park and spent a marvelous day there. We hiked seven miles up to Surprise Lake near the Teton Glacier and Mrs. Pavek, Neal Pronay, and I climbed up to the Teton Glacier. From there we enjoyed one of the most beautiful views in the world. It was a thrilling sight and I think that day was the best of the summer. I hope to return there some day.
Attend Dance Festival
Toward the end of the summer, we journeyed 100 miles to Steamboat Springs, Colorado, for the Square Dance Festival, where dancers from all over the Rockies come for the biggest event of its kind in the country. The dancers are very good and we amateurs had a lot of fun trying to keep up with the others.
Weekly square dances in Grand Lake, 45 miles from our ranch, always gave us something to look forward to on Sunday evenings. This is the town where we went to church, too, and we often took a picnic lunch and watched the sailboat and motorboat races on the lake, the highest yacht anchorage in the world, during the afternoon. We tried swimming but the icy waters held us down to about five strokes.
We had several different pack trips during the course of the summer, two of them to Bowen Lake, high above the ranch. We camped overnight and returned the next day, hiking over the top of Cascade Mountain which towers 13,000 feet above the ranch on the Continental Divide.
Bowen Lake is teeming with fish, probably due to its inaccessibility. We caught enough trout in a short time to provide us with a hearty supper, two fish apiece at breakfast, and we carried 70 back to the ranch, packed in snow in our knapsacks. One may catch his limit of 20 fish in half an hour with little effort.
We visited the Colorado-Big Thompson Project, the purpose of which is to provide the dry eastern slopes of the Rockies with the surplus of water from the western side for irrigation and power. We saw the pumping station at Granby, one of many such stations in this tremendous engineering development of the U. S. Department of Interior.
Weekly Steak Fries
One of the most popular activities was our weekly steak fries in the mountains near the ranch, with the boys singing around the campfire accompanied by Joel with guitar.
Our dream summer ended with a banquet on Tuesday, August 19. The food, all during our stay, was superb, but our cook, Mrs. Dorothy White, a wonderful person, outdid herself that last night with many delicacies as shrimp cocktail, roast beef, corn-on-the-cob, and strawberry shortcake on the menu.
Early on the morning of Aug. 20, two station wagons, one pulling a trailer, loaded with boys, headed out of the gates of Vagabond Ranch on the homeward journey. Coming west we had adopted the pioneer call of “Wagons West,” so now “Wagons East” was the cry. For me, at least, it was the most exciting summer of my life and like MacArthur, “I shall return.”
I think I can safely say for all the boys it was the most satisfying and thrilling experience of our lives.
Billy O'Donnell
Litchfield, Connecticut
Sept. 1952