Fort Robinson State park, NE to DuBois, WY

Thursday – Mar 16  Up at daylight.  No other campers showed up last night. Two nights with no water hookup due to cold temps.

We need a campground with water tonight. It is shower day. We drove to the Nebraska/Wyoming border and no interesting welcome sign.  Hmmm.  We drove to Lusk, WY for coffee.  While waiting for coffee, I overheard a 20 something year old man talking about his long hard day yesterday. He spent the day trying to break in a horse. He said he was exhausted at the end of the day. He was breaking the horse and driving cattle.  Yep, back in cowboy country.

Stopped in Douglas, WY for a picture with an 8 foot jackalope.

Terrain changed to more of a scrub brush vs. the grasslands of Nebraska.  And we started seeing antelope. Lots of antelope. And train cars full of coal heading east. One had eight engines pulling about a hundred cars. (no, I didn’t count them).

Glenrock is the home of one of the largest coal fire plants in the country.  Not sure how big it is compared to the one in Texas. But this one was right on the Platt River and was big alright. Just didn’t seem as big cause the other one was bunched up in that tight little lake area. 

Jim graduated from high school in Casper, WY.  We slowed down for pictures of the Casper Refinery.  His dad worked for the oil business and he wasn’t sure what he did in Casper. Thinks he had a desk job. His dad specialized in the natural gas compression end of things.

We drove past Natrona County High School where he graduated. He didn’t want to stop but the school was 2.5 times as big as when he went there. Lots of additions and a big football stadium that wasn’t there before. I asked if he wanted to drive by his old house. He said, Nah.  Then we stopped at the historic Fort Casper on the Platt River for lunch.  I forgot to take any pictures. Oh, well.  It was that wind. It had found us at the Wyoming line and had been with us all day.  The DOT digital sign warned us shortly after entering Wyoming to be aware of 40+ mile per hour winds.

From Casper to DuBois, we had wind, antelope, more wind, more antelope.  Saw one prairie dog. They might be waking up to spring.  Near Crowheart, we saw two herds of deer of 20 or so.

We planned to stay at the DuBois KOA, but they aren’t yet open for the season. In fact, no campgrounds were open in DuBois.  So here we are at the Branding Iron Inn in a little cabin.  We had nice warm showers, restaurant food and are settled in for the night.  Looked out the window as two deer wandered across the end of the parking area. Nice.