Did you miss me??? I apologize for not posting yesterday, but I really was “out of pocket”! I left Saturday morning, drove 2 hours, met up with the guys at a bull sale for a brief update, they’d picked out the bull they wanted, but the sale hadn’t started yet. I then drove another hour to my daughter’s house and attended a jewelry party.
It was fun and I finally met some of her new friends. Then I drove another hour to my mom’s house where I spent Saturday night, Sunday, and Monday morning. We had a wonderful visit… for her living only 4 hours away, I don’t seem to be able to make it down very often. Such is ranch life. While I was busy on my Casper trip, I did think of you. I thought, what is the “ranch slant” on a trip to the “big city”? You don’t need pics of traffic or houses or stores or people or anything else along those lines.
I think what amazes most people is that it is 4 hours to a large city (in Wyoming relative size) with traffic and houses and stores and people! There are two malls in Wyoming. One is in Casper. There’s Sam’s Club and Walmart and Bed, Bath and Beyond and Applebee’s and Outback and lots of movie theaters and Casper College and the Events Center and … compared to Ten Sleep (where we have a school, two bars, one gas station, a bank, a couple of stores, one motel and 300 people) it is a BIG place!
The first day of travel is on a gorgeous highway…traveled by many people headed to Yellowstone National Park. There’s Ten Sleep Canyon…
There’s Powder River Pass, elevation 9666′.
And though I keep my eyes open for deer, elk, and moose, I *really* always want to see this herd of yaks on the Buffalo side of the mountain. No buffalo… just yaks.
I then run into the interstate… and the only thing interesting on it was a possible drunk driver that I called into the Highway Patrol… and they caught him… ha!
Now most people would prefer to travel the highways… but on my return trip, I prefer to go this way… we call it the “back way”. It isn’t kept plowed open in the winter… and it is just a gravel road but it actually takes off an hour if you go this way… Now you tell me… would you prefer this scenery or all the traffic and drunk drivers on the interstate???
Oh well. You start out with the Lost Cabin Natural Gas processing plant… it isn’t pretty, but T. Boone would be proud.
And like a lot of natural gas wells it comes with an extra bonus…gas that’ll kill you if you get a whiff. Look closely at this sign… what I always wonder: if the boss of the guy that misspelled poison was upset, or if he even noticed… That’s the last of civilization.
I feel myself relax. “Nothing here but hills and sagebrush and a vast expanse of sky.”
Cottonwood Pass. The easy natural way to enter the Big Horn Basin from the south. Elevation, I don’t know… it isn’t posted on a scenic overlook like Powder River Pass!
Coming into Washakie County. Traffic doesn’t seem to be a problem today.
A shadowed picture of Mahogany Canyon… spectacular, but not even close to fitting into one frame!
I’m back on red dirt. Home is only 15 miles away. I only met the school bus from when I left Lost Cabin until I arrived home. One and a half hours of easy driving, great scenery, and no drunk drivers!
Find me here!