After Colorado, we headed for Wyoming. I LOVED it. Looking at the pictures makes me want to move there. I am saving Yellowstone for a different post so this one is about the rest of Wyoming. Dean and I LOVE reading westerns and everything about the Old West and Oregon Trail. I often find myself wishing I could be in those books and go back in time. My hope in driving through Wyoming was to see of the the history and find someone riding a horse in town. Unfortunately, I did not see anyone riding their horse in town. I think if I had we would have moved right then.
We loved the vast, open spaces and the wildlife. We saw tons of Pronghorn Antelope. They seem so much more mysterious than deer. Searching for them helped pass the time. Another interesting wildlife was the prairedog. There was a rest area with its own little praire dog town. They were so cute scurring around calling to eachother.
The best type of wildlife Wyoming has is the Mustang. There are thousands of horses that run wild through the west. Many farmers and ranchers are not allowed to put up fences so the horses can still roam the land. You have no idea how excited I was to know that I could possibly see wild mustangs. We didn't actually see any wild ones but we see quite a few in corrals that were going to be sold. There are so many wild mustangs that the Bureau of Land Management rounds some up to be sold to keep down the population. Immediately, when I read that I wanted one so bad. Of course we have no where to keep it right now but one of my many cowgirl dreams is to buy a few and ride them all over our ranch. Someday.
As we headed to Yellowstone, we drove over the Oregon Trail and past the South Pass. It was cool to see the wagon ruts in the road and know that thousands of settlers rode right past you in their covered wagons. Or that the mail traveled past on the Pony Express. Its amazing to think the obstacles and landforms the settlers had to travel around to make it all the way out west. It was great history for us.
Later, we came to a town called Thermopolis. It is home to the World's Largest Hot Springs. They have a hot spring fed swimming pool, spa, and natural hot spring pools. The only bad part is that it smells the rotten eggs. The smell is so strong. I know I could never live there. The most awesome part is that the spring is so HOT. It really could burn your hand. Dean really wanted to jump right in. It is also amazing to see the amount of mineral build up and the colors they create. Besides the smell it was a great pit stop.
The thing I was most looking forward to (before I found out about the mustangs for sale) was Cody, Wyoming and the rodeo. We didn't actually get to go to the rodeo. It was storming when we arrived in town and included lots of wind and lighting. We decided to walk around town, hoping to get that Old West feel. It was mostly gift shops and some other retail stores but many of them were closed when we rolled into town. It was a nice little town but not as western as I imagined. We spent the night in Cody and the next morning it would be on to Yellowstone.
