First Leg to Alpine, Wyoming

The car tells the story of when we left the house...
Look what we saw driving down the road in front of us...

One of the mountain ranges we saw while heading west...

Overlooking the valley behind the sign...

In Memoriam

On our way back to Lander, I discovered this engraved rock along the side road. I got on the internet and tried to find out something about these particular people. This is the only things I was able to discover about them...

On the 27th day of June 1870, Dr. Barr, Harvey Morgan, and Jerome Mason were killed on Willow Creek between Big and Little Popo Agie Rivers by Sioux warriors. From other readings, it would appear that there were a lot of Indian skirmishes in 1870 with lots of white settlers killed.

The skull of Harvey Morgan was the first artifact placed in the Pioneer Museum collections. In fact, this relic inspired Lander's pioneer settlers in 1909 to create the museum. The log cabin they built was the first building erected in Wyoming to be a museum; it now houses some 30,000 artifacts. The young Morgan, an Oregon Trail emigrant, gold miner and homesteader, enjoyed a full if brief life. In life and death, he played an important role in Lander's growth.

498 miles

We began our exploring yesterday very early - 3:00 a.m. early. We planned on driving to Riverton which is about 2 hours west of Casper for their annual Hot Air Balloon Rendezvous. The balloons were being displayed and made ready for flight on the soccer field at Central Wyoming Community College between 6:00 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. so that meant getting up early to drive there.

The drive was quite uneventful since most of it was done in the dark. However, I really don't like driving in the countryside in the dark since there is quite alot of animals who hang out during that time. As a maintenance precaution, I'd had the oil changed in my car as well as had the front brakes replaced. I'm so glad because while driving down the road, I came upon two deer standing in my lane and had to stomp on the brakes to miss them. Might I mention that they had the "deer in the headlight look"? They weren't the only wildlife we saw by the side of the road, but they were the only ones who ventured into our path.

We made it to the Balloon Rendezvous in plenty of time and then made plans for the rest of the day. We knew we wanted to eat lunch at the Golden Corral, but it wouldn't be open for about 4 hours. That's when we decided to drive to Lander and check it out. More about that in another blog.

For our final visit of the day we went to Castle Gardens. That was a real adventure.

So, by the time we returned home we'd driven 498 miles from Casper to Riverton to Lander to Riverton to Castle Gardens to Casper straight to the carwash. It was a long day - about 16 hours from wakeup to arrival at home. But, what a great day!