R and J in the USA

Even though we were sad to leave North Dakota, we had a feeling Wyoming would help us get past that pretty quickly and we were not disappointed. For more itinerary riddle solving reasons when we changed our itinerary after staying an extra week in Michigan, we would need to make a bit of an extra drive, driving a bit through Montana before we reached the northeastern corner of Wyoming.

Our first stop was Devil’s Tower (a name which we learned was controversial to the natives of the area, whose native name for the place had been misinterpreted when its modern nomenclature was adopted). Ryan had been there before, Julie had not. She was familiar with it from images and popular culture. When she first saw it from far away, she didn’t quite get the magic.

When we got closer, the magic and awe of it hit her hard.

Then Julie decided to take her bee sting as a welcome from nature to this sacred spot, or just a delightful coincidence. Either way, she was tickled by the confluence of events.

We found a campsite right at the tower’s periphery and went for the walk around the base of it that so many people do. There are no words to describe the feeling of it. Maybe profound comes close. There is a feeling of magic that is present as you make the pilgrimage around the base of this iconic natural phenomenon. It is definitely a place where revelry naturally occurs. Amidst that otherworldly feeling, we had one of the most surprisingly coincidental run-ins of the trip. You can read about it in our People Along the Way section. 

As per her movie commitment, Julie spent the evening at the base of this incredible National Monument (the nation’s first official National monument) watching the Steven Spielberg classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind with the tower towering behind her the whole time. It was pretty neat.

We made our way down to Cheyenne in another long drive that Ryan took on to take in the Wyoming Capitol building. When we saw the state seal outside of the building as The Equal Rights State, we had no idea what it meant. When we found out its meaning inside, we were quite blown away. How did we not know that Wyoming was the first place in the country to grant women the right to vote?! They didn’t come in first by a couple of years or decades, they did it be FIFTY, that’s 5-0, years! They were so on top of it, they held it as a point of pride in their founding as a state and had it in the constitution! It wasn’t just the women of Wyoming wanting their voices to be heard. The men wanted it, too. Having grown up in New York State, quite familiar with the legacy of women like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the sites in Seneca Falls where conferences were held and rights were fought for and claimed, we felt enlightened when learning about this historic quality of our fellow state. 

The inside of the capitol was beautiful in a way unlike any other. It was almost like a mix between a standard Capitol building’s ornate architecture and the inside of an old western saloon. It was quite stunning. We were greeted by a former state senator who had been in charge of the bill that led the restoration of the capitol.

We loved every second of our self-guided tour that they encourage and we headed to the state museum. Not realizing that it closed in 30 minutes, we only had a short time there. We had originally planned to visit it the next day, so we figured we’d see what we could in 30 minutes and, if we wanted to, come back the next day.

We loved our Harvest Host stay that night at George and Beth’s beautiful spot on a hill just outside Cheyenne. We had gorgeous views to the east and west, giving us the sunset and the sunrise in equal measure.

We enjoyed a delightful 5K race in the park in Cheyenne the next morning, which you can read about in our 5K section, and had another wildly coincidental encounter right after the race that you can read about in our People Along the Way section. Something about Wyoming seemed to be filled with synchronicity for us.

We couldn’t resist but stop at the Old West Museum as we drove by after our 5K, though we didn’t have time to go through it. Instead of taking in the full museum, we chatted with the woman at the front desk, got some literature about the “daddy of them all” rodeo that took place there called Frontier Days, fantasized about coming back for it some day, hit the gift shop, and then headed to our next stop.

Before long, we were back on the road to cross the wide open expanses of Wyoming. We were taken in by its scenery, or, in some ways, you could romantically say, the lack of it. There were houses and towns every couple or fifty miles. We thought about what life must be like out here.

We were headed to the town of Thermopolis for the evening, where we planned to hit Hot Springs State Park the next morning before making our journey to the famed Yellowstone National Park.

On our way towards Thermopolis, we found ourselves among some of the most stunning scenery of the trip so far. Hills and mountains began to rise up from the once expansive and vast lands. Large bodies of water, reservoirs, started to show up with glistening colors. We were slack-jawed at every twist and turn through it. Then we rolled past a sign that said “Campground” with an arrow pointing to the side of the road. We saw a campground right on the water amidst the mountains. We couldn’t believe what we were seeing. We didn’t have a pre-booked place to stay for the night, as Julie had taken a bet that something in the area would come up to surprise us, and that bet paid off big time. 

We now had a contender for favorite campground and favorite spot of the trip, putting the Sheyenne Grasslands of North Dakota and Assateague Island in Maryland on notice with some new and tight competition. The campground was almost completely empty, and every single site was a water and mountain view site. An embarrassment of riches. In our enthusiasm for this spot, it took us nearly an hour to pick from the available sites as we tested each one for the perfection of it’s view and the degree to which it could offer us a level spot. Once we got settled in, we both felt like we were in absolute heaven.

The next morning we made our way to the small and charming town of Thermopolis and hit the Star Plunge hot springs, complete with indoor and outdoor thermal pools, a few small water slides, and a high board for jumping from 12 feet in the air down into the pool.

We took the morning soaking and, once again, found we could have easily spent all day there. We both took the jump off the high board. Ryan with classic Ryan ease, Julie with initial fear to overcome. But she eventually did it – especially because she was afraid. Julie didn’t expect to be afraid. It looked fun from the outside, and she was excited to do it. Something changed when standing up there looking down at the water that seemed so much farther below than it looked from down in the pool watching somebody jump. Julie is not a fearful person in life, but when it comes to physical things, she is a sissy of the first order, oftentimes running into fear bordering on primal terror that seems to come out of the blue. Those of you that know Julie know that her largest white whale was the terror she had of swimming that took years for her to get over, one layer of deep-seated, primal terror at a time. Of course, once Julie realizes she is afraid of something, she finds herself obsessed with doing that thing until she is not afraid anymore. So, she stood there with Ryan encouraging/taunting her from below until she leaped, yelped, and plunged the 12ish feet to the water. To learn a bit more about what helped Julie get over chickening out in this particular fear surge, check out our People Along the Way section. 

Leaving Thermopolis, in which we loved every second of our time there, we began our drive to the epic Yellowstone National Park. We drove through some of the most striking territory yet as we made our way through Buffalo Bill State Park, itching to stop, but more committed to getting to Yellowstone, where Julie had never been.

Ryan was in charge of the itinerary at Yellowstone, being the resident expert on the park, and he took his role seriously.

What can one say about Yellowstone that hasn’t already been said? We hit the mud caves, the famous Old Faithful and all of the thermal sights surrounding it, the Grand Prismatic Spring, where we biked along one of the bikeable paths up to the Grand Prismatic Spring overlook. Many of the walkers we biked past gave us varying types of looks that were fairly easy to read into, especially as one of them verbalized the unspoken consensus as we biked by – “Cheaters!” Julie yelled, “Hop on,” and we all shared a neighborly chuckle, though we could tell the resentment was a little real as we cruised by.

We took in the sights of Mammoth Hot Springs and went for a guided ranger hike to Storm Point on Yellowstone Lake. We stayed two nights and carried bear bells with us (which we later found out are basically useless and just a way for stores to earn a quick buck from ignorant tourists like us, when talking or clapping is the most effective way to warn bears of your approach) and carried bear spray with us everywhere.

Unlike all the “Tourons” – meaning Moron Tourists – we’ve read over the years, we kept to the boardwalks, kept our distance from wildlife, and generally followed all rules and regulations with hearty vigor. We saw plenty of bison, a few elk, and no grizzlies, and we were just fine with that. 

The next day, we made our second to last stop in the Grand Tetons. It was a rainy day and we used almost the whole time to get ourselves packed, oriented, and ready for the next day’s flight to Alaska (where Julie is sitting in a HOTEL ROOM writing this post).

Our final day in Wyoming, we made our way to the stunning town of Jackson, where you could tell the more monied Wyomingites called their home. The town was charming, beautiful, and in a setting that was stunning. It was only when driving from our campsite to Jackson that we got reminded – wait, we are in Grand Tetons National Park! We didn’t have time to hike there, but the views, even on a rainy and cloudy day that blocked much of the Grand Tetons themselves, were stunning.

We were absolutely sure we were there amongst a wealthier class when we got to the Jackson airport, which definitely has to take the prize for the most beautiful airport setting we’ve ever seen. The seating in the airport included sharp leather couches, and more than 50% of the people were in the TSA pre-check line, making the regular security line the shorter one. We can see why people would want to spend money to live there. It was fairly breathtaking.

We purchased a suitcase at the Jackson style Target, packed our bags, and said goodbye to Wyoming from the wings of an airplane on our first flight as part of the official trip (Ryan had taken several as part of his trips home).

There was no question Wyoming was a special place, and a place where it seems that, no matter how much we humans like to feel we are in charge, it is clear that, indeed, at the end of the day, it is nature that calls the shots. And in Wyoming, you can see that she does it with power, force, and absolutely stunning beauty.