Wyoming - Day 3 - to Casper

Casper KOA, Casper

Friday, 3 September 2021

Dexter woke me up at 1:30 this morning.  Actually, I first smelled something bad, and then I realized a dog was pacing around the floor.  It turned out to be Dexter, who had pooped several times and vomited enough to be his whole dinner from last night.  Not exactly something I could just ignore and go back to sleep, so I got up and spent a half hour cleaning up the floor and getting rid of the trash.  I went back to bed at 2:00 and surprised myself by falling back to sleep, then overslept until 4:15, which gave us a late start today.

On our first walk this morning, Dexter and I heard some bizarre sounds coming from the area of Devil's Tower.  I heard shrieking and yipping and loud noises of some strange kind.  At first I thought it was just kids or somebody having a wild party.  But the sounds kept going and didn't sound like anything I've ever heard humans make.  The shrieking especially was eerie and didn't sound human.  The National Park Service says these mammals live in the area: coyote, red fox, gray fox, raccoon, mountain lion, bobcat.  I've heard coyotes before and these sounds were nothing at all like them.  I'm guessing the mountain lion or the bobcat.  Given the location, the sounds were even spookier than they might otherwise be.  Dexter was so upset he actually barked at them, which wasn't good early morning campground behavior.  But it was spooky.  Gracie didn't seem to notice.  I'm not so sure how well she hears these days.

In today's Washington Post I saw an op-ed column by Michael Gerson, who typically writes from a conservative point of view.  This column described the way the Republican party used to be composed, back in the days of both Bushes, Bob Dole, John McCain, Grover Norquist and Pat Buchanan.  He went on to describe the shift in the party's composition since Donald Trump has solidified control over the party.  I don't know how accurate it is, but it's an interesting take on this situation.  In case you haven't seen it and are interested, I'll add the link here.   https://www.washingtonpost.com/mccarthy-embraces-trumpism

today's route

On the road

Going back down WY-14, the same road I took 2 days earlier to the Devil's Tower, I saw a sign I didn't see on the way in: "Sharp Curves Next 8 Miles."  Maybe the road you travel looks different depending on the direction you're going.  The sign was right - those curves were there.

I saw lots of magpies along the road and I thought I saw a few ravens.  The bird book says I'm now entering the part of the US (almost all the western part) where they live year round, so maybe I did see them.  The crows in this area are also large (17½") and from a distance I can't always tell them from ravens (24").  Close to them, it's easy - they look very different.  But I can't always estimate sizes.  Still, I think it was ravens I saw.

For miles I saw a large lake not far from the road but never saw a sign telling me what it was.  According to my trusty AAA map, it was the Keyhole Reservoir, a 9,300-acre lake with 50 miles of shoreline.  Apparently it's good for fishing.

I passed lots more bikers on the road.  Sturgis is way over, so I imagine it's just folks enjoying some good weather and getting out on the road.

The campground was full of cottonwoods, and I've continued to see them along the road.  Many are already starting to turn yellow.  Seems a little early for that, but maybe not early up here in the mountains.

I came to the town of Moorcroft, pop. 1,009, elev. 4,206'.  In Wyoming, the signs for towns include both the population and the elevation, which makes driving around here more interesting.  We stopped at a rest area to take a break before driving off into interior Wyoming.  I found some interesting signs at the rest area.

This is talking about the importance of water to the prairies.

There were also 2 signs about the old cattle drives.

This includes information about the cattle drives I hadn't heard before.

Almost from the moment we drove out of the rest area, it started to rain, and it was serious rain at times, making driving hard.  I saw a motorcyclist and thought how hard the rain must be for him - he doesn't even have a wiper for his helmet.  Many bikers don't wear helmets around here, which I think shows suicidal tendencies, but I'd think the rain would be at least as hard for them to negotiate, because their only protection against it is their eyelids.

I passed lots of cows and occasional oil wells, some working and some not.  Near the town of Gillette I passed a huge surface mining operation.  I never saw a sign for it but I'm guessing coal.

I turned onto WY-59 to head south and 7 times I saw a sign saying "Heavy Sideroad Traffic."  The odd part about that was that in almost all cases, the "sideroad" was a little country road, some of them not even paved, and I only twice saw even 1 vehicle on one of those roads.  What on earth do you suppose those signs are talking about?

I passed hills covered with grasslands, and saw 4 antelope in one place, a dozen in another.

This is the antelope I've been seeing a lot of.

Wyoming Game and Fish Dept. says Wyoming has more of these antelope than the rest of the continent, which is quite a claim.  Game & Fish says their real name is Pronghorn, but they call them antelope here.  Most of the photos online show them with horns, but I've only seen 2 of them with horns and dozens without.  They're real common - though those big white rump patches are even more noticeable than a White-tailed deer's tail, so I don't know how they've escaped extinction.  But I saw a lot of them on this drive.

Caballo Creek is apparently prominent enough to warrant an appearance on the AAA map, but when I crossed it, I saw zero water.

I crossed the Belle Fourche River when I left Devil's Tower, and I crossed it again at least 3 more times on the drive south, and when I looked it up I found out why.  Halfway along my drive today, WY-59 which I picked up from I-90, intersected WY-387 at the site of several industrial facilities and the town of Wright, pop. 1,807, elev. 4,980.  About 15 miles north of town is the source of the Belle Fourche, which flows 290 miles to meet the Cheyenne River northeast of Rapid City, SD, and the Cheyenne of course flows into the Missouri.

And here's an oddball fact about the Belle Fourche: the point where it flows out of Wyoming and into South Dakota is Wyoming's lowest point, and with an elevation of 3,099' it's the second-highest low point of the 50 states  (CO's low point is the highest by 216').

There was a nice rest area at Wright, with a walking path around a pond and signs everywhere saying to keep dogs off the grass.  So not as restful as I'd hoped.

Back on the road in a field I saw 2 cows licking their calves - so very sweet.

I saw quite a few snow fences along the highway, many of them in disrepair.  Wonder if they'll get fixed up before snow comes this year.

At the tiny town of Edgerton, pop. 195, elev. 5,000, I saw lots of companies for oil equipment and supplies, which tells me the oil business is more extensive than I've seen from the road.  And I've found out why.  At Edgerton I turned onto WY-259, but if I'd gone just a few miles further on WY-387, I'd've come to the town of Midwest, which was established when the Naval Petroleum Reserve No. 3 was developed.  

That development has gone down in history as the Teapot Dome scandal, that resulted in the first instance of a US cabinet official being jailed and in the reputation of Pres. Warren Harding's administration being tarnished in the history books.  Harding himself died (of a heart attack, leaving Coolidge as president) before the full scandal was pieced together.  (Another oddball fact: at his death, Harding was one of the most popular presidents in history, but the later exposure of various administrative scandals and extramarital affairs left him considered one of the worst presidents in history.)

Here are 2 articles about the situation that are interesting and somehow don't contain all the same information.   This one,   https://www.wyohistory.org/teapot-dome-us-marines-presidents, written for the US Dept. of Energy, includes a description of the state of Wyoming being invaded by US Marines.  This one,   https://en.wikipedia.org/Teapot-Dome-scandal, is your basic Wikipedia article that includes more detail about the Congressional investigation that uncovered the illegality of those oil leases.  One of the articles suggests that few, if any, people today have heard of Teapot Dome, and I realized that I only knew about it because it happened during my parents' lifetimes and they had some articles and cartoons saved about it.

Finally I came to Bar Nunn (it was named for its founder Romie Nunn), pop. 2,213, the town of tonight's campground.  I had to look up the elevation which, at 5,282', is 2' higher than the Mile High City itself, Denver.  Take that, Colorado.