Itinerary for Monday, June 19

We left Laramie heading North on Route 30. Along the way, we saw a number of strange wooden structures. Turns out they are snow fences which stop the wind and allow the snow to deposit a healthy distance from the road.

Just before Bosler we turned onto 34 East to Wheatland. For those of you who haven’t driven that route before, it’s a 50-mile road through the Laramie Mountains. There were few signs of settlement along this stretch – other than some bison behind a fence (much less impressive behind a fence than roaming free like at last year's visit to Custer State Park) at a research station – until about 15 miles outside of Wheatland where we saw our first irrigators. Most of the land we’ve seen thus far has been used for cattle rather than farmed. But we guess you don’t name a town Wheatland without reason.

Wheatland, Wyoming turned out to be a great pit stop. We hit our first visitor center of this trip. Stacey was wonderful. (Come to think of it, nearly everyone we’ve talked to out here has been nicer than nice.) She answered all our questions and piled us high with material on everything from the local watering holes to Devils Tower. There we discovered that Devils Tower was only about 230 miles away. And they have campgrounds there. Seeing as it was not even noon, we realized we had a shot to get there in time to set up camp tonight.

We lunched from our cooler at Dearington Park under a small pavilion and then took Route 59 North through Thunder Basin National Grassland. The area alternates between Grassland and privately-owned ranches. The Grassland was formed as the federal government stepped in to buy foreclosed ranches.

In Gillette we were flummoxed for the first time by a lack of wi-fi at a public library, stopped to get an extra blanket and a car charger for the cell phone, and headed out to Devils Tower.

Local radio station reports on wheat futures. Big sports story: new girls high school soccer coach at Laramie High. Other big sports story: National college rodeo results. And as the DJ on 1340 AM KYCN, Wheatland, WY said at noon, “BBFN. Bye bye for now.”