September 11, Laramie, WY

Today we passed 6,000 miles on our trip. Wow! I (we) could stay gone but I am really missing the grandkids. That's you, Aaron, Sarah and Katie!

We drove into Rock Springs, WY and they had a huge sign that stated it is the home to 56 nationalities. Remarkable.

We drove on I-80 most of the time between Green River and Laramie. At one point it appeared that we were in the middle of an area 100 miles in width and 100 miles in length with not one town having more than a few hundred in population - and very few of those.

We are pretty sure that we saw a dead porcupine on the side of the road. There are not many animals killed on the roads. We have tried to decide if it is because not many animals live there or if there just aren't many people driving. We surmised that it is a combination of both.

 I forgot to include this information for yesterday. We drove passed a "town" called Little America about 20 miles west of Green River, WY. There had been signs for miles advertising it so we decided to stop. It has a very large truck stop with rooms, showers, etc. There are 140 motel rooms, a restaurant and bar, a gift store, cafe, and meeting space. We saw some houses in the back but it said private, no entrance. I looked it up just now and it is truly a company town. It has a post office and a population of 68 in the 2010 census. All the residents work for Little America, have a high school education but no college, a median household income of $26,115, mean age of 25.7, no unemployment, all rental houses with the average rent being $234. The mean travel time to work is 3.4 minutes, there are no registered sex offenders, and 100% are employed in the service industry. It sounds rather like a company town to me.


We passed a town called Sinclair, WY today about halfway between Green River and Laramie. It is in the middle of the Sinclair oil fields and by a huge oil refinery. Unlike Little America, most of the houses are privately owned, the median household income is $74,163, 13.5% have a bachelor's degree and 2.5% have a master's degree, there is 4.9% unemployment, the median age is 39.5. The population is 433, the median house is $104,162, median rent is $710, and the mean travel time to work is 13.2 minutes. Twenty-seven% work in transportation/warehouse, 22% in manufacturing, 14% in oil extraction, 8% in public administration, 6% in professional, scientific or technical, 5% in information, and 5% in other services. This is probably not a company town because the people living there own their own houses.

This shows a Union Pacific train going on a bridge over the North Platte River near Sinclair, WY. It is about half way between Green River and Laramie, WY.









We decided to leave I-80 east of Sinclair and take Wyoming 130 south then east through Medicine Bow National Forest ending in Laramie. It is designated as a Scenic Byway - and it is. We had a light rain through all of it but I was still able to take decent pictures. On both the west and east sides of the mountain range it is treeless, mostly rolling, no trees except along a river, some sage brush, some dry grass-like stuff and desert.

There was some lumbering in the Medicine Bow National Forest near Snowy Range Pass (elevation 10, 847). There were about 6 places where they had the lumber stacked up and the cut branches stacked beside them.

This shows a walk bridge on a trail near Medicine Bow Peak, elevation 12,013'. I would LOVE to come back and to some hiking here.Wonderful! You can see in the distance that the sky is clear. The picture isn't bright and clear because it was taken in the rain. Anyone ready to come hike with me? Sarah, Katie, Aaron?

There were 2 places where we saw these signs. There were also "open range" signs all along the drive.

The aspen trees in the lower elevations were turning yellow. A few were almost an orange color. They are so spectacular mixed in with the deep green of the fir and pine trees.