Coast to Coast

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Day 70: Rawlins, Wyoming

We only drove 211.5 miles today to Rawlins, Wyoming. Since we spent the night in the Wal-Mart parking lot, neither of us got much sleep. Again, I wish I had paid more attention in Geology class...what is the continental divide??? I looked it up on line...still not sure..."The Great Divide, also called the Continental Divide, separates the watersheds of the Pacific Ocean from those of the Atlantic or Arctic Oceans. It runs from the Seward Peninsula in Alaska, through western Canada along the crest of the Rocky Mountains to New Mexico. From there, it follows the crest of Mexico's Sierra Madre Occidental and extends to the tip of South America. It is crossed by the Panama Canal." (Wikipedia) Anyway we crossed over it...

We met up with our friend Terry at this campground.

We had a very nice visit. He took us to dinner in Rawlins. Here are some pictures of down town area. Cute little town, but he said they had snow through mid-June!

Then we went to visit the only real tourist attraction in Rawlins: Wyoming's Frontier Prison, or "The Old Pen."

The movie "Prison" was filmed here.

Since there were so many outlaws in post-Civil War Wyoming, the state legislators planned this state of the art penitentiary to send a message to these desperadoes that Wyoming is no longer a place for the lawless. It was served as a penitentiary from 1901 to 1981.

This red roofed building is the death row portion of the prison. Legend has it that the inmates were digging a tunnel under the stone wall and would hide the dirt up in the ceiling. This is the reason the ceiling inside sags.

9 prisoners were hung and 5 prisoners were executed by lethal gas in the gas chamber.

Another interesting story is about a little old lady who lived across the street from the prison. She use to bake things every day for the prisoners and they all got to know her. One man was left out on parole, he broke into her house and attacks her. After his arrest the cops thought he would be safer away from the townspeople who loved the little old lady so they put him back into the Old Pen. They did not anticipate the prisoners code of justice. The killed him.

Friday, July 18, 2008

Day 69: Three States in One Day!

We debated on whether to follow the map quest way of cutting across the plain states with all the floods and predicted storms or to head south in Nevada to Las Vegas then onto I40 all the way to NC. We opted to take our chances and cut across (the shortest route.) Leaving Nevada...

Passing through Utah...

Seeing so much of the different landscapes as we travel makes me wish I'd have paid more attention in Geology class when we studied how mountains, canyons and rivers were formed and the changes the weather and environment have on each of them.

I think my favorite landscape other than the beach, of course, has to be the Salt Flats. Well, maybe not my favorite but the one I am most curious to learn more about. It wasn't as windy through here as it was on the way out so it didn't look like snow blowing across the roads, but here is that random structure we passed. I videoed it, so I hope you will be able to see it. The music in the background is the radio (Carrie Underwood, Glenn's favorite American Idol)

We stopped at a Flying J before getting into Salt Lake City to fuel up and to rest for a while. We received two unexpected calls this afternoon. One was from my friend Gloria in Florida and the other from our friend Terry from back home.

Terry's call was especially strange because we hadn't spoken to him in a few months, since he was in Charlotte. He is a traveling nurse, which is how we met him. He was contracted at the hospital in our area and stayed right next door to us at the campground in Shallotte. Hard to believe it but he is in Rawlins, Wyoming which we plan to pass through tomorrow! So we made arrangements to stay the night there at the park where he is so we could visit a while.

As we drew near to Salt Lake, I spotted this lighthouse. Glenn said he thinks it is a smoke stack from a power plant or something, but I still maintain it is a light house.

As we entered Salt Lake City, we saw several planes flying into the airport. I thought this was a pretty neat shot with the mountains in the background.

Traffic slowed to a crawl for about 20 minutes because they had some of the lanes blocked off for road constructions right at the section where every few feet was another ramp coming into the east bound lanes.

It got really tight in a few spots and with the big rigs passing we thought a couple would clip the mirrors, but Glenn did a fabulous job of getting us out of there safe and sound. (I was holding on for dear life, so did not get many pictures of the traffic tie up!)

After we pulled out of the city the landscape changed from the flats and lakes to these rolling mountains with little neighborhoods tucked neatly in them. This is a new trek of the journey. We went down to Colorado on the way out west.

These rock formations were massive, I couldn't even get it all from a distance!

Here are two more shots to put these red rock mountains into perspective:

Same size train...

Little farms were nestled along the mountains, spaced a good distance apart. this was a very pretty drive.

Then we were into Wyoming.

We traveled 433.2 miles today and are staying at a Wal Mart in Evanston, WY tonight.

Day 68: On the Road Again

We left Oregon a couple of weeks early because of a few things happening here, there and everywhere that pushed-pulled us away. End of explanation. So here are some pictures of the journey.

Stopped at Winnemucca, NV for the night...402.3 miles closer to home!

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Day 66: Hummingbirds

We have a hummingbird feeder in front of the large picture window in the KOA registration/store area. I finally snapped a picture of one of the little fellas that visit it each day!