Chapter 22

Today was drive across Wyoming day. We once again broke up the drive with stops, but it was still a long 6 hours of driving, with lots of big trucks on I-80. I remember from our 2012 trip that eastern Wyoming/western Nebraska was the worst part of the trip, and I can see why. It's pretty desolate.

Our first stop was the Wyoming state capitol, downtown. Unfun fact: it's closed for renovation, so we looked around the outside. It has a gold cupola and copper trim around the bottom of the roof.

We walked down the street to the depot. It's certainly a lot smaller than the one in Kansas City! The best feature was a map inlaid into the floor that shows where we are going. It even includes elevations.

By then it was time to get on the road. We looked at the map, trying to find a place where we could stop, after we had made some time. We found Fort Fred Steele historic park, about 2 hours away, and set our sights on that.

Fort Fred Steele was established to protect the newly built Union Pacific Railroad from attacks by Native Americans during construction of the transcontinental railroad in the United States. The fort was built in 1868 where the railroad crossed the North Platte River. The only original structure left is the powder magazine, but a few structures have also been rebuilt. We walked along a trail under the train tracks and along the river, and found the fort, which is mostly ruins now. All the buildings were open, with LOTS of interpretive signs. They have found lots of artifacts, like glass, nails, sole of shoes, plates, etc, which are on display on the window sills of the buildings. It was such a remote spot, even now, it's unimaginable how remote it was in the 1800s.

We drove to our next stopping point, which was Point of Rocks, a stage coach stop. We got gas, and followed what we thought were signs along a dirt road, but all we found was oil industry equipment. We went back to the gas station, where the very friendly attendant pointed out the window -- at the easily visible building, across the freeway. We went up there and ate lunch in the shade of the building. The building is actually a recreation of the stage coach stop, and the ruins of the original are right next to it. We also walked up the hill (startling a couple rabbits) to a grave from a murder case that was never definitely solved.

We tried to find one more stage coach stop, but we couldn't find it. We crossed the continental divide twice (one is part of a small bowl), at 7000 and 6930 feet. Also, a pass at 8640!

Then we stopped at Fort Bridger. We'd been to two locations where we were the only people there, and they were so quiet and remote. But as we approached Fort Bridger, there were people everywhere. Turns out, this weekend is the Mountain Man Rendezvous, and there were hundreds of people there, camping in teepees, selling crafts and food, and demonstrating activities from the 1800s. We tried to find parts of the original fort, and we did, but it was so crowded with people.

We wanted to get to Salt Lake City earlier than we arrived last night, so it was time to get on the road for the final drive. We drove through huge mountains, and down, down, down to the city. They have a complicated-to-everyone-who-isn't from-here system of numbering their streets. Our motel is at 7234 South 300 West. We thought we had no phone service and really didn't know how to find it. (We have paper maps for everywhere on this trip, except Salt Lake City) so we stopped at Starbucks to use their WiFi, finding out that we did have phone service.

We picked a nearby vegetable-heavy restaurant for dinner, enjoyed eating that, and then used Google maps to find our motel! We were so happy to find a restaurant with lots of vegetables, and the fact that it had a "Love Trumps Hate" sign with a rainbow flag made it better! Breaking those Mormon stereotypes.