From North Platte, Nebraska, our next destination was Evanston, Wyoming, where we had an appointment to tour the Union Pacific roundhouse. Since we finished the Golden Spike Tower and Bailey Yard early in the afternoon, we decided to head toward Evanston to cut back on the number of hours we needed to drive the following day. A little before supper time, we reached Cheyenne and decided that would be a good place to stop for the evening. So we got checked into our hotel and went to the diner across the street for dinner. I don't recommend that diner. The food didn't taste bad. In fact, it was so bland, it really didn't taste like anything. The diner had a very homey atmosphere, though, and the conversation was centered around the weather. Apparently, Cheyenne is often very windy, and the interstates will often close to high-profile vehicles because of that wind. There was a trucker in the diner talking about how he hoped they would reopen I-25 before the blizzard hit so he could get home.
Wait! Blizzard? What blizzard? We still had about six hours to get to Evanston. Unlike the rest of our stops, the roundhouse is not generally open to the public and tours are by pre-arranged appointment only. We determined when to leave based on when I could get the tour of this roundhouse (and existing doctor appointments in Washington). It was only a chance of a blizzard, so maybe it wouldn't come, but it was expected to hit overnight. We decided to get a good night's sleep and see what happened overnight. We did not want to get stuck in weather with no opportunity hotels around.
We woke to a dry parking lot outside our hotel room window. Turned on the TV, and the blizzard hit north and west of us. Not northwest, but it hit on both the west and north. Cheyenne was in a little southeast corner of Wyoming that didn't get anything. I found the Wyoming Department of Transportation website and learned what rolling interstate closures are. Apparently, when interstates are closed for weather, hotels start filling up (duh). To prevent having people with no place to stay overnight, they close interstates on the way to the weather closure based on hotel occupancy. We could have gone to Laramie, about an hour down the road. Interstate 80, the road we were going to travel, was closed for weather at some point on a mountain. Rolling closures had come as far as Laramie. So, we extended our hotel stay in Cheyenne for two more nights. Since there wasn't anything on the ground in town at that point, we decided to take a spin around Cheyenne and see the sights. The lady at the hotel front desk suggested that we start at the Cheyenne Depot Museum.
For the capital and the largest city in the state, I was surprised at how small Cheyenne is. I knew Wyoming was the most sparsely populated state in the continental US, but for the most populous city in the state to have just over 65,000 people was mind blowing to me! Especially considering that it is also the home of the state fairgrounds and one of the largest rodeos in the world, a major stop in the PRCA (Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association) circuit.
Driving into town, it had that really small town vibe. This is Lincolnway, the main street through town.
Between the second and third lights in that picture, on the right, is the town square and Depot Museum. Bruce decided to take the opportunity of sparce population to try his hand at satchel rustling!
The city launched a fund raiser where they had artists decorate large boots that were scattered around the city. After they were completed, they were auctioned off to different businesses. They started with 18 boots, 9 of them in and around the Depot Museum and square.
The store behind these boots is one of the oldest stores and one of the oldest buildings in town. These boots aren't quite that big. This is only a camera perspective that makes the boot look so much bigger than the rest of the surroundigns. I did it by accident, so don't ask me to recreate it or teach anyone how. A shot for better size perspective is here.
The Depot Museum is an old building previously owned and used by the Union Pacific Railroad and released to the city when they stopped using it. Inside, we learned that there is a tourist trolley that drives you around the city to show you all the sites. It is not a hop on/hop off bus, but a fixed tour of the city. It takes 90 minutes, but don't let that fool you. It doubles back multiple times and stops for pictures and to give information. Cheyenne has a rich history, even beyond that depicted in the spaghetti westerns. If you're in the area, it's definitely worth a stop.
Wyoming was the first US territory to give women the right to vote. This is a mural commemorating women's sufferage. The models were all current members of the community.
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This is the home of the woman who led the charge for women's sufferage and who cast the second women's vote in the territory. A woman in Laramie voted a few hours earlier. After securing the vote for women, Esther Morris was named the first woman justice of the peace. Her first act was, supposedly, to have her husband arrested and jailed for the equivalent of drunk and disorderly. The home is currently inhabited, so you cannot tour it.
The state capitol building sports a gold dome because it is an original capitol location. It's open for tours, and apparently, you can see the opening of the tunnel from the capitol building to the old train depot and a picture of the legislators that had to be taped back together because it was torn and almost destroyed in a shoot out between political parties many years ago. At one point, the state was considering moving the capitol to Caspar, but that never happened. There are multiple reasons given for not moving it, but some believe at least part of that reason includes that they would lose the ability to use the gold dome if they move the capitol from Cheyenne to any other city.
This statue of Chris LeDoux stands outside the state fairgrounds where Frontier Days is held every summer. He is sculpted riding Steamboat, a horse that is best known for his inability for anyone to ride him. Steamboat is also the horse depicted on the Wyoming license plate. The population of Cheyenne exceeds 200,000 during Frontier Days. They give a free pancake breakfast, and they take great pride in getting people in and out of a like that stretches pretty much all the way throgh town quickly. They say you don't stand in line more than 30 minutes. It's been a long time since I've been to a rodeo, but I remember them to be really fun!
This statue of Lane Frost stands behind the fairgrounds. He is depicted on Takin' Care of Business, the bull that killed him after a great ride in 1989. He rode for the required eight seconds with a high point count (85). He dismounted in the mud and fell face down. The bull turned and pressed his horn into Frost's back. The bull didn't gore him, but he broke ribs. Frost was able to stand and wave for help, but then collapsed. When he fell the second time, the broken ribs punctured his heart, killing him almost instantly. He was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.
This is Ol' Sadie. One of the largest steam locomotives. She's across the street from the Lane Frost statue, behind the Frontier Days fairgrounds. Big Boy, the largest locomotive in the world is not part of the trolley tour, and Bruce wasn't inclined to drive over to see if it was visible from the street. We were expecting snow at any time, and he didn't have a winter coat handy.
We spent the rest of the day at the hotel waiting for the snow to start. It arrived in the evening, and we woke to this.
By the time the snowfall was over, this was the cumulative numbers in inches. Look at that 35.7 inches in Caspar with 48 inches on the mountain! We were in Cheyenne and needed to go through Laramie and Rock Springs. They didn't give the snowfall on Elk Mountain or Patrick Draw, but that was the last part of the interstate that opened.
After four nights in Cheyenne, the interstates finally opened up all the way through Utah. I had emailed the roundhouse and cancelled our tour, and we headed out. The road wasn't bad leaving Cheyenne, where we only got 6.4 inches of snow. I got to see how those snow break fences work, though1
The roads close to Cheyenne were clear enough that we were able to stop for the next two kitschy stops. First is the tree in the rock, which is actually in the median of the interstate.
Next was this huge head of President Lincoln in a rest stop just outside of Laramie.
They're hard to see, but this field was full of pronghorn antelope.
It was so cold outside that the windshield washer froze. What little bit was still liquid in the tank froze on the windshield.
When they say there it blowing snow, they aren't kidding! This wasn't just blowing from the side of the road, but you could see the snow blowing off the mountains.
Even though the interstates opened in the late afternoon, we were warned to stay the extra night to avoid the idiots who decided they needed to make up the time they lost while the roads were closed. There are a variety of vehicles that didn't stay between the ditches.
Some couldn't even stay upright.
This group of elk were digging through the snow for some food. While it was my turn to drive, there was a stag that had dug himself out a spot by the road. He as laying down just watching the traffic. My passenger was sleeping, though. That is, until a small herd of pronghorn decided to cross the interstate and I had to stop quickly. He still didn't get any pictures, though!
This is the rest area at Patrick Draw. I think this is a little more than 15 inches! The snow plow had been through there, but that was cut out from the standing snow, it wsn't snow that had been pushed to the side. It was fluffy and that deep all the way back, just below my shoulders.
We finally got out of most of the snow in Salt Lake City, where we stopped for a visit to the Great Salt Lake before making Wendover and the Bonnieville area around dinner time.
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