Sunday evening, June 10, 2018 — somewhere outside of Rawlins, Wyoming
I decided last night that I had waited long enough in my mountain meadow outside the tiny, hillside town of Crawford, Colorado. Not that I didn’t love it there, but it was time to get moving again.
Summer is heating up in all the lower elevations. Scout and I need to go north before it’s too hot for me there, too.
So, after pondering my atlas, freecampsites.net, and Google Maps, it was decided: I would head north in the morning for beautiful mountain town of Lander, Wyoming.
I fell in love with Lander a couple of years ago after spending a few nights there camping with a friend. It was like my van was a TARDIS and I had stepped out into the perfect little American town of a century ago.
Well, if there ever was such a place
But it’s an eight-hour drive, slowed down by several stops for refreshments, rest, and bathroom breaks for both of us.
That’s a lot of driving for one day, but I wanted to get there tonight so I could keep my planned schedule of traveling on the weekends and staying put during weekdays, when my writing group meets on Zoom.
I didn’t make it all the way
By the time we reached Rawlins, two hours from Lander, I couldn’t drive any further. I was just plain exhausted.
It was time to consult trusty freecampsites.net again, and find a nearby spot to spend the night before continuing on in the morning.
What I found is not the idyllic pasture with gorgeous mountain views that spoiled me outside of Crawford. It’s an ugly patch of cracked earth and sagebrush off a long, flat road called Oil Road to the Mines.
Which kind of says it all
The wind is incessant. There isn’t a hint of shade to park in. The Verizon signal was okay until the sun went down but now, my phone informs me there is no service at all.
That’s the worst of it. I can put up with almost anything as long as I have a signal.
On the plus side, I saw my first non-zoo antelope, sauntering all casual-like, across the road in front of us. (I didn’t think to get a snapshot, sorry, but if you look up above this post you will see a shot of us near Crawford on our way to Black Canyon with Sue, waiting for a herd of cattle to moove out of the way.)
Another plus: I met a man named Kieran from New Zealand, traveling the western U.S. in a beat-up Chevy Astro van. He’s been all over California and is venturing farther out before his visa expires in a couple of weeks. His accent, of course, is delightful.
We commiserated over our austere surroundings here, and I gave him a tip: Go to Lander, I told him. It’s beautiful there.
