Captain’s Log – Star Dates 08222009 through 08242009
Location: Eastern Rim of Galaxy of Wyoming
(Translation: Mountain View RV Park, Sundance, WY; AB Campground, Cheyenne, WY)
Trip Miles: 7800.8
Diesel Price: $2.51/gal in Sundance; 40.7 gallons loaded.
Report from Engineering: Everything’s cool! Keep on truckin’!
Weather: Bright sunshine and thunderstorms with high winds; Daytime temperatures around 80-85F.

I have a Patty Loveless CD playing as we roll into Wyoming on I-94. I LOVE that woman! She is, without ANY doubt …whatsoever…the greatest female country singer alive on the planet today! Her rendition of old country standards is PERFECT for the miles and miles and miles of driving we are required to do while visiting this Rocky Mountain state!

Wyoming is a HUGE piece of real estate with very few people in it! Ninth in size among the U.S. states, it covers nearly one hundred thousand square miles. In this great expanse live roughly half a million inhabitants. Wyoming ranks fiftieth in population among the fifty states. Its total population is approximately one-sixth the population of San Diego County, California. We crossed into the state at Beulah, population 33!

Upon our check-in at the pleasant Mountain View RV Park in Sundance, the proprietor suggested we take in the local rodeo…which was to be held at the fairgrounds about a mile from our campsite! Rodeo is the Sport of Kings here in Wyoming. The locals know how to ride exceedingly well, having learned from early childhood, and the horses that they ride are beautiful. The rodeo was an intimate event, with the fans watching from the backs of pickup trucks and the rails of the rodeo ring. The local Chamber of Commerce was selling the hot dogs, Budweiser and Coors Lite. Courageous participants came in from Montana, the Dakotas and Wyoming. The events were exciting to watch, particularly the bareback bronc riding and bull riding! It is no news that this sport is highly dangerous…the EMT’s were on hand to pick up any wreckage. Watching this evening rodeo was twenty bucks well spent!

“There are things in nature that engender an awful quiet in the heart of man; Devil’s Tower is one of them.” --- F. Scott Momaday, Kiowa author

I have a gripe with Col. Richard Dodge who named this inspiring 867-foot volcanic wonder Devil’s Tower back in 1875. It seems more appropriate to me to call it Bear’s Lodge like the Kiowa did. The Tower has great spiritual significant to several Indian tribes, who gather here for ceremonies each June when the National Park Service has restricted activities such as climbing. About 5,000 climbers come each year to climb the Tower, establishing over 220 routes to the summit. We walked the 1.3-mile path around the Tower in reverent silence early on a Sunday morning.

Our favorite view of the Tower is through a large granite sculpture, entitled “Circle of Sacred Smoke”. This sculpture was created in 2008 by internationally renowned Japanese sculptor Junkyu Moto as part of his international peace project…



Remember the movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind? And it’s musical theme DOO-DOO-DOO-DOO-DOOOH? The theme is by Zoltan Kodaly. Devil’s Tower was the filming location for this famous film!

Upon the strongest of local recommendations, we ‘did lunch’ at Cindy B’s at Aladdin, WY, population 15…while listening to a couple of local farmers talk about their hay crops. The lunch recommendation was well justified!

Cheyenne is a great place to watch trains! The long Union Pacific freights stop here to change crews. Outside the artfully restored railroad depot, there is a viewing area where we watched a crew change and departure of a very long mixed-freight train…up close and personal! After seeing U.P. Big Boy 4004(the largest steam locomotive ever built) on display in a Cheyenne park, I was in hog-heaven! The Commodore enjoyed the train view, too! We ate a great lunch at Shadows, inside the depot.

Driving south on US 85 across Weston and Niobrara Counties, we crossed a succession of enormous basins framed by long mesas. The land is sweet and green and gold and the cattle are fat. There’s not much human presence out here…this place makes eastern Nevada look overpopulated! We passed a sign that said Lost Springs, Population 1…Shawnee looks like it died out years ago…we keep rollin’ south…

Onward Into the Galaxy of Colorado!

Affectionately,
Captain Baldy