We left later than we’d planned.
North through part of Colorado to Wyoming. Saw some pronghorns in Colorado, none in Wyoming. My daughter took all the photos, because I was driving. We didn’t see any more pronghorns after she got the camera out.
View toward the back of the car from between the front seats:
Close-up:
Some people find Wyoming boring to drive across. I am amazed at the infinitely variable configurations of sky, rock, and low shrubby plants. Toward the end of the day, we passed some wind farms with tall, three-bladed modern windmills. I worry about risks to birds, but the sculptural quality of the light-catching blades against a storm-dark sky was exquisite. No photo. Daughter was reading at the time.
Later we wondered what would happen to the country’s energy situation if the south-facing roofs in this part of the country all carried solar panels that fed back into the grid.
Then there are the trucks. About two-thirds of the traffic was semis. An amazing amount of STUFF moves around this countryside. On long freight trains, too.
My daughter said I was wrong on the next one, because they were too big, but I was right: tires. Only five of them on a big semi. She snapped the photo as we pulled past, and the driver noticed, waved, and grinned.
Still Wyoming, later in the day:
We made it into Utah before finding a place to rest, possibly the last available room in Ogden. Interstate 84 is carrying traffic from westbound I-80, in addition to its own flow and being under construction and down to one lane in each direction itself. The final 15 miles (24 km) of the day’s travel were the longest, but we got a good walk in with the dogs, ate our tomatoes and some edamame succotash we’d brought with us, and called it a day.
I love crossing Wyoming, personally. Sometimes the drive can be extreme for weather reasons, but it’s always scenic and beautiful. No, for me, the state I don’t much care for driving across is Nebraska.
Texas goes on FOREVER. It takes two days to drive across. And Montana goes on NEARLY forever. Pretty, but really, really long.
Nebraska: stopping at Brown Sheep breaks that stretch up–! I haven’t done it yet, but the next time I need to cross Nebraska. . . .
Oh, and there’s the Robert Henri museum in Cozad that’s been closed when I’ve been there. One of these times I’ll get there when it’s open.
I think one of the tricks of travel is figuring out how to connect with the particularity of the place, and I find places long where I haven’t had much opportunity to do that. So Wyoming and Nebraska are okay for me now, and I need to do something about Texas next time I cross it. . . .