WYOMING!

September 26, 2010

After leaving Idaho, we crossed through a tiny corner of Utah and into Wyoming. We are travelling on I-80 which goes through the southern portion of Wyoming. We have gone this way before, though in reverse, and we have also crossed Wyoming on I-90. Our recollection of those past visits were that Wyoming was....ummm...somewhat boring. I'm sure that it's not really that way, but we seem to have hit these same-old, same-old routes. And it's hot...today was 88 on our thermometer and 91 on a couple of banks.

The western 2/3 of Wyoming is sage, rolling hills (though we did cross the Continental Divide another 2 times), lots of pronghorn, and once in awhile an oil rig or refinery. By the time we hit Laramie, we were ready for something different and Laramie brought us less sage and more farmed land, with cattle instead of pronghorn.

Wyoming's advertising in rest areas is that it "showcases the wilderness that is the true west" and that 2/3 of the world's antelope live in Wyoming. It seems that sage is highly nutritious.

We have spent the past couple of days in Cheyenne, wandering around a bit and doing some geocaching. The campground hosts pit barbecue everyday, so the smells are intoxicating.

Cheyenne is a hard town to learn. The streets aren't laid out in a grid and many of the main streets end abruptly, rather than intersecting with another. We found that we could almost use I-80 and I-25 as beltway-type thoroughfares and get around fairly well.

We made the Wal-Mart stop for some groceries, more lip balm, and eye drops---squinting into the sun plus allergies calls for some relief. Hopefully these drops will help. We also stopped at the Barnes & Noble for a couple of things and to look through a guidebook we don't want to own but thought might tell a few things we wanted to know....it did, but it lead us to another book, which we did buy.

Tomorrow we leave for Nebraska, and plan to be there for a couple of days and then into Iowa.  We have a date for a 7-course meal in Iowa City next Sunday, and don't plan to be late!