As children, for some reason, we played Cowboys and Indians. Probably most politically incorrect today, but I distinctly remember being in love with Kit Carson. Kit Carson was a frontiersman, his hair was long and blond and his horse's name was Apache. Then there was Roy Rogers whose horses name was Trigger!! Hopalong Cassidy was another favourite as was Daniel Boone with his Coonskin cap and then of course there was Buffalo Bill!!
We knew a lot about the Red Indian Tribes too - Cheyenne, Sioux, Shoshane, and somehow Hiawatha and Minihaha were muddled up in between in my childhood memories. I can still recite Longfellow's poem to this day, virtually verbatim...'
Today standing far, far away from our usual Hwange waterhole, we are overlooking the famous Grand Teton. The Grand Teton is the largest mountain in the Teton range and stands majestically overlooking the Grand Teton National Park.
Grand Teton National Park is a national park of the United States in northwestern Wyoming. The park includes the major peaks of the 64 km long Teton Range as well as most of the northern sections of the valley known as Jackson Hole. Grand Teton National Park is 16 km south of Yellowstone National Park, and along with surrounding national forests, these three protected areas constitute the almost 22-million-acre Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Yellowstone National Park was the very first National Park in the whole world! The State is Wyoming, and as we travel we see names of towns that were strangely most familiar with in our Rhodesian childhood - names like Cheyenne, Caspar, and Laramie.
They say one remembers more of one's childhood upon reaching one's dotage, but these memories of our days of playing Cowboys and Indians with our cousins Liz and Mike have become very vivid with each new reminder in the magnificent Yellowstone National Park!!