When you cross into Kansas you know it. It’s flat and there’s not much there. The synthetic vision in the plane is often useful in navigating but in Kansas it was just brown.
When we got to Wyoming CC remarked that it had a lot of nothingness. The nothingness has more character with rolling hills and vegetation but almost no trees. While this is true of the South East portion of the state, it does have some interesting and beautiful features.
Saturday we headed off to Mountain Bow National Forest. The Forest is about an hour West of Laramie. We were on the hunt for some stunning views but first we had to find our way. As we headed out Google maps suggested an alternate route and 3 miles in the paved road ended. Not wanting to do 7 miles on gravel, we backtracked a bit.
This would not be our last encounter with dirt roads. Wyoming has many. We got smarter though and mostly stayed on pavement until we were in the park. Entering the area we stopped to pay the use fee and hit two snags. We did not have $5 and we had no pen. The first problem we solved with a $10 bill, you can pay for 2 days on the same pass. As we pondered our next problem a truck pulled up with two rangers. I asked if they had a pen and they let us use one, who said your government is not useful.
With the problems solved we drove on to Lewis lake. The road was again gravel and we got the rental nice and dusty, not as bad as the badlands but it was pretty bad. The park was pretty busy but we scored a good space along the road. It required some tight parallel parking which CC was skeptical of but the car was soon in the space. Something about the steep drop off made her nervous, go figure.
We headed off on a 2 mile hike, sounds easy but it had a good vertical component and we were starting around from about 9000 feet. The path was pretty good and we worked our way up the mountain. The further we went the more vertical it became. The trail does go to the top but that part is rated as hard. We stopped when we could get a view of the mountains, Lewis and Libby lake.
The trip down was easier but we heard a rumble of thunder in the distance. It did not repeat so we enjoyed the lake view at the bottom before moving the car over to Libby lake. Libby was less walking and more looking. The lake also had nice picnic tables so we sat out and had some snacks while enjoying the breeze off the lake.
When we started, it was in the mid 70s but the temperature had dropped and we were glad we had brought our jackets. Our next stop was Libby flats observation post. You are up at 10,847 feet before you climb the stairs, we were really starting to miss that oxygen.
Standing on the tower, the rain in the distance seemed closer and it had gotten quite cloudy and cold, like 52 degrees. You can see the Rockies but with the haze and wildfire smoke they weren’t very clear.
Our next stop was Mirror Lake and Lake Marie. As we arrived it started to drizzle. We took some pictures but then we heard some thunder so back to the car we went. The rain and thunder came so we sat in the car for a while. Eventually we had no more thunder and the rain turned to just a bit of a drizzle so we tried more pictures but the rains came back and harder, so back to the car.
We eventually gave up on the lake and headed back. On the way we tried a scenic overlook but as soon as we got out the rain picked up again. It was time to give up and so we headed down the mountain to Centennial, WY. The town is from the late 1800s and they have a cute historical museum. The rain had mostly stopped so we gave it a shot. It was nice and had several historical buildings but as we tried to tour the rain returned.
We had enough and headed back to the hotel for food and rest. Google tried again to put us on dirt roads but we were smarter by then. The rain also washed the car so that was at least some benefit. It was only filthy and didn't look like it had just completed a Baja 500. Back in Laramie the weather was very nice so we decided to go look at the University or Wyoming.
CC's Dad had attended back in the 60s and we think we found the housing her parents lived in back then. Yes, you do the math, these are seriously old dorms. We also looked at some of the cool modern buildings and artwork. The sun was setting and it was getting late so we picked up some food and called it a day.
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