Starting home

We woke up around 5:20. It had been raining since around 1:00 AM. We were amused that there has been more rain here in the high desert than we have had back in Kentucky this month. There was 1/3 inch of rain by the time we left. We had tea and toast while Cindy and Mark heated breakfast burritos for our trip. We loaded the rest of our things in the car and left by 6:20 in a steady rain.

Driving south on US 93, we stopped in Mackay for a donut, but the Royal Bakery was, sadly, still closed. Since Mary ate her breakfast burrito in Challis, she took over driving in Mackay so I could eat mine. We noticed that the mountains to the east were covered in snow. We had just been in those mountains on Tuesday. By the time we reached Willow Springs Summit, the rain started to clear.

In Arco we picked up US 26 east toward Blackfoot. In the laboratory area outside of Arco we saw a small elk herd. This laboratory area is where the experimental use of nuclear energy for electrical power took place in 1955, making Arco the first town to be powered by nuclear energy if only briefly.

We picked up I-15 in Blackfoot and headed south in a light rain. We stopped for gas south of Pocatello where Steve took over driving. Leaving the interstate, we traveled through Lava Hot Springs and Soda Springs in Idaho taking US 30 just north of the Oregon Trail. We enjoyed the many groves of red, orange and yellow aspen trees along the drive. We left the rain behind in Georgetown, Idaho then took a stretch break in Montpelier before crossing over the 6000+ foot summit into Wyoming. All the small towns have a look of the old west.

Mary at Fossil Butte National Monument

We stopped at Fossil Butte National Monument for about 90 minutes. A planned electrical outage at the visitor center made the displays difficult to view. The ranger wasn’t checking for National Park Passes, we don’t know if there ever is a fee or if it was just because of the power outage. Mary got a stamp for the park and the Oregon Trail in her National Park Passport book. A car in the parking lot at the visitor center had West Virginia tags.

We drove further up the hill in the park for a 1.5 nature walk that gains 300 feet in elevation. The visitor center was at 6800 feet. We found an Earthcache and saw ground squirrel and elk sign along the walk.

We had Ritz crackers, peanut butter and an apple for lunch with mixed nuts as a snack as we drove. The rain caught up with us as we got back on US 30 west. A ranger at the park said the rain was headed north and we ran out of it at Kemmerer, Wyoming which is best known for being the home of JC Penney.

All along US 30 from Kemmerer to Little America, Wyoming we saw a steady stream of windmill blades and tower segments transported west on flatbed semi-trailers. US 30 joins I-80 west of Little America where the road was being paved and lots of tractor trailers contributed to congestion. I-80/US 30 became two lanes again just west of Green River where we stopped at the visitor center sponsored by the chamber of commerce. A mining display at the rest area included signs on trona mining and life size statues of two miners. In the future, we would like to do the Red Desert/Wild Horse loop that goes north from this exit. We remarked how much this mining, desert landscape differs from Idaho’s agricultural landscape.

We saw a lot of pronghorns grazing along interstate 80 as we drove through Wyoming. I thought about the television western, The Virginian, as we drove past Medicine Bow, Wyoming since the setting for the series was on Shiloh Ranch in Medicine Bow.

Dinner was at the world’s slowest Wendy’s Restaurant in Laramie, Wyoming. Needing to access Wi-Fi to make lodging reservations, we stopped at the Wendy’s Restaurant near the exit on I-80. Mary was told they were out of salads so she ordered a Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger and fries, Steve a spicy chicken sandwich. It took forever for her to even get her order in then we didn’t think we would get the sandwiches at all. In total, it took 52 minutes to get our meal there. The worst part is that there were other customers in the restaurant whose meal took even longer. I resolved to give the restaurant a write-up in Google Reviews once we were at the motel.

The 45-minute drive from Laramie to Cheyenne was uneventful. As we approached Cheyenne, we saw lots of flashing red lights. As we neared, we saw that these flashing red lights marked huge area of windmills. Past the windmills, still saw flashes in the clouds to the east resembling lightning. We later learned that these, too, were windmill fields.

Our motel was the Quality Inn, Cheyenne, just one exit south on I-25. The room was clean and quiet so we slept well.