Wyoming

On June 29th, we left Custer, South Dakota and headed towards Wyoming. We drove, and drove, and drove -- most of the time without any cell service. 🙃 We stopped in the town of Lusk, WY, to fuel up ⛽ and get bread 🍞 from the local grocery store. This was the first time we saw 85 Octane fuel. In Wyoming, 85 is their regular gas because the air is less dense, less air flows to the car's engine, and 87 octane is considered a mid grade. We learned something new. Rob was not about to put 85 in our 4Runner! Speaking of the air, I have definitely noticed a difference in my breathing.

We also made a stop at the F. E. Warren Air Force Base to stock up on yogurt, fruit, lunch meat and beer. We, usually have yogurt with fruit and granola for our breakfast unless the hotel provides breakfast. Our lunch is usually a sandwich with either chips or carrots 🥕. 

We made it to Cheyenne! Our hotel for the next 3 nights was the Little America Hotel & Resort - Cheyenne. This hotel we obtained through Priceline's Express Deals. We did not know the hotel until after it was booked. 

Dinner was at the Wyoming Ribs and Chophouse - Cheyenne. We both ordered ribs, one with Mac & Cheese 🧀 and one with baked beans and side salads.  

There are 2 Big Boy trains 🚆 located in Cheyenne so we headed to see Big Boy 4004 that is located in Holiday Park. Locomotive 4004 was built in 1941 and was designed especially for use by Union Pacific Railroad on its rugged Cheyenne to Ogden, Utah run. It was retired from service October 1958. 

We made our way to the Cheyenne Depot Museum. Cheyenne was founded by Union Pacific chief engineer General Grenville M. Dodge.

The timepiece weighs a half ton
 and runs a clock face on each of the
 four sides of the tower.

Simple tools used to build a Railroad 

Fairmont Speeder - used for inspections
and maintenance of the track,
 it's signals and the buildings.

The Baggage Cart

Union Pacific Scale, it worked great!

On the second level of the museum there was a model Railroad of the Union Central & Northern Railroad created by Harry Brunk. It took him over 30 years to create. Pretty impressive: even down to the people and animals.

Forks Creek

After leaving the museum we inquired about Big Boy 4014 which was restored in 2019 and the only one that is in operation. Unfortunately, the locomotive was under lock and key. Bummer! 🚂

We finally made it to the pool. Just in time for the rain 🌧 to start. Luckily, we had a Cabana.

Just like other towns we visited, Cheyenne also had art 🎨 work displayed around the downtown area. The Cheyenne Big Boots👢:

We toured the Cheyanne Botanic Gardens:

Rupert Farr Bobsai House

Windmill & Solar Pump

Wind Turbine - it can produce
2,500 kilowatt hrs. of 
electricity a year.

Lunch in the park before heading to the Governor's Mansion.

Restored to 1937, linoleum floor

Magic Chef 6300 gas range

Restored to 1937

RCA 641 Console

Laundry Room

The Fallout Shelter contained two weeks supply of food, beverage, first aid, clothing, blankets, games, cot and other supplies.

Bedroom and bathroom:

The shoes 👞 were my size and really cute.

Vintage hairdryer & big hot curlers

 

Kids room with jacks and
old fashion roller skates

A little more pool time today without the rain. However, we did get rain before our big night Downtown along with a rainbow 🌈. 

Rainbow 🌈  🌈 

We went downtown for Friday's on the Plaza. There were food and beer 🍺 trucks 🚚 🚚. The beer 🍺 sales benefited the Cheyenne Depot Museum, which we had visited. Music started at 6 pm with Extra Gold. The second band was Ryan Chrys & The Rough Cuts. Both bands were good. We met Terry and Mindy, who are RVer's. They were sharing their stories of their travels and things breaking. We could definitely relate. 

Extra Gold

Ryan Chrys & The Rough Cuts

People watching!

People watching!

Our evening was cut short by a storm. 

It was a great way to end our time in Cheyenne!

We left Cheyenne to head further west. We took Highway 210, which is known as the Happy Jack Road. It's 37.79 mile state highway that runs from Cheyenne to Interstate 80 / US Route 30.

Happy Jack Rd

Medicine 💊 Bow National Forest

We arrived at the Holiday Inn in Rock Springs, WY which will be our home for three nights. First impression, not overly impressed with this Holiday Inn, but it has everything we need. We chose  Rock Springs, because I was having issues finding a place with reasonable fees for the July 4th weekend. The one good thing was the Old Chicago Restaurant was attached to the hotel.

One side of Old Chicago's taps.

My happy face.

Pub pizza with tomatoes 🍅 
and artichokes.

Lasagna

On July 3rd, we decided to go to the White Mountain Petroglyph Site, a historical landmark. OMG, Ms. Google took us up the side of the mountain ⛰ 😳. I was petrified to the point I thought I was going to vomit 🤢. We were on a dirt road (felt like an ATV trail, but it was State Route 69) that I thought for sure we were going to flip over. Once we got to the top there was a sign to not attempt without 4 wheel drive.

Once we were on a real road again the views were spectacular and we were able to see the wild horses.

The Old Lincoln Highway runs through Green River and Rock 🪨 Springs our route overlooked the highway below.

Trona was discovered in 1938. What is Trona? Trona is a rare mineral found only in a few locations worldwide 🌐. Green River Basin is the only area where Trona is commercially mined. You are a trona user when you brush your teeth, if you own a cat, wash clothes, or have glass windows. Trona is refined into sodium carbonate, which is used to make glass, paper, laundry detergent, kitty litter, baking soda, and more.

Processing plants from overlook.

We watched a dune buggy/atv try to get up a steep hill. We were betting whether he would make it or flip over. 

We were both wrong, he gave up.

If you want to see the wild horses I strongly 💪 suggest using US 53 from Green River or Highway 191, just saying!

We ended up in Green River, where we found a Railroad Bridge 🌉 that we could walk over and watch the trains below.

We went to the local Rock Springs Parade on the Fourth of July 🇺🇸 🇺🇸 🇺🇸.  Very patriotic and I think the whole town was there to watch. 

My size car!
His name was Sonny (my Dad's name)

This weekend was emotional for the both of us. We were really missing 😢 our July 4th Celebrations (family and friends). I hope everyone enjoyed their July 4th! 🎆 

We drove through the Historic Downtown where everything was closed, including the European Market that I wanted to check out. On-site, a family was selling hot dogs, funnel cakes and fried Oreos. We decided to try the fried Oreos 😋. Pretty good if you like that. I like my Oreos with a glass of milk.

Next stop, a nice relaxing trip to the mountains. I found a ski lodge called Grand Targhee Resort, which sounded very nice and we could do some hiking in the Grand Tetons right from the ski lodge🎿. Well, the website mentioned a military discount, so Rob called to book the hotel and the friendly gentleman said "I have a better deal, stay 3 nights for the price of 2". Awesome we'll take it.

I was excited when we passed a sign to be careful for moose crossing the highway. I have been looking for a moose since Maine. Then I saw a Moose! I was really excited until I realized it was not real. Talk about a disappointment. Apparently, I need new glasses.

Fake moose!

One of the issues with this lodge was it was in the middle of nowhere and we had to drive through Idaho only to end up back in Wyoming. However, it was a beautiful drive 🚗 to the resort.

We arrived in Alta, WY where the resort was located. The next issue, our room was not ready. No big deal (we were early) except we had a Zoom conference call. We found a dining area that was closed but not very quiet and the wifi was horrible.

I did not take any pictures of the room, but it was just a basic ski lodge motel room. We had dinner at The Branding Iron, the restaurant on-site. Dinner was very good.

Summer Vegetable Salad
crusty bread 🍞 with
whipped feta 

Branding Iron Burger 🍔 

On July 6th, we took a death March that I thought I could handle. I was wrong, I held on as long as I could. The views were amazing on the top of the mountain ⛰ and there was even snow ❄.  So much for chasing 80 degrees.

Once we made it back off the mountain ⛰ we were told we could have taken the ski lift down. We still probably had another hour or two, at my pace, before we would have reached the lift. I already had an issue with uphill hiking 🚶‍♀️, but I definitely was having an issue with breathing at this altitude.

We did not make it to Fred's 

Exhausted 

The ski resort is mostly used for mountain biking in the summer 🚵‍♀️. We are a little too old for that but it looked like a lot of fun.

We had dinner at The Branding Iron 😋 again as we didn't really have much choice unless we drove off the mountain into town, but their food was really good. Our dinner was the Branding Iron Burger 🍔 (Wagyu beef, caramelized onions 🌰, butter lettuce, tomato 🍅,  horseradish mayonnaise, & cheddar cheese 🧀) and Spaghetti 🍝 Carbonara with pork guanciale (an Italian cured meat made from the jowls/cheek). Bon Appetit!

Our trails 👣 the next day were not as strenuous. For the most part it was pretty flat, but we still got our steps 🚶‍♀️ 🚶‍♂️ in and had some beautiful views.

We decided to have a big night out on the town to celebrate my sister's birthday. We drove into Driggs, Idaho to check ✔ out the town and have dinner.  We did some poking around in the little shops before we headed to Teton Thai for dinner.

Ka-Nom Jean 
Rice noodles, coconut 🥥 milk, green
curry, zucchini, bell peppers🫑, basil, red
onions 🌰,  bean sprouts & lime leaves 🍃 

Pad See Ew
Rice noodles with broccoli 🥦, 
egg, Cabbage, & sweet soy sauce

Our server/bartender Allison gave us some really good information for our future travels and also told us about Music on Main. So we headed to Victor, ID, which was only 10 minutes down the road. I didn't get the name of the band, but they were really good.

There were several different food trucks including one from the restaurant where we had dinner. One stand caught my eye, Chimney Cakes, they were selling European fire 🔥 roasted pastries. Dough slow roasted over coals and then rolled in cinnamon/sugar, sprinkles, or cookie crumbs. As good as it looked we did not try.

On our drive home we had to stop for a Herd of cows.

Happy birthday Brenda! I hope you enjoyed your day as much as we did.

 

We had some issues with this resort: no refrigerator, no air conditioning (really did not need), pool and hot tub were closed, a helicopter 🚁 flew in early in the morning (new lift being installed), the day camp bus and maintenance (drilling concrete) happened right in front of our window 🪟 each morning 🌄.  The kicker was when we checked out we did not get a night free. That special was not for our room type.

After management spoke with the employee who told us of the really good deal the resort did honor the price and refunded us a night's stay.

Time to move on, where will our travels take us next? We know where we are headed, but not the way to get there.

A Public Service Announcement: Always make sure you have a full tank of gas ⛽ before leaving a town as you could be driving for hundreds of miles without a gas station.