Just Heading East Through Wyoming and Nebraska

Certainly didn't need the atlas today;  just stayed on I - 80 east,  mile after mile.  We got on to I - 80 at Rock Springs, Wyoming and stopped for the night at North Platte, Nebraska.

During the day we crossed the Continental Divide three times and, in Nebraska, we crossed in to the Central Time Zone so we lost an hour today, but now are only one hour different from West Virginia.

In the morning we could still see snow-capped mountains and high buttes with stony cliffs along the road.   The Snowy Range was just south of the interstate and we could see snow patches on those mountains.  We could see the Snowy Range in the far distance almost all the way to the eastern border of Wyoming.

Snow on the mountain at the edge of the Snowy Range; equipment in foreground is for rebuilding part of I80

Stopped at a nice rest area for lunch amidst darkening clouds and rumbles of thunder, but never got any of the rain.   Because of the lack of trees (no shade) and constant winds, all of the picnic tables have a roof over them and walls on three sides.  This rest area is the highest point on Interstate 80 at a little more than 8, 000 feet in elevation.  There was a very large statue of Abraham Lincoln.  The Lincoln Highway (used to be US 30 and now is I-80),  went across the United States and was created in the early 1900's to encourage tourism.  The statue was sculpted by a local (University of Wyoming) art professor (Dr. Russin) who took 11 months to complete the statue on the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's birth.

During lunch we were visited by a small prairie dog type animals that would venture over towards the picnic table and sit up on his haunches and look around and then scurry off.  They lived in burrows in the ground amidst the sage brush.  We also were visited by a sea gull which we were not sure how he got to eastern Wyoming.

Cattle grazing in the pasture, Snowy Range faintly visible at left

In the afternoon the view was more of the sage brush covered dry rolling plains with little signs of farms or ranches.  Later, as we got closer to Nebraska we got into the flatter areas.  There were farms that were able to grow some crops if they were using the large irrigation sprayers on the fields.  The irrigation sprayers are huge pipes (of different lengths, some maybe 1/4 mile in length) that move on wheels across the large fields.  The farms appeared to be growing wheat, corn, and alfalfa.  There also were ranches where there were some cattle grazing.  We passed one huge feedlot with hundreds of cattle and it was very smelly.  I smelled it before we noticed it, but not in time to get a picture of it because of the trees blocking the view of much of it.

An irrigation sprinkler at work - see water spraying at left end

We filled up on gas at Little America, and got 50-cent ice cream cones there.

A small butte

During the day, many of the towns were called ____ Bluff or Butte.  The butte is a flat top hill, usually having rocky cliffs along the sides.  There can be a whole ridge of buttes or just one solitary butte rising up out of the prairie.

During the day we would frequently see lightening off in the distance and see the dark trails of rain coming down, but we never actually got in to any of the rain storms.  During lunch we kept hearing the rumbles of thunder.  The radio kept talking about "extreme heat warnings" in much of the area with "feel like" temperatures, considering the temperature and humidity of 115 degrees.

We ate dinner tonight at a restaurant called "Whiskey Creek".  We had eaten at one of these restaurants on our way west.  The motels handed out discount coupons for the restaurant and it was nearby (easy to find).  The restaurant is a cross between Texas Roadhouse (buckets of peanuts to eat and shells all over the floor),  Damons (TVs on the walls, at least at this one), and Outback (good steaks and barbecue ribs).

Tomorrow we get back on I-80 and again head east towards home.  Our goal for tomorrow is to get to just west of Des Moines, Iowa.