30th June – 7th July 2023
Fuelled by mince and cabbage stuffed bread pockets from Runza we hit the road and this was a big moment. I was behind the wheel. It’s not that I am not perfectly capable of driving but usually Nick does it all. The difference is that I am also perfectly capable of being a patient, self amusing, relaxed passenger. ‘Nuff said. Today was going to be a slightly longer journey than usual and it seemed a good opportunity for me to get a few hours under my belt and keep the skills fresh. We were leaving Nebraska and heading into Wyoming – a state that we had visited before on our first trip in 2017 but one that we felt that we hadn’t got a good sense of yet. We had a ‘small town tour’ planned, one stop of which was going to coincide with that hallowed day, The Fourth of July.
Wyoming. The last state in the alphabetic list. The tenth largest by area, nearly half of which is federally owned. The second least densly populated, after Alaska, and the state with the fewest inhabitants. Only about 575,000 people live here. It is half ‘high elevation prairie’ on its eastern side, the lowest point being at 3100ft and its western side is made up of the Rocky Mountains and its rangelands. Its highest mountain, Gannett Peak is nearly 14,000ft and its average elevation is 0ver 6000ft. It is the driest and windiest state. Hot in the summer and cold in the winter. The people here are mostly tough, self reliant, conservative, country folk that are used to sorting out their own problems, are in touch with the rythmns of the land, make their own fun, carry guns, and live in tight knit communties. The rest seem to be rock climbers.
We had an amazing drive up onto the plateau, a wild, windswept prairie with nothing except the odd small settlement. The I-25 took us towards Casper, our first stop on the ‘WY Tour’. This road was magical. The views were epic and the traffic light. By the time we arrived in Casper it was pouring with rain and our spirits were moderately dampened, literally and metaphorically, by the apparent grimness of our RV park. It was only about 1.5 miles from town, and a featureless gravel pit full of longterm residents. The rain did stop, we set up, the sun came out, we found a picnic table to commandeer and we were happy again. We soon realised that the park bordered a small nature reserve on the river and there were deer, wild turkeys and rabbits milling around. This slightly made up for the lack of trees and grass.
Casper, population about 60,000, is Wyoming’s second largest city yet still feels like a pioneer town. It was established on the site of Fort Caspar, a military outpost and owes the slightly different spelling of its name to an error when the town’s name was officially registered. A river crossing and trading post for migrating land seekers on the Oregan, Californian and Mormon trails and a nearby oilfield cemented its position as an important town in the area. There are a few museums here, but we didn’t go to any of them. We had had our fill of ‘pioneer and settler history’ recently and they mostly seemed to be located up steep hills. We cycled to town on the very lovely dedicated cycle trail that meandered around the riverside golf course and up into the old part of town. It ended at a newly renovated town plaza that had a ‘splash pad’ and there were plenty of kids (and grown ups) in their swim wear, getting soaked and keeping cool in the heat. We were jealous.
Town was full of old buildings, many restored and re-purposed but also many empty and sad looking, awaiting their revival. Both the theatres were closed but the cinema had been revitalised as a microbrewery. The new entertainment for the masses. The jewel in the retail crown of Casper is ‘Lou Taubert Ranch Outfitters’ which had been selling Western wear in an original 55,000 sq ft historic downtown building for over 100 years. This we had to see. It was cowboy heaven. There were boots, jeans, shirts, belts and hats as far as the eye could see. It’s a great functional style here, in situ, in the rural west, but one has to resist the purchase of said garments if one is an out of country tourist who resides on the English/Welsh border. One sales chap pulled out this beautiful, brown, felt hat (as seen on Yellowstone, the series, he said), carefully set it on my head and showed me a dozen ways to style it. It was lovely and I was tempted until I saw the price tag of $250. He must have seen the look on my face as he then said “You’re not buying this hat are you?” Nope. We retreated.
Next stop: a small kiosk that sold ‘cream sodas’, a delicacy that we had yet to experience. For those that also have not sampled one before, this is a mixture of ice, flavoured syrup, ‘half-and-half’ (a cream/milk combo) and soda water. Terribly delicious, delightful and refreshing whilst sat on a shady street corner in a warm breeze on a hot sunny day, people watching and car judging. A bit more mooching heated us up again and we headed home for a few of hours of downtime before we came back out for beers and a burger. A tried and trusted evening’s entertainment that did not disappoint. The backwards and forwards saw us clock up 13-14 miles on the bikes without even thinking about it. Incidental exercise is king.
The next day the furthest we went was the showers. Some days are just like that. It does amaze me how we are able to pootle around in such a small space and not go mad. It is a dark art that we have been perfecting over the years. We weren’t entirely idle, however, and we did achieve something on this day. We listed Tin Can and Big Dave for sale. Quite a big deal. Tidying and decluttering was done, cleaning happened, photos were taken, blurb was written. They are now officially for sale and who knows if anyone will buy them before we leave in September. Fingers crossed that they sell, but not too soon. Here is the link if you are interested.
https://www.rvtrader.com/listing/2014-Lance-1172+LONG+BED-5026899780
After a few nights here we headed off further in to the high praries of central Wyoming. Destination Lander. Our drive took us across miles and miles of grasslands, mostly divided up into gigantic ranches, dotted with cattle and Pronghorn antelope.
In the middle of nowhere was a massive slab of granite called Independence Rock. We stopped briefly at the co-located rest stop/visitors centre to wring out a kidney each and found out the origin of the name. The settlers left the area of the Missouri River in the East and they trudged across the prairies in their droves, following the Californian, Mormon and Oregon Trails. The emigrants used this rock as an important landmark on their travels, hoping to reach it by Independence day on the 4th July. This meant that they were likely to arrive at their destination in the West before the cold weather of winter arrived. Now we have highways and cars and campers and hotels and rest stops and running water and electricity and we have no idea how hard these people worked for their new lives. Many of them carved their names into the rock itself as a tangible record of their existance in this place at that time. Many of them didn’t survive their journeys. We stopped at a pullout with an overlook called ‘Beaver Rim’ for our picnic lunch and then dropped down into Lander.
Lander. Population 7500, elevation 5300 ft. A much smaller place, basically a main street with surrounding houses. It was previously a place for ‘cowboys and miners’ according to an older, gnarly chap we met at a bar, but now tourism has come to town and I’m not sure he was too impressed with the changes that had brought with it. The ‘interlopers’ are outdoor sporting enthusiasts and mainly rock climbers. Situated at the base of the Wind River Mountains, Lander is very close to Sinks River Canyon, a world class rock climbing area. The climbers are easily distinguishable from the locals. Gathering in loose groups in the town’s biggest bar in the evenings, they are lean, muscled, tanned and tattooed. How can one tell? Because they wear small clothes designed to show off these attributes. Cut away singlets for the boys, crop tops and small shorts for the girls. The beauty asthetic is ‘towseled simplicity’ and for some strange reason many of the boys had neon painted fingernails. They are the surfers of the mountains, travelling and living in small vans, free camping wherever possible. You can see why the average Wyoming bloke is a bit bemused by it all.
We arrived on a hot 3rd of July as the town prepared for the next day’s festivities. The forecast for the next day was not good. Cold and wet weather was predicted. It didn’t seem possible. We found our site on a park only about half a mile from the main street. It wasn’t so much RV park as mobile home park. There is a distinct difference as you might imagine, but it had some nice trees. Just as we were finishing BBQing our dinner the hot sunny weather rapidly deteriorated into a short-lived, rainy gale, chasing us inside and bringing down many small branches from the trees. A few made an ominous clatter as they hit the roof and we had our fingers crossed than no bigger ones decided to make a leap for it, which luckily they didn’t.
The next day dawned and not long after we were up for the first of the day’s planned activities: a 5km fun run that I had entered. I was perfectly fit enough to run 5km back in March, but had done no running since we started the process of packing up the house before we came away. That coupled with the altitude, I didn’t have great expectations of this being much fun. And I’d paid to do it (for charity, of course). It started at 6.30am. This seemed like a very good idea when you know that the temperatures on the 4th of July routinely hit 35 °C (100 °F). Today, bizarrely and most unseasonally, is was going to top out at about 13°C (55°F). At 6.30am it was considerably cooler than that. We made tea and set off to the start on our bikes. After a bit of milling and a weird staggered start that managed to dampen the buzz which is the entire point of the exercise, I was off. Slowly. It was a plod, but I didn’t feel too bad. Except on the hills which were bad. I came in at 32 minutes which is quite good for me, until I realised that the course was only 4.5km long. So not that good! This was the last time that I was warm the whole day.
We nipped back so I could shower and change and after a breakfast at one of the cafes in town we found our spot just before 10am to watch the parade. Now the American public go a little bit loopy for a street parade. There had been lawn chairs saving preferred pavement/sidewalk locations for at least 24 hours and many people arrive with coolers of drinks and snacks and really settle in. The parade itself was ok but even we sensed it was a bit subdued and quiet.
It was cool but everyone got really cold because they had all underdressed, just not being able to quite believe the forecast. The ususally brilliant blue sky was grey and overcast, leaking a fine drizzle every now and then. Being British it didn’t feel unusual for a summer’s day but we got chatting to a rancher/archeologist chap called Todd, a cowboy type who was sporting a fine grey handlebar moustashe and he remarked that this was the worst weather of any 4th of July parade that he could remember. Ever. The locals were all stunned. Staying hydrated and avoiding sunstroke are the usual goals of the day. Not staving off hypothermia. Despite having a few layers on I got really chilly. My exertions probably catching up with me too. As soon as the parade was over we went home, put on our small heater and I crawled into bed fully clothed under 3 blankets. I just couldn’t get warm. It felt ridiculous as we’d run the aircon the day before. I was just about feeling human by about 5pm when we were going to decide whether or not to cycle up through town to go to the rodeo that evening and watch the firework display afterwards, or stay in. Our decision was made for us as the heavens opened and torrential rain began to fall.
Lander has a firework problem. On July 4th, for one day only, from 12pm through to midnight the town relaxes its restriction on private fireworks. This is like taking a group of recovering alcoholics to a bottomless brunch. They go mad en masse, setting off hundreds of thousands of dollars of fireworks consistantly throughout the day and considering that its not even remotely dark until 9.30pm, much of that is in daylight, and they were not deterred by the rain. They just like the bangs. It was mindless and relentless and happens every year apparently. Lots of locals (the non-firework addicted population) leave town to escape the cacophony and madness. We were just hoping a rogue rocket didn’t come our way. At midnight it stopped and we could finally get some sleep. It had been a long day.
The next day it was warm again and we walked the main street, our only purchase being a physical For Sale sign and a black marker pen. It couldn’t hurt to have one taped to the back of Tin Can for the rest of our travels. I spied a music shop too and called in to see if they bought second hand instruments. I have a nice soprano ukulele that I bought on our first trip, when I was a bit keener on playing, and I was starting to think about selling it. The owner of the shop said she’d look at it and I brought it back later. She liked it and a deal was struck that I was happy with. She then confessed that she was going to keep it herself rather than sell it as it completes a set that she owns. Win-win. The spoils of the deal paid for our dinner and drinks at the liveliest bar in town – the one with all the rock climbers. Our usual habit of sitting up at the bar got us chatting to a group of locals including a couple who were about our age and their 30 year old son, a really interesting guy called Zac. He was a native of Shoshone descent and as neither of his parents were native we assume that he had been adopted. He earned his living as a non-contracted softball player, getting picked up by different teams throughout the season and travelling all over the country to play. Nick had seen a sign advertising ‘Speedgoat Rugby’ and was curious. Our new friends informed us that ‘Speedgoat’ is the local name for the Pronghorn antelope and this was the local rugby team, which also had a really cool logo of an antelope’s head. Nick wanted a jersey badly. It transpired that although the shirts are not on general sale they had a nephew and friends who played on the team. A flurry of texts was sent to try and procure an old, unwanted jersey and we waited. Unfortunately is was not to be, but it was a fun exercise.
The trailer that was our neighbour during our stay here provided us with some unsolved intrigue. It was obviouly a long term resident, an older style, relatively small with its curtains permentantly drawn. There seemed to be a constant coming and going of a core six or seven people – ranging in ages from mid twenties to mid forties, – sharing two cars, with several bizzare behaving visitors that came and stayed anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. At any one time there seemed to be at least four of the core group inside with different people staying overnight and any time the door opened we could see a large pile of detritus filling the corridor, further reducing the space inside. At first we were convinced it was a drugs den, but then there just weren’t enough odd comings and goings. In the end we settled on the scenario that it was an overflow space for an extended family who had another place nearby. Whatever was going on in there it must have been snug and cozy, ‘coz a few of them weren’t small people and who knows what the sleeping arrangements were.
On our last day here we heeded the recommendation of several people and took the 10 mile trip up to see Sinks Canyon. Again we just unplugged and headed off without offloading and made the short trip up into the hills. The canyon gets its name from the fact that the river, the Popo Agie, flows down into a cavern and disappears underground, surfacing in a pool about quarter of a mile down the canyon. Dye tests have revealed that the water takes over 2 hours to make this short journey and that far more water surfaces at the ‘Rise’ than enters the ‘Sinks’. It is a mystery as to what happens down there.
Whilst up in the canyon we found an interesting walk up to an impressive set of cascade falls of the river further upstream and this was the first of our walks this trip where we have shared it with a significant number of other people. Even saying that, it wasn’t busy.
So that was Lander. Not seen in its best light, but charming and beautiful nonetheless. Our next journey was reasonably short. Destination Thermopolis.