Well, that was a wretched night! I woke up every hour and finally gave up about 7:30. My daughter J slept poorly, too. My sinuses had not been good, when I got up yesterday. They are even worse today. I'm also finding myself easily winded. Of course, we are still over 8000 ft.
We had not been near any place to pick up breakfast food yesterday and this place doesn't provide any. I had brought almond butter bars on the trip and they served as breakfast.
We packed up the car before 9 am. We were still here this late because we had to wait for the office to open at 9 to be able to check out. When it did, J went in to check out and said something about the lack of hot water. The owner, said, yeah, there had been a guy working on it yesterday and he was coming back today. Then, he told us someplace we could go get a shower! No word of the issue yesterday. No apology today. This will go in my Trip Advisor review!
At 9:05, with the odometer reading 41894, we headed off down the road. It was 71 degrees and a lovely day for a long drive. The way out of town northeastward was US 34 and it went through a canyon. At times, we were right along a rushing river. There were homes, cabins, fishing spots, etc. set among the trees. The canyon walls were quite dramatic at times. It was all quite lovely. We never saw anywhere for folks to shop and figured they had to go into Estes Park and or pretty far out of the canyon on the other end. J continues to take great photos from the car, juggling my camera and phone, as well as her own phone.
At 9:49 (41982), we saw some fascinating geological formations just west of Loveland. Google maps identified it as "Devil's Backbone" and it stretched for what seemed to be miles. It really did look like a spine.
Speaking of Loveland, that turned out to be quite the metropolis. Lots of stores and restaurants and fast food places along the highway for miles. Perhaps that is because there is nothing from there to Estes Park, at least along that road. It was here that 34 intersected I-25 and we went north bound.
We got off the interstate at Exit 268 Fort Collins to go to the Colorado Welcome Center at 10:19 (41942). This guaranteed us a restroom and provided a good chance to stretch the legs. The exterior was attractive, with a hiking trail, great views of the still smokey Rockies (due to that fire we heard about), and interesting sculptures.
Inside, I looked through the brochures for some to use in my album about the trip. They also had a small shop and I got some postcards and pins. There was a very, very chatty volunteer that we just could not get away from. We wound up being there much longer than intended. We were not back on the road until 11.
Just before we crossed in Wyoming at 11:28, we saw this sculpture up on the hillside. When we got closer, we discovered we were seeing it from the back. (We also confirmed that it was actually just a sculpture.)
We entered Cheyenne, the capital, at 11:37 and a sign declared the elevation to be 6,062 feet. At 11:41 (41,985), we were parked in front of the state capitol, the entire reason for starting in Denver to begin with. You see, I had the goal of visiting all 50 states before I turned 50. I completed that three years ago. Now, I'm collecting state capitols. I've even got a cool passport to get stamped at each one. The makers of the book will even send me stickers with the stamp and date of any I visited before I got the book. (I need to start looking for those dates.)
There was just one problem- the capitol had been closed for four years for renovation and won't be open again for another 8 days. However, they have an extensive display set up down the street at the State Museum- and they have the stamp for my passport. So, we stopped here long enough to take photos of the facade and some of the sculptures. I really like the one of the artist across the street seeming to be getting ready to paint a picture of the building.
We got back in the car ten minutes later and drove down to the museum. It took me a bit to figure out all there was was street parking. But, I found a spot under a tree, which was good, because when we got out of the car at 11:53, it was 88 degrees.
The museum is set in a park and some of the stones on the paths have designs, such as this steer. In front of the entrance, which was one street over from where we'd parked, there was a teepee and a giant cowboy boot. Like the sculptures at the capitol, these all seemed perfectly fitting.
Inside, the lady at the welcome desk knew exactly what I wanted and took care of stamping my book.Then, we went into the museum, which was free. I've been trying to decide what it says that the first thing we saw in the museum was a stuffed buffalo and a landscape behind it. I do know that when we went to Yellowstone years ago, we saw plenty of them, including one that was outside the restaurant at Old Faithful Inn, when we woke up one morning. So, the old sightseeing carriage from there was nice to see.
There were exhibits on mining in Wyoming. We knew that coal was mined around Gillette and a diorama had a sign stating that there had been swamps in many areas that turned to coal, which was extracted in open pit mines. The environmentalist in me was not thrilled with that. A happier rock to be found in Wyoming is jade. In 1945, it was called the "Green Gold of Wyoming" in
Popular Science and there followed a green gold rush. The apple green jade in the photo is not easily found any more. One display pointed out that we use materials from Wyoming every day: natural gas and coal used to heat and make electricity; trona in baking soda, glass, soap and detergent; bentonite in crayons and kitty litter, and to filter beer; and the materials in the cart in the photograph are made from minerals mined in Wyoming. Really interesting.
I recognized this next thing immediately-it's a sheep wagon. It reminded me of Tiffany Aching's grandmother in the Terry Pratchett Discworld series of books. I hadn't realized that sheep were so important to Wyoming. I also didn't know that they'd had a Basque community in the sheep-rearing area. I actually did know about the Basque and shepherding from a
Bonanza episode of all things.
There were exhibits on things you'd expect, like cowboys, Native Americans, and farming. Unexpected was Thomas Molesworth's furniture made from hand-peeled logs, antlers, leather and Native American weaving.
We opted to save my knees and use the elevator to go to the second floor. In the elevator were delightful cards done by a kid who was really into elevators and such. He is not in the right state for them.
On the second floor, we found the exhibit on the capitol. It was mainly about the renovation and mainly signs at that. There was a nice picture of the skylight, which I would have taken myself, had we gotten in.
On more exhibit of interest to us was on national parks in Wyoming. That included the first national monument in the United States, Devils Tower, which J and I hiked around on that trip two years ago. It had been the 40th anniversary of Close Encounters of the Third Kind that year, which made that cooler.
There was a small shop back on the ground floor and we found some Wyoming souvenirs. When we came out, I googled the Catholic Diocese of Wyoming and that St. Mary's Cathedral and the Chancery were visible from the street corner on the lower right side of the park. So, we went down far enough to take the photo. On our way back to the car, we saw a couple of more of those interesting paving stones. You have to look at the third photo carefully to see the tree etched into the stone.
We were back on the road at 12:45 and looking for quick food, but finding none, resorted to snacking on chocolate Teddy Grahams. The town is not very big on traffic lights, from what we saw. Back out on I-25, we discovered that there wasn't much traffic at all. There was also the same scenery for miles and no billboards. Thank goodness for the radio!
We did have a bit of excitement around 1:20, when we saw another sculpture. This time it was a cowboy on horseback. How appropriate!
Cheyenne is really rather close to the border with Colorado. There is a lot of empty space north of it.
When we reached Wheatland, exit 78, we stopped for gas at 1:42 (42059). The Shell station was not cheap, but you take what you can get. I got 8.25 gallons @$3.25 for a total of $26.84.
There was an Arby's just down and across the street and we got there at 1:50. J paid for our 2 #12 Classic Meals, as well as a Triple Chocolate Cookie for a total of $16.25. Arby's curly fries are always good and it had been a very long time since those almond butter bars this morning.
We were back on the road at 2:36. Eleven minutes later, we finally saw some life- a cattle herd! We also started to get a little more consistent uplift in the landscape.
When a road is this desolate, you take a restroom break, whenever one is presented to you. Thus, at 3:15 (42102), we pulled into the Lusk rest area. It had an informative sign about its use of solar power, as well as a nice view.
We were back on that desolate road at 3:22, thanking God for the people who
are willing to live out here and grow and raise things for us. Thirteen minutes later, we were grateful to whoever put up the jackalope sculpture.
Around 3:52, the sky started to get more interesting. And the thermometer on the dash caught our eye: 95 degrees at 4 pm (42153) and 97 at 4:35 (42199). J did her best to capture the view, in spite of the growing crud on the windows and windshield. We did get an oil rig in the first photo.
I-25 died out and we were now on I-90, which is illogical, since odds are north/south and evens are east/west. Just before we crossed into Montana at 6:19, we had a sunshower. We were on the Crow Reservation immediately. I'd been watching for gas for quite a while, but had had no luck. It was beginning to worry me, a lot. J googled to see what was ahead. We'd taken this road 2 years ago and I knew it was really empty. I also knew that Little Bighorn National Battlefield would be coming up. That had a tourist area between it and the highway and I knew there was a gas station. We skipped the one that we passed and, if worse came to worst, I could come back to it. Finally, at 6:56 (42379), we were at the Conoco at Little Bighorn. They really need to pave their lot. We took advantage of their restroom, too. The car was on fumes- it drank 12 gallons @$2.799 for a total of $33.59.
The sky continued to be of more interest than the surroundings, when we got back on the road at 7:08. Oh, and it was now 84 degrees. By 7:16, we had rain and there was a thunderstorm ahead.
The GPS took us into Billings a weird way. We saw way more of the industrial area than necessary. Still, at 8:00 (42241), we pulled into our stop for the night, the Hilton Home2Suites. This had been my booking. When I tried to book months ago, the Fairfield and Hampton calendars didn't stretch this far. This place was reasonable and had breakfast.
Our room was 108 and it blew us away. It really was a suite. It was so luxurious compared to what we'd had last night.
After unloading the car, we headed out for dinner at 8:29. We got a recommendation from the front desk, rather than searching ourselves this late in the evening. Plus, there were several homeless people hanging out in the parking lot and I didn't want to dally there.
At 8:35 (42441), I found a spot on the street about a block from our destination. The rest of the street was blocked off for some kind of celebration. We admired the old building that used to be the Montana Power Company and then realized that our recommended restaurant, Montana Brewing Company, was on the ground floor.
As you can see,there were a lot of people in the street and cafe portion of it. Inside, it was crowded and very loud. We asked at the podium at the bar area about seats and she had none. She sent us back to the restaurant. They had none, but the woman said to wait, there might be an opening. There was an empty table, but some guest was supposedly bringing people to it. After a while, the hostess gave up and seated us there.
Service was a little slow, but it was understandable. Luckily, water came so that I could take my meds. J ordered a Huckleberry Lemonade, as huckleberry is a big thing in Montana. Since the hotel was right up the street, she encouraged me to go ahead and try the Huckleberry Margarita. It was quite good. Folks liked the photo of the two of them on Facebook, even though you can't tell them apart. I ordered the Strawberry Chicken Salad($11.99), whose chicken was dry, but had a vinaigrette to die for. J got the Chicken Strip Basket for $9.99 and enjoyed it. We decided we just had to split the Peach Cobbler. It was great!
We had plenty of time to relax and enjoy the meal once it came. When we left, there were far fewer people.
We were at the car at 9:52 and at the hotel two minutes later (42442). The security guard was hanging out in the parking lot.
Although she wanted to crash like I did, J needed to take a shower.
I drove 548 miles today!!!
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