Somehow, I always end up spending more time in Wyoming than planned. Why this is, I don’t know, but it’s real. It’s happened ever since I started traveling as a teenager.
I took my first long road trip with two friends a few weeks after graduating high school—destination Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest in Montana for the Rainbow Gathering, where about 20,000 hippies would hang out in the woods for a couple weeks.
Sully, bless his heart, drove a good 24+ hours from Hagerstown, stopping only for gas, while his girlfriend (now wife) and I gazed out the windows and slept. He finally pulled into a motel in Sundance, Wyoming, to sleep. I remember it being dark outside, and the air felt different—though that might have been my imagination. That was my first small taste of the West: Wyoming.
On a cross-country road trip with a friend 10 years later, I’d planned to drive I-70 clear through to Utah after spending time in Boulder. I’d wanted to see “the highest paved road in the U.S.” and its purported abundance of wildflowers, though I hadn’t considered the timing. It was October—and snowing. As we struggled (and ultimately failed) to find a campground in the Rockies that was still open in a blizzard, we ended up taking a detour—through Cheyenne—and heading west through Cheyenne on a new route toward Oregon.
Again when I was on road in 2019, I’d planned to zip through Wyoming after leaving Yellowstone. I was headed for a reservation in South Dakota. But instead, I got slammed with a bad CIRS flareup, got an emergency motel room and then an emergency cabin and ultimately decided to go back to New Mexico rather than continue driving back East. In the interim, I spent an unexpected week or so just hanging out in Wyoming at cabins and motels and campsites, trying to regain my health.
This time around, I’d planned to spend at least a week with a dear friend who lives just outside of Boulder. We knew I was (deathly) allergic to her dog from past visits, so I’d planned to camp in her yard, rather than sleep on the couch. After four days of camping and being unable to breathe—my lungs tight and heavy, chest pains, rashes, the whole nine—she mentioned that she is surrounded by hay fields, and they were being baled that week. Yeh, I have a pretty severe allergy to hay, too, as learned when farmers baled the fields around my old farmhouse in Keedysville. I had to leave. I took a sick day from work, the first of the year, and headed toward—yep—Wyoming.
I’d planned to stop in Cheyenne for a night or two after Colorado, to break up the drive to South Dakota. But with an unexpected full week open, I ended up, well, exploring Wyoming some more. I did camp in Cheyenne but also drove west to see the little railroad town of Laramie, then took Route 130 through the Medicine Bow Mountains (such beauty), soaked in the hot springs in Saratoga, wandered around downtown Casper, spotted several antelope as I was driving two-lane highways for hours on end, saw the strange wonder that is Devil’s Tower, stayed at the coolest vintage motel up in Gillette, found the best truck stop I’ve ever been to (in the middle of absolute nowhere), all the while picking up souvenirs for friends and family from all over Wyoming.
And yet! There are still places in Wyoming I want to see.
I want to camp at Buffalo Bill State Park near Cody, a beautiful little spot along a state road with a huge reservoir surrounded by rugged mountains that jet up from its waters.
And maybe one day I’ll make it to Thermopolis, where there are public hot springs and caves to explore and reported sightings of Bigfoot (a guy running the cash register at a gift shop in Casper told me all about it).
I wouldn’t mind a return visit to Yellowstone, the Tetons, and Jackson Hole either.
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MUST SEE
Yellowstone — The first National Park and for good reason. I could wax poetic about Yellowstone forever because it’s my favorite park. Elk, grizzlies, bison; lush land, rivers, and lakes; rainbows; huge expanses of wilderness; endless hiking trails; geysers; every color on the palette.
Grand Tetons — Take a boat across Jenny Lake for beautiful hikes and clear, pristine waters. Some people prefer this park to Yellowstone because it’s smaller and “more manageable.”
Bighorn Medicine Wheel — A meditative space at the end of a dirt road atop a mountain, with free-roaming cattle. Walk to the top and circle around the medicine wheel, made of stone like a labyrinth, with offerings left there by those who came through.
Saratoga — Teeny town with a cute little main street, worth a stop if only to soak in the public hot springs on the edge of town.
Medicine Bow National Forest — Forego the monotony of I-80, and take the drive through Medicine Bow Mountains along Snowy Road Pass (Route 130). If you catch it in the fall, the mountains of pine are mixed with the glowing incandescent hues of golden aspen.
Jackson Hole — What’s not to love about this cool little tourist trap? It’s just a cool little town on the outskirts of the Grand Tetons (and Yellowstone) and kind of the only town around. It’s artsy, it’s Wild West, it has good food and coffee and wifi, and the VIEWS … the views …
Cody — Where cowboys go to get coffee, have a drink, or pick up a new saddle or riding boots (I really don’t know what I’m talking about here, but that was the vibe).
Laramie — A cool little railroad town / college town with lots of murals and fun places to stop (coffee shops, gift stores, restaurants, etc.).
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