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May 27, 2008 (Night)

Exercise Type: Run

Weather: 55F, but nice!

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Oregon Trip '08 - Day Three

Woke up several times in the middle of the night, just FREEZING! Finally, at 0500, despite being trashed out from yesterday, I could sleep no more, and I got out of my tent.

Everything was covered with nearly an INCH of snow! Holy crap! It was both exciting and demoralizing, since it was a demonstration of how we're pretty much nature's bitch in parts of the world such as these.

I wasted no time packing up, trying to get things in order before too much precipitation covered everything. Behrs roused out of bed about 45 minutes later and was equally surprised as me. Despite the crappy conditions, we managed to pack up everything in orderly fashion and hit the road by 0630!

We were excited this morning for our first of several "Continental Breakfast Crawls". We spotted several hotels in Custer, so we decided we'd hit up their free breakfasts on our way out of town.

Our first stop was the Days Inn for make-your-own waffle. From there it was the Best Western. They ALSO had waffles, but I had only cereal there. Then our last stop was the Comfort Inn. I dined on biscuits and gravy, toast, mini muffins, and mixed fruit. By then we were both jammed. And TIRED. But we had to press on and make it into the far reaches of western Wyoming.

I drove us about 200mi or so from Custer to Geurnsey, WY for our first stop. During that drive the grasslands were lush green, like the Irish countryside! This was definitely indicative of the huge rains they've had and I'm sure a rare sight to see this "desert" this green -- ever!

At Geurnsey, we stopped at the first two of many Oregon Trail sights: Register Cliff and Oregon Ruts. The Cliff was a place were Oregon Trail travelers etched their initals. Pretty cool. From there we checked out the ruts, where wagon wheels ground into the limestone climbing the hills. Still there after 150+ years! Very cool.

From Geurnsey we made the long, desolate drive to Casper, WY. Behrs wasn't too psyched about it, but I wanted to stop at a the National Historic Trails Interpretive Center. It cost $8 each to get in but I thought it was worth it, with really cool exhibits and interactive things, including this treadmill where you had to pull a Mormon handcart -- which is how those crazies WALKED THEIR SHIT to Salt Lake City!!!

After the museum sights, we dined once more in the parking lot then hit the road for what would be our most desolate drive of the trip across the desert of central Wyoming. The drive was broken up a bit by a stop to the famous "Independence Rock". It was actually a lot cooler than it sounds; we stopped at this rest stop and make the short hike to its base, then scrambled to the top, where once again settlers etched their initials into this solid volcanic rock and otherwise hung out to celebrate what was considered a half-way point of the journey.

The last leg into our final stop of the day -- Lander, WY -- was absolute desolation. No buildings, not even any TREES. Just rolling hills, and limitless desert and sage brush. Incredible.

Around 6ish we finally rolled into the small western town of Lander, WY. We intended to camp at Sinks Canyon State Park (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinks_Canyon_State_Park), but after buying groceries and making the short drive out of Lander toward Sinks, it started raining. AGAIN! We couldn't take the idea of setting up camp in already wet tents and sleeping in the cold and rain, so we "circled the wagon" and returned to Lander to get a hotel room.

We holed up for the night at the "Frontier Motel", a sketchy yet up-and-coming motel on the main drag. It had new beds, a TV, and HEAT, which was all we needed. After unloading our stuff and laying out our tents to dry, I went for a solo run, mostly to look for places to eat. Like Custer, nothing was open beyond 9PM...except for the local Pizza Hut, so when I returned, we headed over there to fill up on breadsticks, pizza, and the salad bar. They forgot the chicken on my half of our pizza so we got that for free, which was sweet!

We returned to the Frontier and quickly passed out for the night, enjoying the experience of sleeping in shorts and t-shirts in a headed room! We retired without a definite idea of what we'd do the next day, but we were excited, knowing we were poised on the edge of the Wind River mountains, with Yellowstone and the Tetons nearby!