Tuesday, 7 September 2021
At least once a day, I've walked the dogs out of the KOA into the neighborhood, and I've found that what look like weeds are a variety of plants, all of which seem to have some variety of spine or sticker on them. Several times we had to stop our walks so I could get a prong of something out of the feet of the dogs.
I realized 2 days ago that I didn't have the folder that I keep our health records - both those for me and for the 3 critters. I saw this as a serious problem and figured I must have left the folder at the vets' office on Saturday. I couldn't call because Sunday the clinic was closed and Monday (aka Labor Day) ditto. I knew today's route would take much of the day so decided to get an early start.
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| today's route |
On the road
A sign on the highway told me I was on the Sand Creek Massacre Trail. Not having heard of this event, I looked it up and learned it was even more horrific than the word "massacre" suggests. Here's a link to the Wikipedia page. https://en.wikipedia.org/Sand-Creek-massacre
A sign on the highway told me I was on the Sand Creek Massacre Trail. Not having heard of this event, I looked it up and learned it was even more horrific than the word "massacre" suggests. Here's a link to the Wikipedia page. https://en.wikipedia.org/Sand-Creek-massacre
I passed a parking area and saw a huge bird standing there. It had legs as long as a stork, but its head was hidden so I couldn't see what kind it was, and the internet's not helping.
I heard on the radio that the national average price for gasoline is $3.18/gallon. So far I've found $3.45/gallon common in Wyoming.
I passed a plant labeled Tolsa Wyoming Bentonite. The internet says this plant opened in 2015 and that one of bentonite's uses is as a sealant. It plugs holes in ponds, lakes, dams, wells, landfills. Who knew?
On today's drive it seemed like I saw as many antelope as I did cows. And Wyoming claims to be cattle country.
I passed 2 unincorporated towns, lots of hills - some high enough to need climbing lanes, few crops, mostly grass and grazing land. And then I came to Hell's Half Acre.
Hell's Half Acre
I saw this mentioned in some tourist information and had intended to visit but then forgot about it, so passing it today was a bonus. I turned around and went back. It was a weird site where it was obvious something had once been built, but the only sign of it now was broken pavement here and there. Online it says there was once a restaurant & motel here, but they were closed and demolished.
Here's what the state says about this place.
While it's true I found a lot of natural beauty here, nobody would characterize this place as a beauty spot. More accurate (and informative) is this description I found from the Wyoming State Geological Survey:
Many travelers are puzzled when they come across a bizarre badland in the center of Wyoming known as Hell’s Half Acre. This area between Casper and Shoshoni is a half acre merely in name. It is actually around 320 acres of badlands surrounded by miles of flat-lying, dry plains.
In the last few million years, wind and water have eroded all of those colorful layers of sandstone and shale into the jagged and often uniquely shaped landforms before you today. Some of the rocks show steeply dipping layering; those are the older Cretaceous and Paleocene formations deposited about 70–55 million years ago. They were tilted and eroded off during the Laramide mountain-building event, which uplifted the Casper arch, about 60–55 million years ago. About 50 million years ago, sediments were shed from the Casper arch and deposited on top of the older tilted layers, forming an angular unconformity. Within Hell's Half Acre, you can see some of the layers are tilted steeply, while others are closer to horizontal.
If the landscape looks familiar, you probably saw it in the science-fiction movie, “Starship Troopers.”Here are some photos I took that show some of those landforms.
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| an area of the "jagged" landforms |
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| this area is to the right of the photo above it |
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| I'm including this because it's a sort of general view of an area much farther right of the previous 2 and because it shows both the "jagged" landforms and the "soft and varied hues." For more detailed views, see below. |
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| This area is just to the left of the photo below. |
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| If you can enlarge this, you'll see a cowboy chasing an Indian on the land above the ravine. (It's a metal sculpture.) |
I walked the dogs here but it wasn't very satisfactory. The formerly-developed area is surrounded by a chain-link fence, and the plants that grow at its base are the kinds with stickers and spines. The dogs had trouble with them.
But I heard a bird song that was nothing like I've ever heard before. I only heard it once and couldn't describe it afterwards, but it sounded beautiful and I'm sorry I don't know what it might have been.
Back on the road
We passed the town of Hiland, pop. 10 (yes, ten), elev. 5,998'. And then a DOT sign saying "Turn Lights on for Safety - Next 20 miles." Since there's not much out here, I'm not sure why the next 20 miles might be more important than the previous 20.
There really wasn't much out there, not even grass. It all looked like scrubland, occasional hills, cows, very small towns, lots of snow fences, lots of metal sculptures of cowboys mostly, lots of antelope with occasional herds of 12-15.
I passed mowers on the road and, instead of the smell of cut grass, I thought I smelled sage. Back at Hell's Half Acre, some of the plants I saw looked similar to Texas sage, so I guess I was smelling sage.
I passed a turn for Castle Gardens, 28 miles to the left. Curious about whether there really was a castle, or gardens, or both, I looked it up and learned it's a site of unusual rock formations and petroglyphs. Apparently the BLM manages it, because I found 2 websites with slides showing some of the sights. This link has 7 slides. https://www.blm.gov/castle-gardens-petroglyph-site This link has 15 slides that aren't the same as the others. https://www.blm.gov/castle-gardens-scenic-area
I crossed Badwater Creek, and I don't know if it was early settlers who named it because the water was bad, but I do know it was dried up today.
I turned north without suspecting what lay ahead. Instead, the first signs I saw were innocuous: "Boysen State Park" and "Entering Wind River Indian Reservation." The 2 areas seem to trade land ownership back and forth, according to the signs. Next I saw a sign warning me of Big Horn Sheep for the next 3 miles, though sadly I didn't see any.
I found myself driving down into a canyon and then I saw the signs saying I was in Wind River Canyon, a famous area I'd intended to visit, so another bonus for the day. I passed a state historical sign that I wanted to stop for, but it was on the other side of the road and I didn't want to cross lanes when I was going downhill on a series of s-curves. But here it is https://www.hmdb.org/wind-river-canyon and it explains the geology of the area and the fact that the canyon is sacred to tribes in this area. Honestly, I found it an amazing place and could well see why anyone might think it's sacred.
I couldn't really stop anywhere because there wasn't even a shoulder wider than a few inches, and all the pull-out areas seemed to be on the other side. But I did grab a period of little traffic to pull over and take this photo of an upcoming tunnel.
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| The sign before this tunnel says there are 3 of them and that this one has a 14' clearance. You can just vaguely see, to the left of the center line coming from the tunnel, the headlights on an oncoming car. I wanted to show the sheer size of these rocks. Those tunnels were carved through these rock walls. |
Farther along the road, the gray walls you see in this photo are replaced by red rock cliffs.
At 6 points along the way, I passed signs saying:
Gros Ventre FM [FM stands for formation, though I didn't know that then]
Cambrian
500 - 600 million years old
Gallatin FM
Cambrian
500 - 600 million years old
Amsden FM
Pennsylvanian
270-310 million years old
Phosphoria FM
Permian
[250 - 300 million years old - I looked it up because I couldn't read the sign]
Dinwoody FM
Triassic
[200 - 250 million years old - ditto]
Chugwater Formation [this time the FM was spelled out]
Triassic
[see Dinwoody above]
And then I came to Thermopolis, pop. 3,009, elev. 4,326', which bills itself as "Wyoming's Hot Spot." Its claim to fame is a hot springs nearby, which I'm sure is where the name "Thermopolis" came from.
From there I turned northwest toward Cody. At times I've been seeing hints of mountains in the distance, but either the view is obscured because of the distance or because of smoke from the wildfires blowing into western Wyoming. There've been air quality alerts around here for days.
I passed the town of Meeteetse, pop. 327, elev. 5,797'. I mention it because the sign says I've climbed more than 1,400' since Thermopolis.
I passed a few fields of that green crop that looks like grass and saw it being harvested.
I also passed a warning sign for elk that was outlined in flashing yellow lights so I'd be sure to notice it. Alas, I didn't see any more elk than I did Bighorn Sheep.
And then I got to the Cody KOA. It took me 5 hours and 15 minutes to do a drive Google estimated at 3 hours and 25 minutes. None of it was on an interstate, which is usually the reason my times diverge so much, but I did take that canyon as slowly as traffic would allow.
This KOA is also covered in gravel, except for the tent sites which are grass, and it's quite large. And for some reason, it was nearly full, even though we're passed Labor Day and this was a Tuesday, but we made it work.
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