Great American West Adventure
Casper, Cheyenne, and Thermopolis!, Wyoming - September 2017
We stayed the night in Thermopolis, Wyoming. It's just a cool sounding name. It's from the Greek for "hot city". Duh! There are numerous hot springs here.
We headed west (southwest) toward Casper, Wyoming. In Lakota, Casper is called Pahášaša Otȟúŋwahe which means "Red Hill City". Casper has a long cowboy history and is nicknamed "The Oil City" due to the oil discoveries in the late 1800s.
Along the way, we saw every variety of landscape possible, I think. Rugged, rocky mountains. Flat, open plains. Fields with mesas and buttes interspersed. Cattle ranches. Oil fields. And we drove through some rocky mountain tunnels again and there was a trail tunnel parallel on the other side of the river. .
We drove through Wind River Canyon and stopped at the Boysen Dam. The sign at the dam said that the canyon walls display rocks of the Precambrian and Paleozoic eras ranging in age from several billion to 235 million years. Wind River Canyon is sacred to contemporary Native American tribes in the region.
From Casper, we headed further southwest to Cheyenne. Cheyenne is the most populous city in Wyoming. It is also the state capitol. The Union Pacific Railroad came through Cheyenne in the 1860s leading to prosperity for the town. Cheyenne is one of the windiest cities in the United States. It was very windy as we drove down the highway toward Cheyenne.
Cheyenne has a series of BIG BOOTS throughout the downtown area. They are 8 foot tall cowboy boots that have been painted by local artists similar to the mermaids in Norfolk and the dolphins in Virginia Beach. The project’s theme was “If this boot could talk, what story would it tell?” We drove around and found a few of them. Pretty cool.
Casper: Elevation: 5,150′ Population: 59,324
Cheyenne: Elevation: 6,062′ Population: 64,019
We are staying the night in Cheyenne. And then heading back to the Denver area.
Bonus: I was able to get some star trails with the GoPro and the Nikon. You can see the Moon rising on the right side of the video.
