If you've ever been both educated and entertained by a Minnesota computer company (MECC) when you were young, you likely will remember learning about the Oregon Trail. It's more than just a game; it's a real life adventure.
Found just outside Casper, Wyoming, there are historical markers that memorialize the Oregon Trail, along with its counterpart trails to Bozeman Montana, California, and Salt Lake City (otherwise known as the Mormon Trail). This is approximately the point where travelers on their long journey would come across the North Platte River that needed to be crossed. If you've ever played the old game, and you hadn't been delayed by taking the "wrong" Bozeman Trail beforehand, you may remember the option to pay five dollars for a ferry here. That truly did exist, along with the option to ford the river, which as the memorial explains, become a deadly choice for some during the blizzard of 1856. Today, drivers will have a much easier time crossing along modern day bridges, but it still remains a spot for water related entertainment for the locals.
This area just outside Casper wasn't just about sojourners seeking a better life in the west. While easterners were busy pillaging the southern former states in the mid-1860's, the Battle of Red Buttes was brewing, as the natives would stir up a fight against Lieutenant Caspar Collins (after which the fort and later city were named) and Sergeant Amos Custard (after which an alternate title of this battle was named, the Custard Fight) in alleged revenge over recent federal military action in Colorado. Attempts to find the exact location of the battle have been made, but without Army markers of the site or the mass graves, debate has ensued about where it actually took place, citing various artifacts left behind in the fields.
There isn't a highway today that will necessarily take you along the exact right of way of each of these old trails. However, you will be able to take something similar, especially in the high plains and the Rockies, as there are only so many ways to traverse this stretch of land. The state of Wyoming has done quite the job of preserving the history of this notable migration, including the now inactive forts that still exist outside the modern cities of the same names, along with other landmarks including Independence Rock, where another such rest area and interpretive site are available to travelers.
So if your Internal Compass takes you west, perhaps consider the ways of their forefathers and head along the trails of the old west.
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