My morning started in Moab with an early breakfast at the world famous jailhouse cafe. I enjoyed their famous waffles. The three others that I’m riding with like to enjoy their sleep allot more than taking in the rising sun; and don’t seem to do breakfast other than morning coffee.
So far I’ve travelled alone but, somewhat together. We usually stay at the end of the day at the same motel; except for today. My lodge style room with a complimentary breakfast at a real restaurant across the street at Bryce Village cost me $52 compared to nearby rooms the others prebooked yesterday for $79. Maybe Booking.com likes me. Last night in Moab we stayed at the same place. Another $50 room for me and the others paid between $70 and $90.
I don’t know if it was on account of Covid but, no rangers showed up to collect my $25 motorcycle entrance fee. I was in and out with the rising sun. A great ride it got cold in the valley areas around 50 degrees. 60 degrees in the sun felt warm.
And then I hit highway 70 where the speed limit is 80 mph. Naturally you ride at 90 and before long it also seems slow. This road is truly Americana Autobahn. Large wide and progressively long and can be a bit boring were it not for the speed limit.
I found this great little stop called Caboose village. About eight cars with a deck, fireplace, AC, a creek flowing behind it. Looks like a resort or train B&B.
And then I toured the Butch Cassidy childhood home and learned a little more history. The eldest of 13 children, Butch Cassidy was born Robert LeRoy Parker on April 13, 1866, in Beaver, Utah.
His grandparents and parents were Mormons who moved from England to America in the 1850s in response to Brigham Young’s call for overseas members of the Church of Latter-day Saints to help establish communities in Utah
In the early 1880s, while working at a Utah ranch, Robert LeRoy Parker met Mike Cassidy, a cowhand and small-time cattle rustler and horse thief. Parker admired the older man, who taught him about training horses and shooting a gun. However, after getting into trouble with the law, Mike Cassidy fled the area, and Parker himself departed Utah in search of new opportunities after turning 18 in 1884.
In 1879, the Parker family moved to a piece of property near Circleville, Utah, where they farmed and raised cattle. To help contribute to his family’s finances, the future Butch Cassidy left home to work at other ranches in the area.
At age 13, while working at one of these ranches, he had his first run-in with the law after being accused of stealing a pair of overalls from a store. As the story goes, he’d made a long ride into town only to find the store closed, so he let himself in, took the pants and penned a note promising to return with payment. Instead, the store owner had him arrested. Although the teen was let off, the experience reportedly left him resentful toward the legal system and people in authority.
Over the next few years, he spent time in the mining boom town of Telluride, Colorado, followed by Wyoming and Montana.
On June 24, 1889, Parker pulled off his first bank robbery, when he and several companions absconded with more than $20,000 from the San Miguel Valley Bank in Telluride.
Not long afterward, Parker starting using the surname Cassidy, in honor of his former mentor, and referred to himself as Roy Cassidy. He eventually moved on to Rock Springs, Wyoming, where he landed a job in a butcher’s shop and, according to popular legend, became known as Butcher Cassidy, which morphed into Butch Cassidy.
With bounties being offered for his capture and posses and Pinkerton detectives pursuing him, Cassidy decided to make an escape.
In early 1901, Sundance and Etta Place traveled to Argentina. It’s unknown whether Cassidy was with them or if, as some historians believe, he stayed behind and in July of that year took part in a train robbery near Wagner, Montana. By some point in 1902, Cassidy was in South America and he and Longabaugh, using assumed names, had purchased land in Argentina’s Cholila, where they ran a ranching operation.
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