Hell's Half Acre, Pronghorns, to Devil's Tower

Camped at Tough Creek, by Boysen Reservoir, a dam on the Wind River. Sandy. Incredible amounts of flys. If it wasn't so late, I would have left. The flys left not long after I got there, but not before they had filled my car, and my lantern with their corpses, and just plain hanging around.

They were replaced by the wind. Wind like you wouldn't believe. I had my tent pegged out harder than I did on Mt Shasta, and we blew away two tents up there. I even parked my car in front of the tent. I wasn't aware of Wyoming's reputation for wind, and thought it was just the lake effect. How wrong was I. It continued all the next day, all the way across Wyoming. Blowing hard enough that stopping at a picnic area for breakfast just wasn't appealing. I later found out that the reason it is windy in Wyoming, is because Nebraska sucks. It must have been sucking pretty hard this day.

Stopped at Hell's Half Acre, on the road between Shoshone and Casper. Just a small notation on my map, but worth a stop. Lots of coloured eroded gullies. Sort of like Bryce. Turned out (after later stops on this trip) to be a mini badlands.

Burned out of Casper, headed for Gillette, and then Devil's Tower. Stopped at Glenrock along the way, at a working paleo museum. Very neat. A bit dissappointing display wise, but if you took the time to ask a question of the very helpful lady working there, you were quickly rewarded with a fantastic tour, with background stories, and a peek around in the preparation area. An excellent first hand view of real world paleontology.

As an aside, this lady, who in all respects was charming, seemingly well educated, well balanced sort of person had lived in Glenrock for 23 years. It's 3 hours to devil's tower, and probably about 6 or so to Yellowstone. She'd never been to either, but had been hoping to visit Devil's Tower this summer. I don't know what to say to that.

North from here through a "national grassland" which looks like normal farmland to me. Fences, cows, sheep, windmills, houses, all the usual farm stuff. More pronghorns. Don't let anyone tell you these things are endangered. They sure as hell aren't at the moment, and unless the typical land use patterns in Wyoming changes, I don't think anything is going to change anytime soon.

The other thing along this road was coal trains. Big fuckoff long ones, like you get in north central queensland. I had been curious as to why there was a double track out here in the middle of nowhere, but was soon rewarded with a full one coming south, and then an empty one going north, and then another full one, and another empty one. Three and four engine suckers, real long.

And then on to Devil's Tower. A good day's drive, through quite a bit of country. Wyoming is a big state.

Hell's Half Acre, aka, mini Badlands	Hell's Half Acre	Pronghorns	Pronghorn stag
Pronghorn stag, Wyoming landscape	It's about time for a sunset picture	Sunset clouds over Devil's Tower	Late night Devil's Tower