Essays by DAR

Wagon Train

(First published in Parents Magazine)

To that eternally unanswerable question, what’s wrong with kids today? – I have at least a partial answer: They haven’t seen enough westerns. They watch galactic shoot-em-ups instead of down-to-earth cowboy showdowns. Without ever having experienced the rough bliss of doffing chaps and coon-skin cap, their eyes have taken on that milky faraway look. They’ve spent too much time in space.

My solution? I’ve made it my Mission Possible to introduce two sons to the romance of the old West. Since they were toddlers, I’ve been force feeding them frontier values – self-sufficiency, pluck, the ability to be cheerful under trying circumstances – largely through the good office of Nickoledon reruns. As a result, my ten year old can whistle the Gunsmoke theme. My seven year old has pictures of Davy Crockett over his bed. And last summer we took a trip to Wyoming for a wagon train adventure that instilled them with enough baked beans to last a lifetime.

Think trails of sizzling bacon wafting through the summer air. Think the camaraderie of bouncing over the hardened ruts of a genuine old stagecoach route. Yes, the cowboys of the Teton Wagon Train & Horse Adventure in western Wyoming have concocted a surprisingly affordable way for budget-conscious, comfort-loving families to relive the perils and joys of wagon-training. Comfort-fitting the old-fashioned Conestoga wagons with rubber tires and padded seats so it’s more like a glorified hay ride or a dude ranch on wheels, they lead families on a 4 day, 3 night adventure along a trail in the Targhee National Forest nestled between the Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. Put away your cell phones (you’ll be out of contact, anyway) and tell the kids to flush their toilets an extra time, just for the memory – you’ll be delving into some of the most beautifully desolate country in the West, inhabited only by trees and bears.

Bears, did I say? Indeed, the region is technically known as a Grizzly Recovery Zone – where the forestry service has relocated some 600 grizzles that were acting up at Yellowstone. Never fear, however: There are two reasons why, in almost 30 years of operation, bears have never caused the Teton Wagon Train a problem. (1) With noses up to one hundred times more sensitive than ours, grizzlies avoid us like the plague. (2) In the best cowboy tradition, the operators of the wagon train are safety-conscious to a fault. Beneath those gruff exteriors (think rawhide-weathered faces) they have hearts as soft and cautious as nursery school mamas.

It’s astonishing how fast Jeff Warburton and his brother Chris take us under their wing. Though they have taught horsemanship at a university level, they scoop both my little guys onto their knees to talk to them in language they readily understand: "Horses have no on-off button. They’re on all the time," they explain, popping a juicy stalk of clover between their teeth. "Luckily, locking your heels down is your seat belt." In no time they’ve taught each city slicker how to handle a whittling knife so they don’t cut themselves and throw a lasso so they don’t dehead their elders.

So thoroughly are we made to feel safe, in fact, that within hours I actually get to hear my super-protective wife calling out these counter-intuitive syllables: "Kids, why don’t you go outside and practice your tomahawk-tossing?" Indeed, add tomahawk-tossing (into an out-of-the-way tree stump) to the many pastimes the kids can’t get enough of, along with bronco-riding (either alongside the wagon train during the day’s trek or after-hours at camp), canoe-paddling (at one of the many lakes we pass) and waterfall-exploring (all with adult supervision, of course).

Jeff and Chris prove to be well-rounded wranglers: psychologists when the kids need calming, morale-boosters when they need cheering, trench-diggers when the rains come and threaten to flood the Civil War era canvas tents we sleep in every night. Around the crackling campfire after sun-down they even function as circus ring-leaders, spinning yarns about the Old West, dispensing history about the 19th century covered wagon migrations (pitched just right for old as well as young), reciting cowboy poems to the plucking of a five string guitar.

But it’s the chefs who truly steal the boys’ hearts. Like magic, every few hours, two rugged cowgirls step through wreaths of barbecue smoke to offer bottomless vats of Dutch oven-cooked chicken, beans baked with pineapple, bacon fried with green peppers, even home-cooked peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream that has been kept frozen in containers of dry ice. Suffice to say the kids do not go hungry. Their parents actually gain a few pounds.

After skipping a couple of generations, it’s amazing to see a sight from the 50s: kids playing cowboys and Indians for hours in the open fresh air. If you’ve been looking for an unforgettable and truly unique vacation—or just want to see the ears of your child bent double under the weight of a ten-gallon hat—then I have two words for you: Wagons ho!