Lusk to Thermopolis
The first business of today was to post our postcards — bought way back in Iowa. We located Lusk’s post office, and waited our turn behind a redneck of very few words:
"What can I do for you?"
"Book o’ stamps"
"Certainly sir, would you like regular ones or ones with American flags on them?"
"It don’ matter"
We were far more verbose and polite in our dealings. For your reference, at time of writing it costs 70c to send a postcard to the UK, which is listed under "Great Britain and Northern Ireland" in the USPO International Postage Manual.
We went for breakfast in a cafe, but when we ordered, the lady apologised and said she couldn’t serve us after 11am, because of a "no compete agreement" with the pizza place next door. She told us where to get a good breakfast though — The Outpost, on the South end of Lusk’s Main Street, and we dined well there. Lusk has a lot of motels and eateries for somewhere with a population of 1,500. I think if you include travellers passing through, the average nightly population is a fair bit higher.
Debbie found a useful book on our table. Maybe she will take some of its advice to heart.
Driving West from Lusk, we came across somewhere with a lower population than yesterday’s Van Tassell:
Lost Springs (Pop: 1)
Around Douglas (unlikely to be home of the Douglas Fir — we didn’t see very many trees) US-20 becomes a divided highway, but a very scenic one nonetheless. Beyond Douglas, we noticed a figure on a hilltop. What could it be — a cow separated from its herd? A noble stag? None of those things. It appeared we had been lucky enough to spot a jackalope in its native habitat.
A five mile detour took us to Ayers Natural Bridge, where signposts repeatedly told us that pets were not allowed in the national park. As we drew into the car park, we saw a lady carrying a toy dog — by which I mean a small real dog, not a stuffed model of a dog — and Debbie bellowed "THEY’VE GOT A PET" in her astonishment. The lady and her family all looked up, for Debbie hadn’t realised that I had the car window open. To avoid conflict, we avoided that family for a while. Mind you, dammit, they should learn to obey orders. A stint in the military would straighten them out.
Aside from the disobedient visitors, the natural bridge was an interesting geological phenomenon in very pleasant surroundings.
Another signpost warned us of the "danger" of throwing rocks.
After our late and large breakfast, we dipped into our snack reserve in lieu of lunch. Packed in Pennsylvania, our packet of sour cream and onion crisps was almost at bursting point in the altitude of Wyoming.
Casper is the second largest town in Wyoming, but we didn’t stop and all we saw of it was a lot of hotels and gas stations. West of Casper, for the hundred or so miles to Shoshomi, we saw very little except grassland and distant mountain ranges.
The one break from this was Hell’s Half Acre, a hollow full of bizzarely eroded rocks. Apparently some of Starship Troopers was filmed here.
Around here, we passed our 3,000th mile.
We stopped for petrol in Shoshomi, and supplemented that erstatz lunch with gas station hot dogs. I enjoyed mine; Debbie tolerated hers, saying it was a little too chewy.
US-20 swings North in Shoshomi, and the Owl Creek Mountains loom on the horizon. We wondered how we were going to get through them. The answer came in the form of the Wind River Canyon. This was classic canyon driving. We were on one side of the river, while the railway ran on the opposite side, occasionally going through tunnels where the canyon wall went too close to the river to allow room for a road or a railway.
Roadworks on this stretch made us go slowly, meaning lots of opportunities to lean out of the window snapping pictures.
Our planned destination was Cody, a gateway town for Yellowstone. However, on our way through Thermopolis, we noticed lots of nice looking motels, and on our way out we were struck by "WORLD’S LARGEST MINERAL HOT SPRING" written in 12 foot letters in white paint on the side of a hill, with an arrow pointing downwards. We pulled up, and sure enough, below the hill was a series of big pools linked by bulbous mineral deposit formations streaked with various colours.
We turned back, and had a look. The water emerges from the ground hotter than you would choose to run a bath, and every now and again you catch a whiff of sulphur. The pools empty into the river, but mineral deposits are left wherever the water runs.
There is a state-run bath house here, where you can soak in the water for free, and we decided to postpone Cody, check into a motel and come back to do just that. We’re in the Coachman Motor Inn, which has a nice sign, and a trough full of cattle bones outside the office…
We soon found out that the state-run bath house closed at five. Instead, we went to one of the two commercial baths that are also fed by the springs: the Teepee baths. The slight disadvantage is the cost, but the advantage is that this has to swimming baths, one indoor, one outdoor, each with a water slide, hot tubs of various temperatures and bubbliness, a sauna and a steam room. It was all a lot of fun.
Later, we ate at the Safari Club restaurant, in Thermopolis’ Holiday Inn. It’s fantastic, but possibly not for the sensitive animal lover. On the way in, there are dozens of pictures of hunters proudly posing with their trophies, while the restaurant itself is lined with an impressive array of taxidermy: tiger skin rugs with head intact, an eagle feasting on some kind of rodent (the taxidermist stopped short of depicting a string of viscera streched between the rodent’s open belly and the eagle’s beak — probably best from the average diner’s perspective), a huge bass, a marlin, deer and buffalo heads… Debbie claimed to have seen a sabre-toothed tiger among the collection, but I somehow doubt that.
It turned out that the Safari Club’s owners rear their own buffalo, near Thermopolis, and their buffalo steaks were on the menu. How could I resist? Today’s cut was sirloin, and it was delicious; very much like beef, but slightly less chewy and a little more flavourful. Debbie had chicken marinara, and she said that was good too.
The TV is abysmal tonight. A repeat of King of Queens is the best we could find.