400 Miles in a Day – Our Wyoming Adventure, Part Two

When I fly for work, I look forward to quiet time on the plane, to catch up on email or, if I’m really lucky, read a book. Traveling with kids is another story, however. I didn’t even bring a book to read on our flight to Denver, figuring that between the two girls, at least one of them would need my attention at any given time. That didn’t turn out to be the case, thanks in part to the availability of free Disney shows through Southwest Wifi, leaving me to entertain myself with my Ticket to Ride phone app.

The flight to Denver went smoothly. I was a little anxious, until I remembered what I had left at home (jeans, hat, Lily’s booster seat). I always feel better after I’ve remembered something I’ve forgotten, since (a) I always forget something when traveling and (b) it’s usually just one or two things, so if I remember one of them, whatever else I left behind can’t have been too important. The girls were in a great mood, in spite of a short night’s sleep the night before. They don’t fly that often, so just navigating the airport was a bit of an adventure for them.

We landed in Denver, made our way through baggage claim (where we had a brief interaction with another family who had purchased their kids’ luggage at Target two years, when we did), and picked up our rental car. The rental car guy gave me a hard sell, and I upgraded in spite of my better judgement. (As I mentioned in my last post, I was trying to cut costs where I could for this trip.) I think, however, it turned out to be a good decision. We ended up in a GMC Terrain, an SUV a little bigger than the one I have. The room and the horsepower to climb up mountain roads were both appreciated. And the rental car guy threw in a booster seat for free.

The problem with road trips, as I see them, is that they force you to continually make tough decisions about how to use your time. Any time spent enjoying the current attraction a little longer means less time available for the next one, assuming you want to get to your hotel room before midnight. The drive from Denver through Wyoming that day presented many instances of this problem. We were headed to Thermopolis, Wyoming, about six hours away. That’s a long haul for the first day of vacation, but Thermopolis, home of hot springs and a dinosaur center, seemed like a lot of fun, and I wanted to start our Monday there. That meant making pretty quick stops at the sights along the way.

First stop: Lunch. I opted for fast food, so we could keep moving. Plus lots of water, since we were now more than a mile up in elevation — and would be all week. You know how they call Denver the Mile High City? Well, the entire state of Wyoming is a mile high. After my bout with altitude sickness in Mexico City (also a mile high) last winter, I didn’t want to have to deal with sick kids on our vacation. The best way to cure altitude sickness is to go down the mountain, but that’s not possible in Wyoming, so we went with the best prevention: lots and lots of water. Ground rule for the trip: When I say drink, the girls have to drink.

Sidebar: The dewpoint in Denver was something like 43 degrees. It was cool, maybe 65 or 70, but it was super dry. Like 18 percent humidity. I’ve been paying a lot of attention to dewpoints this summer, since they’re the best prediction I have for how much I’ll enjoy going running. Dewpoints are a function of temperature and humidity. Dewpoints in the upper 50s are great. Lower 60s? A little uncomfortable, but runnable. Mid 60s and above? At that point, humidity tries to murder you. Colorado’s dewpoint was in the low 40s. I’ve never even seen that low a number in Nashville! No running for me while on vacation, however. #singledadproblems

With lunch out of the way, we headed north to Wyoming. We made a short stop at the Southeast Wyoming Welcome Center, which featured a much cooler exhibit on Wyoming than I expected from a welcome center. There was even a replica Old West jail you could sit in, which the girls couldn’t resist. The welcome center also gave the girls a chance to try out their new cameras. Lily got a pretty spectacular shot of the mammoth skeleton on display. (In addition to being waterproof and having a great macro mode, Lily’s new camera has a pretty wide angle, which was great for capturing giant mammal bones.) Bonus: We found out at the welcome center that Wyoming was running a fun thing where you could get free and very awesome stickers about the state of Wyoming at various welcome and information centers around the state. Perfect for our around-the-state road trip!

Outside the welcome center, it was very windy, and there was a storm on the horizon. That was slightly ominous, and I got a little worried when I got back on the interstate. There was a sign with some lights that read, “When flashing, road ahead is closed. Turn back around.” We ended up seeing these signs on every major road. What kind of a place closes down their interstates like that? And what does it take to close down so many roads? I was thinking high winds (there were a lot of windmills around, so this was clearly a perpetually windy place), but later realized it must be a snow thing. Wyoming in July is mid-60s and partly sunny. Wyoming in January is probably Arctic in nature. This explains the tall fences that often ran along one side of major roads, without actually enclosing anything. They’re there to slow down the snow.

Next stop: Cheyenne. It’s probably the smallest state capitol I’ve ever visited, but I made sure we hopped out and took pictures of the state house. Check another capitol off the list. By this point, it had started raining, and Hannah didn’t have a rain jacket. (It was due to arrive at my house in Tennessee the next day.) Not getting drenched won out over having fun with the new camera, so we got back on the road.

After another hour or so, marveling at the wide open land around us and worrying slightly about all the rain coming down, we reached our next pit stop: the Chugwater Soda Fountain. I had seen this stop on Roadside America, my favorite website to learn about odd places to visit while driving. The only odd thing about Chugwater was its size: 212, according to the 2010 census. It’s “a little town with a big heart,” and it has a pretty amazing soda fountain. The building is the oldest in Chugwater, and dates back to 1914. The soda fountain bar has been there since 1927, and the business advertises itself as Wyoming’s oldest operating soda fountain. At this point, it had been a couple of hours since lunch, so a pit stop at a soda fountain was perfect.

Lily went for a cherry soda float, Hannah opted for a peach soda float (she’s been on a peach kick recently), and I tried the root beer. We got to see the attendant mix the sodas right in front of us, with some classic soda fountain equipment. All three drinks were great, and the root beer was some of the best I’ve had. (And I’ve had a lot in the last few years.) The soda fountain used to be a pharmacy, back in the 1910s, and you can still see a cabinet lined with little drawers that the pharmacist used. The rest of the shop is a mix of diner, general store, and souvenir shop, with lots of charm and a friendly staff. If you’re ever driving north of Cheyenne, be sure to stop in. Also be sure to fill up your gas tank ahead of time, since the nearest gas station is 25 miles away!

We had two very happy campers in the car as we pulled out of Chugwater. Lily was extra happy because she had figured out — all by herself — how to make panoramas on her new camera. By the end of the day, she had taken 150 photos. A girl after her daddy’s heart! I’m glad the girls were in a good mood, because we still had four hours of driving ahead of us.

It was about half an hour later where I had to make the toughest call of the day. Twenty minutes out of our way was a site where you could actually walk along the Oregon Trail. I played plenty of the Oregon Trail computer game back in the day, and Hannah loves U.S. history, so we decided to go for it, even though it meant another 40 minutes of driving. It was still cloudy and raining on and off, and, have I mentioned how sparsely populated Wyoming is? It is, as I learned, the least densely populated state. There was barely any traffic on the interstate, and, when we turned off on a state road to see the Oregon Trail ruts in Guernsey, there were even fewer cars around. It was a little creepy by day, and even more so at night. More on that later.

At any rate, we couldn’t pass up the chance to see the actual Oregon Trail, so we headed to Guernsey. What’s there, just off the state road, is a path carved into the bedrock by thousands of wagons heading west along the Oregon Trail years ago. Visiting the site on a cold, rainy afternoon, it was easy to imagine how intimidating it would have been back in the 1800s to head west without, say, GPS or an SUV. (I don’t even think they had acronyms back in the 1800s.) We stayed for a few minutes to take a few photos, then the girls ran back to the car, as the rain picked up again. I’ve mentioned here that Lily is a runner, so it was important to get a little running in during our road trip!

Given the time, I opted to skip seeing the former world’s largest jackalope in Douglas, Wyoming, so we could keep driving. We stopped in Casper instead, picking up more fast food for dinner (and swearing off fast food for the rest of the week, given how it made us feel while driving), and swinging by the Tate Geological Museum at Casper College. Thanks to a tip from Roadside America, we saw the 15-foot-tall T-Rex statue that menaces the museum parking lot. We had just enough light left for Lily and me to hop out and take a few photos. (Hannah was two-thirds the way through her first read of the sixth Harry Potter book at this point, so I let her opt out of photo shoots when the lighting was bad or the weather was rough.)

It was cold and rainy, and we had two hours of driving — in the dark — ahead of us, so we didn’t stop long. But I took a moment to appreciate what was happening. My girls and me, off on an adventure to a place none of us had seen before. Lily wanting to photograph everything of interest, just like her dad. Hannah, a little more independent, but still game for having fun. A whole week of this ahead of us. I was a happy camper, too.

About an hour later, driving through central Wyoming in the dark of night, Lily fell asleep and missed the exciting drive to Thermopolis. Remember that bit about Wyoming being sparsely populated? I spent an hour driving through what seemed to be wide open landscape on a two-lane state road, with only the occasion pair of headlights passing me in the other direction. I felt a bit like I was driving on Mars. Except for all the rain. At one point, the rain stopped and the sky cleared up a bit. There was just enough light left from the sunset to see a patch of blue at the horizon, at the edge of the night sky. I’m sure this part of Wyoming is beautiful by day, but it was pretty nice at night, too.

We pulled into Thermopolis around 10 or 11 and drove straight to our hotel. Both girls were asleep at this point, but they woke up long enough to change into pajamas and explore the hotel room a bit. More on that in my next post. I was just glad to be there, knowing we had maybe two hours of driving ahead of us the next day, to get to our next hotel in Cody. Thermopolis, and its hot springs and dinosaurs, awaited the next morning.