Catching up... WYOMING DAY!

Time to catch up on the blog! Kate here, writing about day 3, and then David will post an entry about our 4th day.

DAY 3
DATE: Thursday, August 12
LOCATION: Denver up through Wyoming
DISTANCE: 492 miles

We thought our third day was going to be so-so - 8 hours in the car through the middle of nowhere Wyoming until we reachedour final destination, Flagg Ranch in the Grand Tetons. But, SURPRISE! it was one of the best days of the trip. If you've never driven through Wyoming, we highly recommend it. It was beautiful even if there wasn't much there... at all.

We started the day with Clarice sending us off the beaten path and we were so glad she did - we drove through the mountains of northern Colorado until we eventually crossed the border into Wyoming. When we turned around to go take a picture with the "Welcome to Wyoming" sign, we saw a prairie dog! Not a bad start for our 2 day Wyoming wildlife extravaganza.

The first major city we drove through was Laramie, which had a special meaning to us as theatre artists. The Tectonic Theater Project interviewed residents of Laramie after Matthew Shepard was brutally tortured and murdered because of his homosexuality and they then created the play "The Laramie Project." It was a desolate and oppressive factory town, and we couldn't imagine what it must have been like for a young homosexual college student to grow up there. In Laramie we got onto route 80 and headed toward the mountains. This is when we noticed the WIND! It's sooo windy! We saw signs that warned of "Gusty Crosswinds" and they were not kidding. Carla handled it though. From this point forward we also saw many herds of Pronghorn, a really cool kind of deer that looks like some kind of African antelope.

We got off 80 and headed north, and soon realized we were in a large basin between two mountain ranges that has absolutely nothing in it for about 100 miles. There were 2 towns labeled on the map, but after the first one turned out to be 2 trailers and a closed cafe, we had lost hope in finding a gas station in the second town, Muddy Gap. Luckily for us, all Muddy Gap was was a gas station. ONLY a gas station. There were some tourists on their way to Yellowstone, a group of bikers, and some British cyclists who were riding bikes across Wyoming (yikes.. and yet, rather common. lots of bikes out here). Inside you could buy t-shirts that said "WHERE THE #$%^ IS MUDDY GAP??" I was tempted, but a photo would have to do. After gassing up with 3 dollar 50 cent gas in MG, we came upon a "point of interest" as they call them out here that was Split Rock. It was a beautiful mountain pass that apparently was a stop on the Oregon Trail and the Pony Express. There was also a sign explaining that this valley was still home to wild horses - we saw tons of horses throughout the day, but the land is so vast and the ranches are so big that it's impossible to tell if a horse alongside the road is wild or owned by a rancher. So.. chances are we saw wild horses, we just don't know which of them were wild!

By the time we reached the northwest corner of the state, there began to be a lot more vegetation and the mountain range grew larger. We passed through a couple of adorable towns, both of which clearly have tourism from the Grand Teton, Yellowstone area, Lander and Dubois. We've already decided that the only way to do Yellowstone is to drive through all of Wyoming to get there (don't let the no towns and no gas fool you, it's gorgeous and worth it!), and that next time we're staying the night in Dubois and finding a place to ride horses. We hit some treacherous wind at one point - we could see a storm drifting over the mountain and the resulting wind was bending trees all the way over and sending debris across the road. Also, when we were up the mountain almost into the Grand Teton National Park, we drove through a completely unpaved pass and had to be led through by a ranger. All of this was fun, though, because Wyoming is so beautiful.

We got to the Grand Tetons and headed north toward our campground. Flagg Ranch is inbetween the Tetons and Yellowstone and I'm pretty sure it's the Four Seasons of campsites. We were near the showers and had our own firepit and picnic table, and there was a lodge not too far away where I could get coffee in the morning. It was a ton of fun to camp, even though we failed fabulously at making a fire to cook our dinner (no kindling). It is definitely in bear country, and we were warned that a grizzly had been trolling around the river bank not far from the campsite. Grizzlies are not like other wild animals - they'll seriously just attack you for no reason. Keep in mind we were in a tent surrounded by people in heated campers! Thankfully we had no incidents with bears, although it was 35 degrees that night - I was glad I remembered to pack our warm clothes and blankets and we were able to cuddle and keep plenty warm. Anyway, Flagg Ranch comes highly recommended, and if you're ever up there don't pay for a hotel - just camp!