Wyoming: Cowboys, oil wells, hotsprings and a very messy car

Jana writes: A flurry of getting packed up this morning made all the more interesting by the fact that I lost the car keys. After all my nagging to the kids about putting things back where they belong, I misplaced the car keys after staggering to the bathroom in the wee hours of the morning and opening the car to get my medicine. So we tore the entire car apart, looking for the keys, thinking they'd been packed in something by accident. But then we found them tucked under a flap on the tent, which was already half collapsed on its way to being packed down. The boys took great delight in repeating all my mom-isms back at me!

After a magnificent cup (ohmygod it was good) of coffee in Custer, we hit eastern Wyoming. Which is a bleak, bleak place. Trailer homes in the midst of wrecked cars, old farm machinery and broken down everything else made of metal. No trees. Just sage brush and rusted machines. Oil rigs pumping away. Natural gas pumps. An occasional open pit coal mine, with trains loaded with coal (which arrive in Duluth and are then put on ships and sent to electric generating factories out east. How can this be worth it??). Far cry from the wind turbine farms we saw back in MN. Miles of bleak horrible nothing but white man bad behavior evidence. And a few antelope here and there.

The reward for enduring all that is arriving in Buffalo, a lovely small town at the foot of the Big Horn Mountains. This is the second time I've been here--the last time in 1991. I loved it then and I love it now. Just 3000 people, great architecture, a huge city pool and skatepark, a Unitarian Church, a public radio station and another radio station that plays jazz and folk. People drive Priuses with anit-George Bush stickers, the downtown is full of old buildings with outdoor cafes, and a fast-running creek runs right along the edge of the public library, which is on the main corner of the town center. I could live here, I do believe. This must be the only liberal leaning town in this very republican state.

Up and over the Big Horn mountains. My poor little car's gerbils are working their asses off to get up the slopes! When we left Buffalo, it was a broiling 92 where we stopped to eat our peanut butter and banana lunch. When we stopped in the mountains, it was a refreshing 66. We stood and listened to our echos bounce off the rock walls of the mountains--so quiet up there, and so amazing to hear your voice come back to you seconds later.

On the way down, we passed through Ten Sleep Canyon, which was carved out by glaciers 250,000 years ago. Very beautiful. I am convinced that the way to see this country in on a motorcycle. Can you believe I'm saying that?? But who wants to be in a car when you can be out in the open, enjoying the scenery? All the way through the mountains are signs that tell about the geology and age of the exposed rock--Charlie and I really enjoyed that. Real cowboys everywhere around Ten Sleep, in their dusty pick-ups and brown arms hanging out the truck windows.

We arrived in Thermopolis around 6pm, and went straight to the hot springs to swim. These are the largest mineral hotsprings in the world, for those of you who are impressed by these things. They smell something horrible--sulfur. Ben noted that it smells like his farts, except worse. I would beg to differ, having spent the better part of today experiencing both. So we swam and waterslided and sat in the very hot hot tubs--all completely fed by the mineral springs coming out of the mountain side.

Tonite, we have a hotel room. Time for a good hot shower and a bed. Watch the Olympics a bit, charge up the computer, the camp light and the camera batteries, and get some wi-fi access. We needed another book downloaded onto the ipod--just got done listening to "Hoot" by Carl Hiasson. We loved it! I downloaded "The Outsiders" for our next day of driving.

The car is a disaster. Maps, wrappers, water bottles, wet shoes, books, gameboys, binoculars, pillows, plastic grocery bags Charlie insists we keep because they have buffalo all over them, Ben's accumulating pile of rocks...I can hardly take it. But the boys don't seem to mind, so I'm trying not to, either. I just keep buying ice for the cooler and watch the gas gauge.

Hoping to make Yellowstone tomorrow, with plans to meet up with Sam in the late afternoon.