My month in Wyoming

 My take on Wyoming

where I went this month

You can see there are a few gaps where I didn't manage to get to this month.  But considering that Wyoming is the 10th largest state, I think I did pretty well.  One thing I noticed when I was first planning my month here is that there are large chunks of the state with only unpaved roads, if there are roads at all, which made getting around more of a challenge.

Wyoming's land
The lack of roads in places is mostly due to mountains being in the way.  The eastern third of the state is an extension of the Great Plains, which is where those allegedly boring 81½ miles from Newcastle came from.  Nearly treeless, once covered with tall grasses, the land the early Indians and pioneers crossed looked nothing like the land does today, after all those farmers busted up the soil held in place by those grasses.

The western two-thirds is partly mountains and partly the basins between them.  Wyoming's mountains are indeed wonderful and rightly draw visitors from around the world to see them.  But to my mind (having once lived in Alaska where there are plenty of mountains), the geological wonder is what's under Yellowstone.  That volcano exploded 640,000 years ago and left behind a huge crater measuring 30 x 45 miles.  

What's amazing to me is the amount of volcanic activity that still goes on there - all the magma that still sits just beneath the earth's crust.  It constantly lets off steam - literally - and the entire area steams like a witch's pot (of dry ice) at Halloween.  There's so much energy that multiple geysers continue to spew liquid multiple times a day.  Yellowstone has more geysers than anywhere else in the world.  The park says people could spend a year exploring there, because there're so many different things to see.  I doubted that before I visited, but I don't doubt it now.  I was really sorry I had so little time to spend there and look forward to going back sometime.

Wyoming's land also includes a great deal of history, both of the Indians who first lived here (pictographs, petroglyphs) and also of the mostly white settlers who moved west for various reasons (gold, cheap land, religious freedom) in the 1800s and early 1900s.  I've tended to think that Wyoming was almost geographically cut off and didn't play much of a role in anybody's history.  Now I know that just the opposite is true.  Wyoming was practically a crossroads for centuries of human history.

It's almost incidental that it's also stunningly beautiful.  Well, it was incidental in its early history.  Now that's what brings people here again.

Wyoming's people
Wyoming has the lowest population of the 50 states.  I imagine it ranks only 49th in terms of number of residents per square mile because Alaska's got a lot more land to cover and not a lot more people to do it with.

I found that Wyomingites are almost proud of having so few people (though I saw that the Chamber of Commerce types are making efforts to convince people to move here).  The people who are already here, though, like feeling as if they have a chance to know everybody in the state.

These are almost all friendly, helpful folks.  Most all are willing to go at least a bit out of their way - some, quite a bit out of their way - to help other folks - even if they're tourists.

They're all glad to be living here and aren't interested in moving anywhere else.  They all say they like the small towns they're living in because they're small.  Except for all the wealthy people moving into the Jackson area, people tell me Wyoming is affordable, which they appreciate.

Wyoming is nearly last in the US in terms of value and quantity of manufactured goods.  What it does have is agriculture - Wyoming ranks #2 in the US in wool production - and mining.  Wyoming ranks #1 in the US for both coal and bentonite (an absorbent) and is #1 in the world in trona production (used to make glass, soap, paper).  There's still oil and gas production and uranium and precious stone mining.  But the federal government is Wyoming's largest employer, what with all those national forests and parks and monuments, and an air force base at Cheyenne.  I think tourism runs a close second.  I mention this employment information because I think it says something about the way people think around here.

Driving in Wyoming
When I first came into the state from South Dakota, I was headed for Devil's Tower.  Because I couldn't be sure that this state knew how to build roads in mountainous areas, I was a little apprehensive at first.  But I learned fairly quickly that Wyoming does as good a job of that as South Dakota and West Virginia (and unlike Colorado and Pennsylvania).  I could drive all over the state, on mountains or flat land, and not worry either before or during.

When I take these photos of license plates, I just pick some random car parked somewhere, and try to choose one that's not too dirty and isn't obscured by a license plate holder.  That's what this one is.  I've just noticed that it's also expired.  Maybe the cops are casual about that sort of thing here.

The first number denotes the county it's registered in.  I saw them up to 23, I think, and when they're double digit, they make the numbers half size and put them in the same place, but vertically.

Drivers like to go fast on Wyoming roads, but I didn't see much really blatant law-breaking.  They tend to stick pretty well to the posted speed limits; they don't usually tail-gate; they're usually willing to let other traffic merge in front of them.  Generally nice drivers, which I suppose fits with their generally friendly attitude towards others.

What I didn't see that I wanted to see

Not much other than what I mentioned in my daily posts.  But there is one place I wanted to get to and couldn't squeeze the time in for.  It's in that chunk of the state north of Cheyenne and south of Lusk and Douglas.  Near the town of Guernsey is the Register Cliff State Historic Site and the Oregon Trail Ruts State Historic Site.  Those ruts were left by wagon wheels 150 years ago.  And the Register Cliff was one of the checkpoints for westward travelers, prominent in 19th century guidebooks, and a place where many carved their names in the sandstone.  None of my relatives got past Texas and Oklahoma, but I'd still like to see these places.

I guess, rather than see new places, what I'd most like to do is spend more time in some of the places I visited this month.  There're some fascinating sights and sites here.

My conclusion

I liked Wyoming a lot but I could never live here, which is a shame.

Wyoming has so many natural wonders and interesting historical sites that I could happily spend a lot more time here getting to know them.  I liked the people I met and in general liked the towns they lived in.

What deters me from living here, aside from its obvious distance to an ocean (and I really do want to be closer to one than WY offers), is its political stance.  I really do want to move somewhere where there are 2 viable political parties.  If I wanted to live in a state where everybody thought the same, I could just stay in Texas and live away from the big cities.  Although I'm getting too old to really enjoy long harsh winters like I used to, that doesn't bother me nearly as much as the extremely strong streak of conservatism here.  Nothing at all wrong with conservatism in my book.  It's just that here, it's very strong and very deep.  

Wikipedia says there's only 1 reliably Democratic county (Teton, with its influx of affluent voters) and 1 swing county (Albany, where the Univ. of WY is).  Together they have less than 16% of the state's voters.  Otherwise the state is deeply Republican.  Although Congresswoman Liz Cheney is being opposed in the upcoming election because she believes in following the Constitution, the fact is that she's been an extremely conservative, and reliably conservative, vote in Congress - and in that sense, she's represented the views of her constituents well.

I'm honestly not sure why Wyoming's politics have gotten so conservative when they didn't use to be.  Nothing I saw in my month here told me what the basis is for such a strong strain of thought.  The only thing I can guess is that there are so many rural areas here, so few cities (the largest, Cheyenne, has only 65,000 residents), and rural areas everywhere tend to skew conservative.  So, I don't know why it's this way, but it is, and I'm looking for more choices.

But overall, my month here was a happy one and I'm glad I had the chance to come spend some time here.

Wyoming - Days 27 - 30 - in the campground, mostly

Rawlins KOA, Rawlins

Monday, 27 through Thursday, 30 September 2021

I spent a busy 4 days here.  I managed to write 10 blog posts, so I lacked only 3 when I left Wyoming, a vast improvement over both North and South Dakota.  Doing these posts also required editing the last 5 batches of photos I've taken, including figuring out which ones to use, a process that takes more time than you might think.

The weather was really warm for the first couple of days, and then I guess a cold front came through because on Tuesday night it got down nearly to freezing and on Wednesday I'm not sure the temp even got up to 50°.  And it rained off and on all day and then nearly froze during the night again.  

On Wednesday, the weather service issued a severe air quality alert because of wildfire smoke drifting our way.  Given my recent problems with asthma, I decided to heed their warning to stay indoors as much as I could.  I took the dogs out 4 or 5 times, of course, but it helped that the weather was so chilly and the wind was blowing and the rain was raining - they don't like that much more than I do.

The cold weather kept up on Thursday, too, though it warmed up a bit by mid-afternoon.  I found it'd been so cold that I needed to buy more propane, and it took more than 6 gallons (it's about a 7½ gallon tank).

I did the usual chores: laundry (4 washer loads - almost all the clothes I had in the cabin), shower, run to the grocery store, clean the windows.

I also found a dog groomer who was willing to take the puppies.  She charged me $56 for washing and brushing the two, which I figure is a real bargain.  And she willingly used a non-scented shampoo, which I (and I think the dogs) appreciated.  While she was doing that, I went back to the campground and washed the dog bed covers and aired the beds out on the picnic table.  I don't think they've had a bath since June, and it seemed the dogs were almost as glad to be clean as I was to have them so.

I found a vet in Vernal, UT (our next stop) who was willing to take on Lily while we'd be there, and was proud of myself for having thought of it in advance for a change.

Being here mid-week as we were, I noticed how reduced the number of campers is, compared to just a week ago.  They still had plenty of business, but up until now, campgrounds have been nearly full even on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.  Suddenly, it's not tourist season any more.  The people I talked to were mostly in transit - to or from visits to relatives.  Not many seemed to be in Wyoming to see the sights.  There were plenty of folks a couple of weeks ago in Yellowstone and Teton, but that was a couple of weeks ago.  There were more people here in Rawlins just last week than I saw this time through.  Hope that holds up and I can see Utah without fighting crowds.

The whole time we were here, I was seeing what I thought were antelope in the campground on our early walks.  Several times I saw at least 2 of them, making dog walking a hazardous occupation.  Well, Thursday mid-morning, we saw 3 male deer (not antelope) - all with full heads of antlers - standing together at the side of the campground.  I barely got the dogs away from there, since the deer didn't bother to run away.

I was really glad to have this time to regroup from the month and get ready for the next one.  Occasionally I'd wish I could do all these things while I was still traveling and seeing new things.  But I'm learning my brain gets too scattered to do both at once, and my energy level isn't quite what it was a few years ago.  I wouldn't wish to be any younger, but sometimes I wish my body were a little younger.  Well, we all live with what we've got.

Wyoming - Day 26 - to Rawlins via Snowy Range

Rawlins KOA, Rawlins
Sunday, 26 September 2021

This morning I got up before 2:00, the 2nd time the carbon monoxide detector went off.  That made 5½ hours of sleep last night, about 7 the night before, and about 5 the night before that.  I can't keep this up.  I know they say that old people don't need as much sleep, but I say maybe those old people just aren't getting as much sleep but need as much as they ever did.  I'm tired of this.

today's route

Actually, today's route was along the southern part of that loop around the interstate.  The northern part, through Medicine Bow, is the route I took when I went to Laramie a couple of days ago.  Today I went across the Snowy Range Pass on the route AAA has designated scenic.  And it was indeed a scenic route.

On the road

As I was leaving Laramie, I passed near the airport and saw a sign that I thought said University of Wyoming Flight School.  This seemed odd to me, and still does though I know more now that I've looked it up.  I learned that the UWyo is one of many universities that provides a college degree in aviation, that allows students to graduate with both the 4-year degree and a commercial pilot's license.  It's a program for people wanting aviation as a career, and apparently commercial airlines want their pilots to have a 4-year degree.

I've started a habit of scanning the areas near the roads for wildlife, mainly to be sure some suicidal deer isn't going to take me by surprise.  This morning I spotted a small grey wolf standing at the edge of a cornfield.  That's the first one I've seen on this trip.

The road I took out of Laramie - WY-130 - has been aptly designated the Snowy Range Scenic Byway.

At first what I saw was your usual beautiful coming-into-the-mountains scenery and reached the small town of Centennial, pop. 270 and elev. 8,076'.

A sign told me I was in Medicine Bow National Forest.  Also that it was Open Range with Loose Stock.

The birch/aspen up there were beautiful - yellow and orange and red - and especially so with the sun shining on them.  I'd left the campground at 7:30, a half hour after sunrise, but I was heading west so the sun was an aid to scenery enhancement instead of a danger to my driving.  We stopped for a break at a large parking area with picnic tables and a trailhead for an alpine hike.  These photos don't show how pretty the trees really were, but they'll give you an idea.

I can't tell aspen from birch and both are native to Wyoming, so I tend to use them interchangeably. 

The road continued to climb and my ears started popping.  I passed the National Forest's Snowy Range Ski Area.  Out of curiosity I looked up their prices, which seem to me pretty reasonable.  A season pass for an adult is $309, and for a senior over age 70, it's free.  I still remember how much I enjoyed skiing when I lived in Alaska, and I'd love to do it again.  But the last time I tried - outside Vancouver in British Columbia - my knee reminded me that I'd bunged it up skiing in Alaska and it just wasn't strong enough any more.  Too bad.

This mountain road was filled with s-curves.  One sign told me I had a double s-curve coming up, but it was a little unusual.

And that's what the road did.

I remembered that sign I saw about this being an open range area when I passed 2 black cows about 8'-10' from the edge of the road, and shortly another black cow on the other side of the road, and then still another walking right on the very edge of the road.  So yeah, open range.

At about this point I started to see snow on the ground.  First it was just in the shady areas, but then I saw it in bright sunlight.  These mountains are called Snowy Range, after all.

I negotiated a hairpin turn and then saw a warning sign saying there's a "steep slope next 10 miles."  I now realize that must mark where Snowy Range Pass is, though I didn't see a sign for it.  The pass is shown on the AAA map as being 10,847' high (I've seen 2 other heights from 2 other sources, but I'm going with AAA) - 3,000' higher than Laramie.  It's followed by Medicine Bow Peak, which I did see a sign for.  The peak is 12,013' high and no, I didn't get up there.  There're trails that lead those so inclined to the top, but I was only interested in the downward incline the road led me on from there.

This road is closed in winter, typically mid-November until Memorial Day.  And I'm wondering now about that ski area.  Is the road plowed up to that point?  Because there just aren't enough skiers with vehicles that can negotiate unplowed roads to support a ski area.

Anyway, I had an indication of how high the snow gets by tall sticks attached to many of the roadside signs and reflectors along the roadside, to extend their height.  If it's not to help snowplows know where they are, I don't know what they're for.

I saw more signs saying to "Watch for Wildlife on Road."  I regret that the cows were the only critters I saw.

For the last few weeks, my asthma has been getting very bad and I don't know why.  Wildfires?  Smoke?  Particulates?  Simply very dry air?  My sinuses get clogged so my body thinks it needs air - and I have had instances of shortness of breath - and I start coughing.  A lot, day and night.  I'm sure my critters are as tired of it as I am, but I also figure my campground neighbors get bothered, though there's not anything I know of to do.  Sometimes my inhaler helps, but not always.  It doesn't seem to matter if it's warm or cold outside.  The air's been very dry for weeks, but I'd always heard dry air (aka Arizona) was supposed to be good for people with respiratory problems.  Well, I'm going to Utah in a few days.  We'll see if maybe I'm just allergic to Wyoming.

I crossed the North Platte River, where the road turned north.  I passed a state historical marker for the Overland Trail, which was an alternate route to the Oregon, California and Mormon Trails that went through other parts of Wyoming.  Apparently there are still trail ruts that can be seen by those intrepid enough to go looking for them (not me).  This trail was most famous for being used by the Overland Stage Company, which operated in the 1860s.  I can't see that anyone knows why Ben Holladay (the stage owner) chose to use this route, given its arduous conditions and frequent raids by local Indians on both the stages and the stage stops, when there were other routes that seemed to work just fine.  But this is where the trail ran.

I saw a lot of antelope from here to Rawlins.

Remember that facility I passed on my way to Laramie 2 days ago that I thought looked like an oil refinery?  Well, today I passed it again and saw a sign saying it's owned by Sinclair and (they say) is "The West's Most Modern Refinery."  So I guessed right.  Nothing like growing up in Texas to give you an eye for oil refineries.

And we made it back to the Rawlins KOA after 4 hours of driving (Google said it'd take 2, but I knew I wouldn't be setting any speed records over 10,000' mountain passes).  Rawlins's elevation is 6,827', meaning I climbed 3,000' and dropped another 3,000'.  Maybe my breathing would improve if I just stayed on flat land for a while.  But I do love the mountains.

Wyoming - Day 25 - errands and sightseeing in Cheyenne and Laramie

Laramie KOA, Laramie

Saturday, 25 September 2021

today's route on the road

and the route through Cheyenne

On the road

I guess we started climbing not too many miles out of Laramie, though I didn't really notice it.  It wasn't long before I found we'd gotten to a pass.  But all the sign said was Pass - elev. 8,640' - which seems to be a respectable enough height to deserve a name, but I had a hard time finding one.  Finally, someone's flickr.com page told me that Sherman Summit, elev. 8,640', "is a mountain pass on the crest of the Laramie Mountains," and holds the distinction of being the highest point along the entire transcontinental length of I-80.  Why couldn't some government agency - like the highway department - have told me that?

An oddity: the city of Laramie isn't in Laramie County; it's in Albany County.  Cheyenne is in Laramie County.

I passed a large wind farm, this time with most of the turbines working.  Cows, huge fields, lots of rolling hills.  Lots of billboards eastbound for Little America.  I thought that was a town in western Wyoming, which it is, but this place is an expansion of the operation there, and here it isn't a town but a destination stop - you know, hotels and restaurants and entertainment.

Cheyenne

I came to Cheyenne, elev. 6,062', but oddly no sign telling me the population.  Online I found that the 2018 projection was 63,957.  It is, of course, Wyoming's largest city.  I should note that all my life I've pronounced this name shy-ann, which is wrong.  They pronounce it: shy-enn - like cayenne pepper.

My first stop was the only Chase Bank in the state.  I was almost completely out of cash because it's been months since I last found a branch.  And this one only opened about 6 months ago, so I was lucky.

Then I went to one of the few CVSs they have in WY.  This is where I'd asked the Greybull doctor to call in my Rx refills.  While I was in there, a sign reminded me I still hadn't gotten even the first of the 2 shingles shots and, since I had the measles light years ago, I figure I've been lucky not to have been hit with the disease yet.  And while I was at it, I asked for this year's flu shot as well.  The pharmacist wanted to give them to me in different arms, not for drug reasons but for pain reasons.  I told him my left arm was already hurting so to put them both in that arm and I'd barely notice the difference.

During the time I was there, I was heartened to see 2 youngish adults sign up for the COVID vaccine.  One was a mother with a newborn baby.  I wondered what had made them finally decide to get the shot but was afraid if I asked it'd discourage them.  A good sign, I thought, that they were doing it.

From there I drove past a large park - Cheyenne seems to be an attractive city - and found the state capitol, beset by roads closed due to construction.  But I finally found a spot where I could take a photo.

Wyoming State Capitol

The cornerstone was laid in 1887 - unusual because Wyoming didn't become a state until 1890.

The state museum was catty-cornered to the capitol, and I tried hard to find a place there to park the RV but finally ended up parking back in front of the capitol.  I took the dogs out on the big lawn (no deer poop) by the state supreme court, we ate lunch, and then I spent a couple of hours at the museum.

They had some really nice exhibits there, and I found a lot that was very interesting.  But I'm trying hard to get these blog posts caught up before I get to Utah so I'm going to wait on detailing what I saw there.  I'll notify you when I've updated this with that information.

That makes 5 museums I need to catch up on: the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis; the Birmingham Civil Rights Museum; the Oklahoma History Center; the North Dakota State Museum; and now this one.  I promise I'll get this situation cleaned up, mainly because I'm still saving the photos and am still interested in the topics.

After my time in the museum, I took the dogs back out for a walk, this time on the capitol grounds to see the statues they've got there.  We passed a group of 10-12 folks carrying 2 full-sized US flags and a Trump 2024 flag.  At the time, they were all reading off a piece of paper while one of them read it aloud.  I wasn't close enough to hear what it was about.  

Earlier I'd seen a man wearing some signs front and back that were hard for me to read.  One read: "There is Blood on Your Hands."  I don't know why.  Another read: "Right To Try ___[something]," and still another read: "Free ___[something else]."  Not an effective way of getting a point across.  He left the area when I took the dogs out.

Across the street from the capitol is this statue:

Bill Gollings
Cowboy Artist

The top plaque explains who he was.

At the side of the capitol was this amazing piece:

The Spirit of Wyoming
A Monument to the Citizens
of the State of Wyoming
1986

The plaque at the base of that statue has nothing else on it but the names of all the coal, oil, steel, chemical, and railroad companies that paid for it.

This one's right in front of the building.

the state seal, placed squarely in front

Okay, this next one's not a statue.  On the side of the capitol opposite the bucking bronco was a bison statue, looking just like I've been seeing them with the heavy coat on the front half and bare skin on the back half.  Because I've been taking photos of the real thing, I didn't bother with a photo of this statue.  But across the street at the museum, this is the first thing I saw:

That bison indubitably has hair on its back half.  I asked one of the museum folks and he told me the bison here has its winter coat on.  But in the summer they shed all that back hair, and I've been seeing them in the summer.  Mystery solved.  They don't go around hairless in the snowy northern winters.

Back on the road

Driving back to Laramie, we had the usual Wyoming wind but it wasn't as strong today as I've seen.  I was surprised to see a sign going back that I hadn't seen coming over which was: "Strong Winds Can Constitute A Severe Blow-Over Risk - Pull Over."  I'm not sure why they had this sign for the westbound folks but not for the eastbound ones.

I saw several billboards with the headline "Forever Ruined" that seemed to be opposed to the wind farm I've been seeing around here.  The "forever" part seemed a little overstated to me, especially given the open pit coal mines I've seen in this state (which these folks advocate) that I suspect will not return the land to its original state once they're depleted.  But anyway, I looked it up and learned that these anti-turbine folks are dead serious, though I'm not certain how well-informed they are.  Here's some explanation I found:   https://wakeupwyo.com/turbine-project-opinion

A sign told me I'd entered the Medicine Bow National Forest.  Scarcely a tree in sight - though that changed as we went farther west.

I'd planned 2 stops and a detour before going back to the campground.  The first of the stops came up about halfway along the drive: Tree In the Rock Historic Site.  The state had created a rest area in the middle of the interstate - one of those you can reach from both directions by exiting left, which I hate to do.  But I wanted to see this place.  Sure enough - there's a tree growing out of a rock, sort of.

Tree In the Rock

These signs explain the situation:

You can just see this plaque buried
in the stone around the tree.
The cable it refers to is the one
that seems to be holding the 
rock together.

Also at this rest stop were these informational signs:

I was glad to see this sign, because on my way east
I found myself wondering what were these rocks I was 
passing, so I stopped on the side of I-80 and took some photos.

The rocks in these 2 photos were connected
with each other.

I don't know if you can tell how odd they looked
because I was 4 lanes & a median & a large
field away from them.  But I found them striking.

My next stop turned out to be at the summit I'd passed through earlier.  There's a rest stop for westbound folks (not one for eastbound) that has something called a Lincoln Memorial Monument, and I decided to take a look.  Certainly is an unusual depiction.

Lincoln Memorial Monument

This is the plaque embedded
in the base of the monument.

This sign is nearby and commemorates the
highway itself and one of the men
instrumental in getting it built.
I guess the name of the highway is the reason
this monument was placed where it is.

Also at this rest stop were 2 more signs about the various significances of this area.

The abrupt angle of this photo was
required to avoid glare from the sun.
I think it's still legible.

Back in Laramie

In case I didn't mention it before, Laramie's population (2010) is 30,816 and the elevation is 7,165' - 1,000' higher than Cheyenne.

I finally found a non-off-brand gas station that sold regular for a semi-reasonable price - I think it was $3.23, which was the lowest I've seen in weeks.  So I filled all the way up with thankfulness for finally getting rid of that worry.

This is a town of higher learning, I found out.  I passed both Albany County Community College and Laramie County Community College on my way to the campus of University of Wyoming.  Road construction kept me from following the route around campus I'd intended, but I still drove through a fair sampling.  It's a very attractive campus with lots of large lawns and buildings of stone and brick.  It was founded in 1886, before statehood, and the school shows a well-established presence.

You may remember Matthew Shepard, the Univ. of WY student who was killed in a pretty ugly manner a while back.  I remember hearing that he was killed for being gay; now I learn that no one knows for sure how much that fact contributed to the crime.  Here's a link to the story of the crime.   https://www.wyohistory.org/murder-matthew-shepard  I can't seem to find any memorials to him and his parents didn't even bury his ashes for fear of vandalism.  But a few years ago, they got permission to bury him in Washington National Cathedral - unusual to say the least.   The Smithsonian Magazine had an interesting article about the situation.   https://www.smithsonianmag.com/matthew-shepard-buried

Not far from the campground I passed the Wyoming Territorial Prison State Historic Site.  As the name (territorial) indicates, it was built in 1872 as a federal prison and was later turned over to the state.  It was used as a prison until 1901, and then as an agriculture research facility.  It's now open to the public, and there were dozens of cars parked there when I went by.  Yeah it's a sunny Saturday afternoon, but I wondered if there were some sort of event happening because it didn't seem like the kind of place where upwards of 100 folks would all decide to go visit at the same time.  I saw a woolly mammoth and a bison - neither were alive - which I guess were for the kids to play on.  Sometime I'd like to stop, with fewer people.  This Wikipedia page details its history, including the numerous jailbreaks and prisoners like Butch Cassidy.   https://en.wikipedia.org/WY-Territorial-Prison

We got back to the campground at 3:00, which made it a 7½ hour trip.  I was tired.

Wyoming - Day 24 - to Medicine Bow and Laramie

Laramie KOA, Laramie

Friday, 24 September 2021

Once again, despite having gone through this 2 nights ago, I woke up at 11:30 last night and got up at about 1:00.  This is really getting a little old.  Not to mention dangerous.  Since I'm a morning person, I don't really start noticing the effects until late in the morning or early afternoon, at which time I'm usually on the road and not in a position to take a nap, which anyway I can't take because they make me feel worse, not refreshed.  Quel nuisance.

today's route

On the road

East of Rawlins, I saw what looked like an oil refinery - a very very large processing plant of some kind with lots of smokestacks.

I was low on gasoline again and intended to stop where I turned off the interstate.  But I was at least 12 miles past that turn down US-287 when I realized I'd forgotten to look for a gas station (I didn't even see a town, but the map said there was one there).

At this point I knew I had a problem because my "get gas now" symbol was lighted on the dashboard, and I still don't know how many more miles I can drive after that makes an appearance.  I pulled over (onto a 2' shoulder but I thought the location was easily visible and passable from both directions) and desperately looked on the map for signs of civilization.  I even turned on my hot spot (and was stunned to find I had a signal out in the middle of nothing) to see if the tiny town up ahead was more than a ghost town.  It did indeed say there was gasoline there, so I hopefully put everything away and kept going forward instead of turning back.

When I got to the turnoff for Hanna, pop. 841, elev. 6,777', a highway sign told me there was FOOD and GAS thataway.  Very positive signs, I thought.

But I drove all the way through town (which isn't nearly as big as you'd think for 841 people) not seeing a gas station and finally found the post office.  The folks there told me to go back to a place across from the high school that, despite looking like it only serviced fleet vehicles, was actually a public station as long as I had a credit card.  They told me not to worry if the card reader didn't accept it the first time, or even the 2nd, but to keep trying and it would eventually go through.

So back I went, found the station - which didn't have any kind of brand name or even a sign - and at first couldn't find the card reader.  Fortunately a local guy came at the same time and I just followed his lead at the centralized card reader - it asks which pump you want.  The guy was really nice and talked me through the process, saying sometimes it took him 5 or 6 tries, usually when he was late to work.  These seem like really nice people and I don't know how on earth they've ended up with a set-up like this.

So despite the coaching, the machine didn't want to make friends with my credit card.  With either of my credit cards actually, because when it wouldn't take my regular VISA card I tried it on a gift card, and it didn't like that either.  Over and over I tried them both and it kept turning me down.  I kept getting messages like "Invalid Card" and "Declined."  Over and over.  Very boring.  And very nerve-wracking, because I truly needed gas.  

Then another local guy showed up, I let him play through, and he too got accepted.  And then I got the bright idea of asking if he'd be willing to buy gas for me and let me pay him cash in return.  Which he agreed to do, but not how I expected.  He stopped pumping his own gas and, without resetting the machine, started pumping mine.  And explaining while he did so that he was pumping highest grade premium, which I wasn't sure my poor little RV would know what to do with.  So I got him to stop at $20 worth and paid him while he finished filling his own tank.  At $4.26/gallon, $20 worth of that premium wasn't going to take me as far as I wanted, but at least it would get rid of that gas pump icon on my dash.

I went on down the road, keeping my speed at 55-60 mph to save gas.

I passed several types of energy: a very large wind farm, with not one of the turbines working; a very large electrical substation; and a very large field full of round hay bales.

Medicine Bow

My first thought coming into the town of Medicine Bow, pop. 284, elev. 6,563', was to find more gasoline.  The town had only 1 gas station, which figures given the population size, and they were charging $3.89 for regular, but I really needed fuel.  I put in $70 worth, and the needle read just over ½ full.

I knew there was a museum at this town but also knew it wouldn't be open, because the website said to call for an appointment, which I didn't bother with.  

This town's only claim to fame, as far as I can tell, is that Owen Wister stayed here for a few years in the late 1800s and used the town as a main setting in his book The Virginian.  I never read the book but did see the TV show a few times.  I remember Lee J. Cobb, probably because he's memorable in everything he did.  But I'd forgotten that Doug McClure and Clu Gulager were in it.

Anyway, I didn't have any attachment to the book at all, and pretty much none to the TV show, which is why I didn't make an effort to see the museum.  I found these signs outside:

Hard to read in real life
but basically a tribute to Wister.

I didn't ask.

Across the street is the town's hotel with the name as no surprise.

The Virginian

There was a lush yard of grass around the museum, which looked like a great place for the dogs.  I parked in the museum's parking area and walked the dogs over and found, to my great dismay, deer droppings everywhere.  I watched my step carefully, and found it impossible to stop Dext from sampling.  Both dogs decided it was a great place to roll around with abandon and I was very worried they'd find something to roll in I wouldn't want to live with in the cabin.  Very disappointing when I was hoping for a nice little walk.

The sun was out so we were comfortable enough having lunch there, but I wished I could walk the dogs more and wished I could stop worrying about gasoline.  We were just about to leave when I realized I'd forgotten to close the bathroom door (I leave it open for Lily to get to her box).  And when I got back in my seat I noticed 4 or 5 people standing right in the road (this is a US highway that is the main street of town) right in front of the museum.  And then I realized there was an adult deer probably contributing to the poop already on that grass.  

Once the people went away, I decided to try for a photo and the deer started walking toward the hotel.

He seemed pretty tame - walked right up to a couple of guys who were standing around in front of the hotel - and then walked casually away.  Strange town.

Back on the road

I'm noticing a distinct drop in the number of bugs that have been hitting the RV.  Up until a week or 2 ago, I was having to clean the windshield at least once a day, sometimes twice, because of all the grasshoppers and locusts and butterflies and other assorted bugs that would just cover the glass.  But now very few and most of them are pretty small.  Another good reason for fall.

I passed something labeled Como Bluff State Historic Site.  I didn't stop but have looked up the historic markers there.  This first is about why Como Bluff became nationally important.   https://www.hmdb.org/dinosaur-graveyard  And this second one has a couple of funny stories.   https://www.hmdb.org/albany-county-train-robberies  Odd how sometimes stories of the past can be so different from what they were at the time; now they're shocking or interesting or blah or funny or ironic.  Nothing like some perspective.

I saw lots of sheep (domestic, not Bighorn) - I think Wyoming is a big sheep-producing state.

At Rock River, pop. 245 and elev. 6,892', I passed school buses leaving school at 11:00.  Do they get out early on Fridays?  We sure never did.

Much of today's drive was on fairly flat land, which I'm guessing is probably the valley between the mountains I can see around us.  I saw scattered farmhouses along the way and lots of cows.

Bosler, elev. 7,074, which is shown as a town on the map, seems almost a ghost town.  Most of these little towns in Wyoming (which is most of the towns) have been losing population, according to census projections (I don't know what the 2020 results are).  Apparently, at a certain point they just cease to exist.

In contrast, about 7 or 8 miles outside of Laramie, I came to what was obviously a small town - lots of houses on streets that all had names on signposts.  But it's not on the map and it's too far out to be part of Laramie.  I never saw one sign or one business that had a town name on it.  Odd.

I was playing the Sgt. Pepper's album trying to stay awake - which it helped do.  But it's been a long time since I've listened to it and I'd completely forgotten - if I ever even realized - just how psychedelic that music is.  Since I was completely sober, it was almost hard to listen to at times.  Another way the past can change on us.

I came into Laramie, pop. 30,816 (WY's 3rd largest) and elev. 7,165, and saw a sign welcoming me to the Home of the University of Wyoming.

And I passed a sign for the Cathedral Home for Children, which I thought was an odd name so I looked it up.  Their website says it's a residential home for teenagers that provides trauma-sensitive care.  I clicked through their various pages 4 or 5 times and still couldn't figure out who these kids are that need this kind of treatment.  A different website told me it's a rehab place for mental disorders (bipolar, clinical depression, schizophrenia) and for dual diagnosis (kids who have a mental disorder plus an addiction problem).  I thought it was interesting the home itself couldn't just say this.  Those are all, to me, straightforward problems that have solutions.  Why pussy-foot around it talking about trauma.  These days the word trauma is used most often for long-term abusive situations or sudden serious devastating experiences.  

In town, I first stopped at a park so the puppies could have a walk.  Then I found an Ace Hardware in town, got a pair of their version of Channellocks (different brand), and headed toward the campground.  I passed a Catholic church named for St. Lawrence O'Toole, who is someone I'd never heard of and wasn't sure was real, so I looked him up.  Here's the Catholic's version of his life, which sounds pretty remarkable.   https://www.catholic.org/saints  It's just that I can't help of thinking of Peter O'Toole's version of Lawrence.

The KOA in Laramie is quite large, but they did keep their promise to me and gave us a site not far from the dog park.  I figure we won't be spending much time here anyway.

Wyoming - Day 23 - in the campground

Rawlins KOA, Rawlins

Thursday, 23 September 2021

I put in a little time working on the blog, but much of the day was spent dealing with the kitchen drain.  It had been emptying more and more slowly but, by today, it was just barely draining at all.  I'd never cleaned that one out but have done the one in the bathroom several times so figured the kitchen wouldn't be a problem.

Turned out it was.  The 2 drains aren't made the same, for one thing.  And for another, I've tightened the nuts in the bathroom so they don't leak but are still fairly easy for me to take off.  Not so the kitchen.  These 3+ years of being used without ever having been taken apart sealed the connections pretty well, and it took a lot of work for me to get it opened up.  Not to mention that I had to take all the drawers out just to get to it, which are their own set of nuisances.

Anyway, I did both drains and got the kitchen one back together okay, except it just didn't feel like I was getting it tight, and I sure didn't want to test it out by running water into it.  And the bathroom one, that I thought I was so familiar with, I just couldn't figure out where all the pieces went so it wasn't usable at all.

I went to the campground office to ask if they knew a handyman-type who could help me.  They gave me the names of RV plumbers, but I said it wasn't an RV problem, it was an ordinary connection problem and I didn't have a wrench the right size for the kitchen.  So the owner volunteered.  It was several hours before he could get free to come over, but he did.  He had a pair of Channellocks that did the trick in the kitchen, and he figured out that I had the bathroom pieces in the wrong order and got them put together.  But while he was doing all that, he pointed out that I still had partial clogs in the u-bends in both sinks that would cause me trouble sometime.

I figured out that they're also probably the sources for some of the unpleasant odors I smell now and then - though it's hard to pick apart the various smells from the dogs and other things going on here.  But I decided to buy some Channellocks of my own and clean the drains more thoroughly when I have a little time.

At least now the kitchen drain drains, and the bathroom drain too drains well.

I was glad to see that this was a fairly comfortable campground, because I'd already made reservations here for the last 5 days of the month.  It was nice to see that it wasn't a sea of gravel or totally lacking in trees or too small for us to walk very far or filled with prickly plants - those kinds of problems we've been finding.  And obviously the owners were very accommodating.

Wyoming - Day 22 - to South Pass City and Rawlins

Rawlins KOA, Rawlins

Wednesday, 22 September 2021

I woke up at 11:30 last night, couldn't get back to sleep, finally got up around 1:30.  I need more sleep than this and wish it'd change.

Today is the official Autumnal Equinox.  I won't myself see an equinox until Saturday, when the sunrise and sunset are both scheduled for 6:52 in Laramie, which is where I'll be.

today's route

Actually, I got off the interstate at Rock Springs and went north, then northeast to South Pass City, then came back southeast and south to Rawlins.  The interstate between Rock Springs and Rawlins was my route a few days ago when I went to Lyman.

On the road

Those mules I saw yesterday?  They were still there but had been moved to a nearby field of scrub.  Still nobody around that I could see.

At Rock Springs I bought gasoline for an outrageous price and headed north on US 191.  Nothing much along here but the usual scrubland, grazing land, hay fields, cows, a few antelope.

We stopped at Eden, pop. 281 and elev. 6,590' at their Sweetwater County Bicentennial Park.  Nice park, lots of trees and large picnic area.  And Dext and I saw a couple of antelope which had fortunately seen us first and were running away.  I'm learning that anywhere there's actual grass, keep an eye out for antelope.  And, sadly, antelope poop, which Dexter adores.  Yuck.

Both the map and Google said I'd change to WY-28 at Farson, and I found the highway but never found either the town or a sign for it.

I saw bee boxes, sheep, cows, cropfields that looked like hay (or alfalfa or other grain).  I saw a mama antelope and a new baby - very cute.

I passed a sign for the Little Sandy Crossing Historic Site and didn't stop but looked it up.  This place was important to all westward travelers, but especially so for the Mormons apparently.  Here's the historical marker there.   https://www.hmdb.org/little-sandy-crossing

I had mountains on both sides, though there are so many different ranges in this area, I can't tell from the map which I was seeing.  

I saw more antelope - 2 by the road, 5 in a field.  I saw one black cow alone in a field, looking across the road at a herd of black cows in another field.  Why did it get solitary confinement?

I passed a sign for the turnoff to South Pass National Historic Landmark and, though I didn't stop, I've found 2 very detailed accounts of its importance online, surprisingly not with the same details.  They make the point that the westward expansion of the US might not have happened without the discovery of South Pass.  I'm learning a lot about my country that I never knew.   http://enjoyyourparks.com/South-Pass-WY and   https://wyoshpo.wyo.gov/national-register/south-pass-national-historic-landmark

Along this road I saw many signs saying "Chain Law in Effect When Flashing," and even more pulloffs which were apparently for people to chain up.  This must be some road during the winter.

The Continental Divide again, elev. 7,550'.

I saw 2 signs about 12 miles apart, both saying Turn On Headlights, the first saying "next 42 miles" and the 2nd saying "next 30 miles."  Maybe this is important when it's snowing?

This time what I saw grazing near some snow fences was a large herd of antelope.

South Pass City

I don't remember that Google warned me that the road to South Pass City was unpaved, but it was.  But I was curious enough to make the 2-mile trip in.  

Coming into town I saw this sign,
and it made me a little nervous about whether this side trip was worth it.

I thought entrance to the historic area was by donation, which I was prepared to make.  But I found at the Dance Hall, at the entrance, that they'll accept donations but wanted me to pay $8 (senior), which I wasn't willing to do.  What they offered was a trip through the restored mining town, but I just couldn't drum up $8 worth of interest.  Besides the wind was blowing like crazy and the dogs wanted to walk, so we just walked around the current town instead of the old one.

I found this historic building and a couple of historic signs.

This old mercantile building marks Wyoming's first Masonic Lodge.

Back on the road 

At the turnoff to the town, I found a sign that mentions this town's connection to women's suffrage - unlikely though it may seem.

And here's a website that explains why South Pass City can claim title to Birthplace of Women's Suffrage.   https://www.nps.gov/exhibits/women

Another sign on the road proclaimed it to be Women's Suffrage Pathway - Home of the Women's Vote.

I passed a sign warning: Be Bear Aware - Food Storage.  And another: Watch For Elk On Road!!  (The exclamation marks were theirs.)  I'm sorry to report I saw neither bear nor elk.

In this area, most of the deciduous trees were turning colors, and I saw lots of yellow and orange leaves - very pretty in the sunlight.

A sign told me I'd have a 7% grade for the next 4 miles.  I was at least as interested in the adobe-red rocks I was seeing in the canyon.  And in the earth:

Those are oil tanker trucks,
showing there's another kind of gold in them thar hills.
But aren't the hills beautiful?

I was running into some very strong crosswinds, and having the extra problem of trying to stay awake.  I was afraid last night's lack of sleep might cause trouble.

I passed a sign for Ice Slough Historical Marker, which was surprising enough that I looked it up.  And indeed, there once was an important bed of ice here.   https://www.hmdb.org/ice-slough

Not long after I passed Jeffrey City, elev. 6,324', I turned south to stay on US 287 (north would have taken me back to Independence Rock).  I was back on the Chief Washakie Trail and still fighting sleep.

I crossed the Continental Divide, elev. 6,720' (it really winds around, doesn't it?), and came to Lamont, elev. 6,624'.  By this time I was so sleepy I almost drove head-on into a semi - twice.  I finally found a place to pull off.

It was a lousy place to stop but it was just barely big enough for the dogs and me to walk around a little and it helped wake me up.  The turnout happened to be at the beginning of Malcom X Road (huh?).  And when I walked the dogs I found some unusual signs.

The black car you can see on the road was a couple
from Vermont who were looking for a place to have lunch.
(You know I can't make this up.)

I'm not sure how uranium mining fits with
raptor nesting sites but I'm betting somebody forced BLM
to make these accommodations when they leased the mine.

After this little break, I crossed my buddy the Continental Divide, elev. 7,174', and very soon thereafter came into Rawlins.  This is the town we'd passed through a few days ago, and I'd planned a 2-night stay here, rather than 3 nights in Laramie, because the KOA here is much less expensive.

Wyoming - Day 21 - Fossil Butte

Lyman KOA, Lyman

Tuesday, 21 September 2021

My main concern on leaving the campground was to find gasoline.  All the stations I passed on the interstate coming here seemed to either have high prices or be difficult to get to, so by the time I got here on Saturday, my gas level was pretty low.  Today's drive wasn't supposed to be all that long, but I could see it'd be through unpopulated country and didn't want to be stranded.

today's route

Lyman

As soon as I turned onto WY-213 from the campground, I passed a field where there were lots of shiny new wheels, some attached to what looked like buggy frames.  The wheels and frames were definitely not intended for automobiles but looked instead almost delicate, though I'm sure they were tough.  I wondered if there were Amish in the area.

Lyman looked more like it was a Sunday morning than Tuesday because, when I came through about 10:00, there weren't many people around.  I'm guessing this is definitely a farming town.  I got some gasoline for the same high price I've seen elsewhere in this part of the state, so that will get me up to Fossil Butte today and back on the road tomorrow.

All around I saw lots of cows and sheep and some horses - even a herd of bison in a fenced field.

On the road

A short way down the road I came to the town of Urie, pop. 262 and elev. 6,768', where I turned north on 2 state highways.  All through that drive, I saw signs warning of wildlife.  

It started with a yellow sign showing a cow.  That's the message.  Meaning there's loose stock?  Why didn't they just use the "loose stock" signs I've seen all over the state?  Then I saw one of those leaping deer signs.  Then 3 more, each saying the deer were around for the next 5 miles.

I drove on hills and in valleys, scrubland and grazing land, with junipers scattered around.  The town of Carter, elev. 6,498, looked almost like a ghost town - there were a couple of apparently inhabited houses, but otherwise it looked like people had just walked away from a town.  Lots of snow fences, sometimes with cows grazing around them.

Two bluebirds flew across the road, both making me feel happy.

I passed 3 bridges where signs said "Strong Crosswind Possible At Bridge Ends."  Don't remember seeing that before.

I saw an antelope amid the scrub, then farther along an antelope grazing right by the road.  Then another warning sign of "deer [picture] next 5 miles."  I haven't seen many deer since Devil's Tower, but I've seen so many antelope I wonder why they don't get their own sign.  Elk do.  And pronghorns don't look like deer, so they'd be as recognizable as elk.

Then I saw a big bold sign saying "ATTENTION"  and "Deer Crossing" and "Next 10 Miles."  Then another one: "CAUTION" and "Watch For Animals On Road" and "Next 5 Miles."  I don't know what usually happens around here, but I only saw those 2 antelope.

Fossil Butte National Monument

I can't find how many acres are set aside here, but this is a large tract of land.  The drive from the main road to the visitor center was more than a mile, all of it on monument land.  And I hadn't gone very far before I started seeing signs showing a timeline of Earth's development.  They'd laid it out on a scale of 9" = 1,000 years or something, and since they started with the actual formation of the Earth 4.567 billion years ago, you can see the list was long.  I'm not going to include all their notations, as some of them were too scientific for me, but I did find the relative positions of some events interesting, so here goes.

   4.527 billion years ago: Moon forms

   4.5 bya: core, mantle and crust form; early atmosphere

   4.4 bya: continental crust; oceans

   4.055 bya: oldest known rocks

   2.6 bya: early ozone; bacteria on land

   2 bya: oxygen in atmosphere

   1.8 bya: Supercontinent Columbia

   1.5 bya: Columbia breaks up

   1.2 bya: true algae

   1.1 bya: Supercontinent Rodinia

   750 million years ago: Rodinia breaks up

   635 mya: sponges; Earth covered in ice

   600 mya: jellyfishes; fungus; protective ozone

   510 mya: clams

   500 mya: carbon dioxide at 20 times today's levels

      oxygen at today's levels

   420 mya: jawed fishes; arachnids

      amphibians

   400 mya: insects

   360 mya: ferns

   350 mya winged insects

   290 mya: conifers

      Guadalupe Mountains National Park [presumably what's now the park]

   260 mya:

      Mesozoic Era; Triassic Period; mass extinction (83% of genera)

   250 mya: Supercontinent Pangea

   220 mya: mammals; pterosaurs

      Jurassic Period; mass extinction (48% of genera)

   200 mya

      Atlantic Ocean

      Pangea breaks up

   150 mya: birds; Dinosaur National Monument

   110 mya: geckos; palm trees

   70 mya: grasses

      deer; horses; bats

   50 mya: whales; Fossil Lake [here] dries up

      dog & cat lineages diverge

   40 mya: continents near present position

      cats 

      bears

      San Andreas Fault; hominid ancestors; grasses prosper

      ducks

   20 mya

   10 mya: Gulf of California

      dogs 

      Mt. McKinley

      1st eruption of Yellowstone Caldera

      Homo sapiens

   begin recorded history

By the end of this timeline, it had wrapped halfway around the visitor center.  And I've only shown some of the entries here.  Interesting the order that things happened.  And I'd heard of Pangea but not the other 2 supercontinents.

I'd read online that there's nothing much here for the average tourist (aka non-fossil hunter/rock climber types) besides the visitor center, but that itself was well worth the trip.  And those comments were absolutely right.  What's here looks like parched scrubland with lots of hills, and the visitor center is packed with fascinating fossils.

Here's some explanation of how all this developed:

This is the butte of the name.

This is what it once looked like.

Feasting in Fossil Lake

So that's just the background, which helps understand where all this came from and is pretty interesting, but that's not what made my jaw drop.

This is on their brochure.

This is what I saw.

What's on display is a full-size skeleton fossil of an early crocodile - and it's really big.  Unfortunately, it's opposite the entry full of windows, and this was the only angle I could take that didn't have glare blocking the image.  Instead, it's got me reflected in the skeleton, which is why I'm including the photo on the left, showing what I was actually seeing.

Incredible amount of detail that was preserved.

Nearby were other full skeletons of early animals:

snakes

an early horse (size of a smallish dog)

caiman

birds

pond turtle hatchling
(with a today turtle)

pond turtle

river turtle (extinct family)

damselfly

jewel beetle

These are just a few of the many plants:

palm frond

lotus

palm inflorescence

Nature's adaptations:

ancient palm with today's sage

early member of the deer family
(actual size, they say)

And lots and lots of fish:

Predator-prey interactions:

Momma always said don't stuff food in your mouth.

They had fossils showing tracks in the sand of fish swimming and worms burrowing, footprints, all kinds of evidence of animal activities.

When I first walked in, I almost thought I was in an art gallery; I have a wonderful work of art that's actually 3 real (though dead) rockfish that were painted on their sides and then pressed against the paper.  The fossils here reminded me of the rockfish images, that showed their scales clearly and looked almost alive.  Here, the fossils were so complete it didn't take much imagination to put skin, feathers or scales on them.  When my brain finally processed that these were creatures that maybe millions of years ago were alive, I was stunned.

The visitor center has a variety of displays to show not only the plants and animals that lived here, but also what kind of world this was then (lush, tropical) and the science behind it.  It's easy to see that a place like this might ignite a young person's imagination so much, they'd spend their lives in this field of study.  I'm really glad I made the trip.

Back on the road

I took several photos of some of the land in this area.

When I talk of scrubland, this is what I'm seeing.

Aren't these hills stunning?

The colors were at least as intense as these photos show.

When I turned off the highway onto the road to the campground, I passed an abandoned gas station and saw 7 or 8 mules tied to the roof-supporting posts.  There was no one around and I couldn't see what they were doing there.  Another of life's mysteries.