Caspar, Wyoming

Well, you might ask why is this post from Caspar and not from Buffalo or Thermopolis, where we had originally planned to stay.  Remember when I said our schedule might change from what we originally planned - well, for reasons that will be apparent later in this post, there were changes!

Started out early from West Wendover (helped no doubt by the fact that Wendover operates on Mountain Time rather than Pacific Time like the rest of Nevada).  Must have something to do with the closer ties to Salt Lake City than other cities in Nevada.  When you leave Wendover, you start across the Great Salt Lake and it was unusual to see all of the standing water on either side of the road, courtesy of the rain.  Took a great picture of the Wasatch Range reflected in the standing water (I'll post pictures on my Sky Drive later this evening).  Fun crossing the GSL because you see all the mounds of salt piled up waiting shipment - huge piles.  Morton Salt is one of the largest processing plants there.  We were lucky that we went through and around Salt Lake City after the rush hour.

Climbing out of SLC, you cross the Wasatch Mountains - that's the far eastern edge of the Great Basin.  It was funny because we had been in Tahoe in the Sierra Nevada over the previous weekend and that's the western most part of the Great Basin.  As we crossed the crest of the Wasatch, we went through Park City which is a great ski area in Utah.  Coming down the eastern side of the mountains, we came through Echo Canyon.  Again, it was the primary route for the trappers, pioneers, railroads and Interstate to get through the Wasatch, before crossing into Nevada on their way West.  Beautiful drive down through the canyon.

Got to see our wildlife for the day - lots of pronghorn (and they're not antelopes) and one moose trying to figure out a way to get across the fence line guarding I-80.  Later we got to see hundreds (no, that's not an exaggeration) of pronghorns as we continued through Utah and into Wyoming.  Ran into some construction in Wyoming where they had the entire westbound section of I-80 closed for repaving.  We had one lane east and one lane west for a long time, but traffic moved smoothly.

Originally, we had planned to get off I-80 at Rock Springs and head north to either Thermopolis or Buffalo, WY.  As we headed north out of Rock Springs, Vi happened to notice a sign which said that South Pass was closed and asked if that was near where we were heading.  South Pass was the route over the Continental Divide which led to our route north.  Believe it or not, it was closed because of snow and ice.  Talked to a local State Trooper and he gave us some alternatives, which is how we ended up in Caspar.

Got back on I-80 and headed for Rawlins where we headed north for Caspar.  On the way north, we passed Independence Rock (remember that from yesterday's post?).  Stopped in the pouring rain and took some pictures - it's a really neat spot.  Crossed the Continental Divide a couple of times - believe it or not, the mountain range does not run in a direct north-south line - imagine that!  On the lee side of the Continental Divide, we headed down into Caspar.  The rain changed to snow and as we pulled into the Best Western, the snow was blowing sideways.  Must have made a wrong turn somewhere and ended up in January!

We're hunkered down in the Best Western for the night.  Looks like tomorrow might be better weather for our trip up and over to Mott, ND.  We'll keep our fingers crossed for good weather.