Medicine Bow

We got up at 8am, got dressed and headed out for home. We were planning on getting through a lot of Nebraska before dark. We got to Rawlins, Wyoming about 11 and stopped for breakfast. It is a neat little western town.

This is the downtown of Rawlins, Wyoming. They make good eggs here.

As we were driving through town looking for a cafe, we saw these 2 deer running right through town. I grabbed the camera and took this video. 

After a very good breakfast, we jumped back on highway 80 and resumed our trek. After about another 60 miles or so, we saw a sign saying there was a historical frontier fort location on the next exit so we took it. I am a sucker for historical stuff. It was Ft Steele and it was in operation from 1868 till 1886. It played an important role in the handling of Indian skirmishes during those times. 

Me looking at a place a fort used to be.

Ruins of a fort. It survived the Indians, but was burnt down in 1979 by some wild teenagers.

When we were just about to leave, Bonnie saw a lady groundskeeper working and went over to talk to her. She said if we were not in a hurry, to take highway 130 to Laramie instead of Interstate 80. She said the drive would be worth the extra time it took. We took off and when we hit the highway 130 exit we were unsure if we should......but we did it anyway...And it was spectacular!!! I hope these pictures do it some justice. We took about 150 pictures, I tried to pick out a few that would give some type of perspective of what we saw. The road goes south about 20 miles to Saratoga, another cool little town, which we walked around the downtown area and had a coke and some Ice cream. 

We had Ice cream in Saratoga.

The highway turns east after you go through the town and heads straight for the mountains. You start the accent and see some neat babbling mountain streams and as you get to about 9000 ft you start to see snow. at the summit we were at 11,000 ft and the views were unbelievable.

Me high on altitude sickness at about 8000 ft

The snow made me feel better around 9000 ft

I guess this flower only grows up here. Or something like that.

This spot is at 10,500 ft. It has a lake right around the corner.

Here is the lake. Bonnie is sitting in the water on a rock.

this is another lake called Mirror Lake. I wonder why they call it that?

Me on a glacier (I think) at the Summit. 11,000 ft above sea level. Our condo is 13 Ft above sea level.

I would highly recommend this area for anybody looking for a vacation spot. It is called Medicine Bow National Park. After getting through the park you descend rapidly (lots of brakes) into a little town called Centennial. They have a store called "The Friendly Store" right as you come into town. We had to stop, just to see if they really were friendly.

The World Famous Friendly Store

The store was really cool, but the girl working was not super friendly. I asked her if she was from there, and she said she was from Florida? I guess she was down on her luck and her parents had a place around here, so she was crashing at their place. Whatever....

The friendly store and the rest of town in our rear view mirror.

By then it was 5 in the afternoon and we were way behind schedule (again) so we rejoined I80 in Laramie and hauled ass to Cheyenne.
We did a bit of shopping in Cheyenne (Damn billboards) at some super outlet place. At 7pm we were off again. We made it to Sydney Nebraska. It is about 100 miles east of Cheyenne. We got a room at a motel called Sleep For Less. Seriously! Good nite.