Ole' Wyoming

Our trip to Thermopolis and Cody was my first time up to the northwestern part of Wyoming.  A lot of people can't stand Wyoming.  It is a huge, mostly flat state but it is gorgeous if you take your time to really look at it.  I'm partial to the prairies and wind though - GO COWBOYS!!

Anywho, Brent takes detours pretty much wherever he go so we took the long route to Thermopolis.  One of the coolest parts of the drive was the Wind River Canyon.  One minute we're driving through yellow rolling prairies and the next we were in a deep canyon, with stunning gray rock faces and a winding river that looked perfect for flyfishing.  As soon as we exited the canyon, there were deep red hills.  I was impressed!

Once we arrived in Thermopolis we drove around the State Park to check it out.  There were some craters, some buffalo, and a staircase built by the WPA down to the river.  It's smaller than I was expecting.  Much smaller.  But I found the equivalent of a Boot Hill.  Score!  Below is a picture....cemetery is up the stairs on the left.   Just for you, Mom!

The only place to soak in the hot springs for free is the State Bath House.  It limits visitors to a 20 minute soak.  Not early enough.  We didn't want to pay to visit the two pools flanking the bath house so we went back to our hotel which was a stone's throw away from the hot springs and soaked in the mineral water hot tub.  Same water but it's free!  Whoop!  And we had it all to ourselves.  That was certainly one plus in going in winter - no crowds!

The down side, however, is that most things are closed on Sunday, Monday, Tuesdays in the Winter.  We learned this the hard way when we drove and hour from Cody to Thermopolis the next day to visit the Buffalo Bill Historical Center the next day.  I was so exited to finally go but we were informed by security after entering that the place was closed on Mondays in the Winter.  CLOSED!!

I should have known better - museums can be really weird with operating hours.  But come on - it's the main attraction in town for crying out loud and it was closed!  CLOSED!  With nothing else scheduled for the day we kicked around some ideas while we perused the Sierra Trading Post store.  We ate lunch at Brent's favorite restaurant, The Rib & Chop House.  It was really, really delicious!!  While eating we decided against driving hours to Montana just so to say that I had been there.  Instead we decided to head west into Yellowstone so that I could say I'd been there.

We stopped for coffee and started making our way out of town.  We passed a dam.  It was really cool to see the ice piled up before the dam.  The chunks were kind of rolling up and down as the water below was sucked into the dam.  I'm easily amused some days.

We passed many, MANY huge ranches on the way to the park, each with an awesome view ... and a heard of 20 or 30 deer in their front lawns!  I've never seen so many deer in one area in my life.  As we got closer to Yellowstone it look very similar to the hills of Rocky Mountain National Park.  We saw some big horn sheep and a some buffalo!!  Wild buffalo - now that's a first!

After an hour or so of driving I pulled out the map to see if just how far we had to drive to reach the park.  I confidently pronounced, "I think we're getting close."  A few curves later and I read a sign out loud, "Road Closed - One Mile."  The sign didn't lie.  The road was indeed closed one mile ahead.  So Yellowstone served us up the same disappointment as the Bill Cody Historical Center.  We shook our heads and laughed.  Figures.  We agreed the drive was peaceful and pretty though.  Not a complete waste of time - I saw buffalo!

The next day we had to head back home.  It was a very quick trip to the far stretches of  Wyoming.  We did get to soak in mineral water.  I'm not sure it healed me but it felt good.  It was a relaxing trip soaking in views I had never seen before.  I think some day we'll try to head back up there when everything is open.

We enjoyed another trip through the Wind River Canyon.  Shortly after I said, it would be cool to see a train going through here, one came around the corner upon request.  It was just exiting a tunnel.  

We also stopped at Hell's Half Acre in the middle of Wyoming.  And we stopped to take a picture of Dick Cheney's mailbox.  It's the small things in life.  We also stopped by the UW campus to hit the bookstore and visit one of Brent's friends.  It's always great to visit UW!

It was a very long way to drive to see a lot of closed signs but we had fun.  And we got away from home for a bit which was what we both wanted.  Good ole' Wyoming never fails to provide us entertainment in one way or another.