Cowboy Country

Today was one of those days you hope will get wiped from your memory bank, or at least fade from your mind after enough time has passed, though there were some good moments.  The memory wipe part has to do with driving 500 miles today, and let me tell you, that was about 200 too many.

Last night we drove out to Buffalo Bill's ranch.  Sadly, because of the flooding, most of the grounds were under water, but I did manage to get a great shot of his house, built in 1886.

I find it hard to believe that a guy who ran around shooting buffalo and Indians, would live in such a...dainty?...house.

We left North Platte at 7:30am as we wanted a good start on the day, and maybe a relaxing afternoon somewhere in Wyoming.  It was supposed to be a glorious, sunny day for a change and we were looking forward to the experience. This is what we ended up with.

Honestly, if we've learned nothing else on this trip, we've learned it is NOT a good idea to drive cross-country in June.

The fog only lasted for about the first 30-40 miles, and after that it was a clear, blue sky day.  We got to Wyoming around 10:00am or so and began climbing up and out of the flatland almost immediately.  The land changed to rocky outcroppings, with occasional glimpses of the lower Rockies off in the distance.  The speed limit was still 75mph, so several of my photos are too blurry, but we stopped a couple times and I got some reasonable ones.

Looks like big fluffy clouds, but nope, it's mountains.  I took my first fresh breath of air when I saw these.  Thank goodness I'm back on my own turf and have left the East, the Midwest and those eternal miles of corn behind me.

We stopped at the entrance to Medicine Bow National Park to give Oz a break, and for me to get some photos.  We are at 8,640 feet at this point and have just reached the 2,000 mile point in our journey.

Right after I took these two photos and turned away, I caught something out of the corner of my eye.  When I looked back, two prong-horned antelope were bounding away into the ravine.  It was very cool, though I was cranky to have missed getting a picture.  We saw several groups of them throughout the day, but at 80mph it was a bit hard to aim, focus and capture them.

We stopped in Laramie, Wyoming for lunch and accidentally stumbled into this amazingly great little deli.  Of all things, it was called McAllister's..!!  Those darned Scots are everywhere, aren't they..??  The food was fabulous and we ate outside in the sunshine with Ozzy.  When we were finished, we took a long walk to get him ready for the next leg of the journey.  Look at these sidewalks..!!  I absolutely loved them.  And check out that oh so blue Wyoming sky...

Later we stopped at a rest area, again to give Oz a break, and to stretch our legs.  There was this monument to Abraham Lincoln overlooking the mountain pass.  It was made from gigantic blocks of local stone and then his face was carved by a local artist.  It was cool, though sort of weird to see Ol' Abe hanging over the freeway.

More driving, more mountains, more deep breaths. I think it took me until today to realize that I'm finally back in America.  

For those of you who don't know, those lengths of fence in the foreground are for the snow.  The snow blows, then packs against the fences which help keep it off the highway.  Course, in a bad winter the snow eventually breaks through the barriers and serves no purpose whatsoever.  Man vs Nature.  Guess who usually wins. (And you always know if you see snow fences that you don't want to live there).

Just before reaching Rock Springs today, I took my last photo.  This is Table Rock. It's quite far away in the distance, but you can see why it's called Table Rock. Or, at least you can see why the pioneers called it that. I've noticed along the journey however that they weren't very inventive.

Well, that about covers it.  We way overdid the miles today, though I'm glad we're down to the last 1,200 miles.  Tomorrow we're off to Utah and probably part of Idaho.  I'm not sure.  I keep having to ask Alan where we are.  My usual refrain is:  "Okay, so where are we?"  To his credit, most of the time he even knows.