Wildbound: Wyoming Road Trip !!!

When L was selected to attend an all-state honor choir--concert held in Gillette--we decided to support him and drive the 7 hours to see him perform (the first week of June). The performance was actually worth the drive, and he had a great experience. Also, we had no idea Wyoming was so vast and diverse...the road trip was amazing! We got to see country and historical sights we'd never seen before. Documented below:

Saturday morning mist on the Winds, viewed as we headed east. To Gillette, we decided to travel through Casper, and come home via Lander, so we didn't repeat more scenery than necessary. The Winds, however, are scenery of which I never get tired.

Another misty mountain range, south of the Winds...

And the scenery most people are familiar with in WY--"The Nothing"

Around the south end of the Winds, we drove through a pass that had a Beaver Creek. It really was loaded with beaver dams and lodges. So cool!

Then, on the southeast side of the Winds, the country starts to look like this...with red hills! With all the rain through the month of May, everything was SO GREEN, and then Boom! Red hills! We discovered this place is called Red Canyon. Fitting.

The grass was so green, and the wildflowers were riotous! Eye candy...

We stopped here ( a place called Cedar Ridge) for a quick break, and I longed to run up the trail...on a horse. Some day...

The parking lot even had hitching posts and rails....I mean--come on!

Some of the red rock had quartz veins that looked awesome.

And a simple map of the trails from the parking area...most of them biking trails...

We traveled through more fun country...

...and came upon Devil's Gate

and Independence Rock...

A view of Alcova Resevoir

Crossing the North Platte River

The farther north and east we traveled, the more the country turned into rolling grasslands. It turns out, just south of Gillette, there is an actual National Grasslands.

Gillette itself wasn't that impressive, but we arrived in time to see L perform, and take him back to our hotel, where we watched American Pharoah win the Triple Crown! This was all on Saturday! The next day we had a quick breakfast and headed back towards home, this time over to Buffalo, through Thermopolis and Lander then back to Pinedale.

As we got closer to Buffalo, A very large, very imposing mountain range came into view. After checking the Wyoming Atlas, we learned that these peaks were in the Bighorn Mountains?! The what? I'd never heard of them...yet they were very impressive!

A view of the town of Buffalo. I could live there.

We drove through Buffalo, then began winding our way up into the mountains. Wow!

We drove to where we were level with the clouds!

Looking at the clouds--across from us. There was a turn out at the top of Powder River Pass, so we pulled over and scrambled out. The kids took off for the nearest snowfield.

The wildflowers were so much fun!

A marmot?! We saw about 4 of these critters, playing on the rocks below us.

I loved the stripey, swirly rocks...

Traveling down the western side of the Bighorns, and driving through the thickest, healthiest forest I've ever seen--we came upon a beautiful lake, known as Meadow Lark Lake--it had it's own ski resort!

Looking back up at the Bighorns from the lake...

And oh!--a moose watching us!

The beautiful canyon we drove down reminded a little bit of Logan Canyon, with the walls of rock.

We pulled over--again--to climb down to a raging river . This was Tensleep Creek, swollen with spring runoff.

The boulder in this pic is about the size of our car, to give you an idea of the amount of water pouring through...

And an arch!

The turn-out above Tensleep campground...

Then the cliffs began looking suspiciously like southern Utah...around the Capitol Reef area...

The little town of Tensleep reminded me of Torrey, or Teasdale, UT. So nice.

Looking back toward The Bighorns...it could almost be near Escalante...no?

THEN--headed into a beautiful canyon, Wind River Canyon, south of Thermopolis. This canyon reminded me of pictures of Ireland, or Scotland--it was so green.

Apparently, the area had been having so much rain (2 inches in 24 hours) that there were multiple mudslides. We were oo-ing and aahh-ing at the mudslide damage, when O, in the backseat began shouting, "Mom! Mom! Mom! Look! Mom! Look!" Well, across the river, walking along the train tracks was a black bear!

About 200 yards away from the bear, around the bend so it couldn't yet see them--was a group of fishermen, heading in the direction of the bear. We didn't stick around to see what happened....