See the West on $4 a gallon!

After five hours of sleep (not far from normal for me, one of my unhealthy habits) and twelve hours of driving, I have made camp near Idaho Falls. I am less then two hours from my first fishing destination, and was very tempted to press on, but it's two hours on unfamiliar mountain roads, I'm thinking, beautiful in daylight and hazardous at night. I will leave early and be there by mid-morning.

Today's drive was interesting, amazing, humorous, only occasionally annoying, and never boring. Here are a few of my favorites:

The changing landscapes held my interest. West of Kearney, NE was irrigated farm country as I expected but I was surprised at how many large stands of trees I saw. Those became fewer as I proceeded to dryer areas. I was still in Nebraska when I noticed the first small canyon, which truly looked western.

I did not know where the world headquarters of Cabela's was, until I passed it today in Sidney, Nebraska. It said so on the water tower. They sell outdoor gear and are a competitor to Bass Pro, with an outlet near the Mills Mall in St. Louis. A fair amount of the gear in my camp came from there, as varied as a fly rod and a large cooler.

In eastern Wyoming I began to see what might have been large mountains in the distance, but turned out to be smaller isolated rocky peaks not so far away. Some were really pretty an interesting looking. I stopped for fuel in Laramie, and from there was able to see snow capped peaks. From signs I learned this was the aptly named Snowy Range. They were properly large enough and clustered enough to be mountains, but I passed them shortly and still had hours of driving across high plains before I really felt like I was in the mountains.

I had a couple of fun wildlife sightings. A prairie dog bravely and quickly crossed I-80 in front of me. He looked like a mink only a light tan color. He was in fact the same color as most of Wyoming, which is very cleaver of him. Later I saw an antelope, alone, eating sagebrush not 30 yards from the shoulder. I thought these animals ran in large herds, and kept scanning the vistas but never saw a big herd, but later I saw two groups of them, both near the highway.

I was amused by a site, or my reaction to it, near some small town in the dry country. I saw a little pond surrounded by dirt and sagebrush, and two or three men dressed in white nearby, next to some white vehicles and for some reason I can't explain, I thought of a sewer treatment area. I can't point to any particular reason but it was a fleeting thought; dirty area, water, and guys in uniform doing something. Ummm, okay on second glance, it was a golf course! The vehicles were carts! When I got closer I could see they were standing on a tiny green surrounded by sagebrush. In my quick glance I didn't see anything I would have identified as a fairway. I laughed and thought, these guys should take up fishing; there's some great rivers nearby.

In the vast expanse of Wyoming, I noticed several exits from the freeway that appeared to connect only to dirt roads on private ranch land. Most were identified with just an exit number related to the mile marker, but one was labeled "Bar X Road." At least one featured a closed gate, locked I expect. So ya exit the freeway, and if ya don't have a key, ya get back on the freeway. I wondered if these were emergency pull-offs every so many miles? Or partial compensation to the rancher for building a freeway (seems fair)?

I saw a wind farm, a straight line of maybe 20 of those big white three-bladed windmills like the one near the inner belt.

I passed a sign reading "Continental Divide" and "Elevation 7000." It seemed odd that I didn't even feel I was in the mountains at that point. It was at the top of a rise, in an area that I thought of as high plains.

At Rock Springs I was nowhere near ready to stop, so I cancelled my reserved campsite, and shortly after that, turned off the freeway for a couple of hundred miles down a two-lane road through the most beautiful and varied country yet. It climbed into mountain passes with beautiful views, up close and distant, and fell into a long valley surrounded by peaks, followed small rivers for a while, went thru a tunnel, and passed close to hundreds of small ranches. Some of the houses looked like they might have been homesteads from the old days, others were newer and modest, and a few were nice enough to indicate that someone out there is making money.

Among its charms were two sites that just pleased me, to see them in "real life" rather then parades or anachronisms. The first was a cowboy, doing what cowboys do. It was a young man, mounted on a horse, wearing a cowboy hat, jeans and boots, and he was driving a small number of cattle ahead of him. There was even a lariat hanging on the saddle. Only his white t-shirt marked him as a modern version. The second was true longhorn cattle. These were not the ones the cowboy was driving, but others I saw grazing in the valley. I remember reading or hearing that they might make a comeback, because they are lean, and because they do well as free range beef, and do well in dry areas so they fit with plans for improving the environment by doing less irrigating. The two sites together made me think of our visit some years ago to the old part of Ft. Worth, TX where we saw cowfolks drive a herd of longhorns thru the streets. That, of course, was purely an act for the tourists. I enjoyed it some, but seeing these two fixtures in real life on real ranches just pleased me a lot.

No pictures, sorry. It wouldn't have felt safe to stop on that shoulderless roadside. Also I'm concerned that my cheap little camera, coupled with my poor skills, will be a disappointment. I know it's not good for wildlife (tried it on deer at home) and may no be good for scenery, either. I tried to capture the Snowy Range today but it was bad. Not sure it was the camera's fault though, the sun wrong which is to say the time of day was wrong.

I'm tired but happy. It was a very enjoyable day, and I never thought I'd say that about 12 hours behind a windshield.