A section of the Santa Fe trail runs through the Cimarron National Grasslands near Elkhart Kansas, a large expanse of semi-desert land covered with sand sagebrush, cactus, and various flowering plants. The Cimarron river flows alongside the trail and during the summer months is usually dry. Huge old cottonwoods line the bank and provide some much needed shade to travelers passing through. The land is mainly flat with gently rolling hills and bluffs that line the valley. This is the old prairie in all its glory. History can be felt here as you travel the same trail that countless travelers have traveled before you, mountain men, settlers, wagon trains, Indian hunters and warriors, cowboys driving cattle, every memory of the old west has seen this trail and made their own journeys along it.

In early June of this year five historical reenactors riding mules and horses recreated a portion of that journey. They made the journey along the same route traveled by countless journeyers before them. Carrying their own food and water and camping in primitive camps they experienced the same brutal heat with temperatures reaching way into the high 90’s and a 13-15 mph wind that sometimes felt like the inside of a convection oven during the day, and dropping back into the 60’s at night, a blessed relief after the heat of the day. Riding the original trail, seeking water wherever it was available for their stock, climbing the bluffs to look over the endless sea of prairie grass, they felt the history of this famous byway. The discomforts all part of the journey.