The original plan was to wake up early and start the day with a 6 mile hike throughout the wild basin of Rocky Mountain National Park, then slowly make our way north into Wyoming. The day went as planned until we got to the wild basin, in the middle of the woods, and saw a sign warning of the quantity of black bears in the area. We started the hike and walked about a half a mile through a dense forest before we chickened out and headed back to the car for a reevaluation of our day. In our defense, the hike wasn’t all that (we saw cooler shit yesterday), we are not from the area and are afraid of bears, we were the only ones on the trail and it was early morning. We hauled ass out of there and went north. Before we knew it we were in the big state of Wyoming. Nobody lives in Wyoming. Its just brown grasslands as far as the eye could see with the occasional set of windmills and snow fences. Oh and antelope. They chill out in the fields in herds of 20-40 as if they are in the plains of Africa. Check these sons of bitches out.
We passed a town called Buford,Wy which, no lie, had the population of 1. Out of the 50 US sates, Wyoming is ranked 10th as far as size but is ranked 50th in population. How and why is so much of this land neglected. Empty hilly grassland. Along I-80 we hit up a roadside attraction, Ames Brothers pyramid, built to honor Oakes and Oliver Ames, financiers of the Union Pacific railroad. The Pyramid stands at the highest point of the transcontinental railroad. Until they moved the railroad track further south. Now it just sits in the middle of nowhere (which is pretty much all of Wyoming). The brothers rep was tarnished after they were caught embezzling money from the financing of the railroad. In response, after their death , the union Pacific built this pyramid.
Across the highway we saw these really cool rock formations jutting up from the nothingness of the Wyoming fields. We took a little detour and ended up in Medicine bowl National forest. It seems now that we entered the west every time we turn around we are in another national forest or national park. the government pretty much owns 80% of the land west of the Mississppi. You can blame that on Teddy. So we drove into the National “forest”, aka rocks in the middle of grasslands, parked, and I went running up and down all of the rock formations while Jillian was a party pooper and stayed in the van and cleaned it up. These rocks are really cool! Pink grey granite covered in dry greenish moss gives these rocks an amazing look. Then the placement of these rocks looks like they are stacked into piles. I believe when God was a kid he was playing in the dirt in Wyoming, bored out of his mind, he just started collecting all the rocks and stacking them in this one area and boom! Vedauwoo Rocks was formed. A really fun place for an amateur climber, these rocks are really easy to climb and the view is well worth it. Out of breath due to the elevation, I climbed all the way to the top of one of the piles. This would be a really cool place to spend a weekend camping and climbing.
From here we drove northeast into Nebraska, for the second time on this journey. We shacked up in a town called Scottsbluff and caught a movie at the worlds worst mall. I got pulled over for doing 75 in a 65? but the cop let me go with a warning. He just saw the out of state plates and wanted to take a peak and see why the fuck I was driving through the middle of nowhere.
Somehow between hotel stays and staying at friends houses we haven’t slept in the van in 6 nights. We are both looking forward to getting back to our roots and cuddling up inside the back of the cold van for the night.
Duces
-Ricky
Nextstop: Carhenge