Rawlins, Part II (WY)

After lunch, what better way is there to spend your afternoon than going to a prison museum, especially if it is the Wyoming State Penitentiary where the South Facility is still home to over 1,800 criminals? None.


The museum itself was one of the most ghetto things I've ever seen. Many of the displays were labeled with printed computer paper pasted to cardboard paper unevenly, much like a middle school science fair trifold board. But at least there was a plethora of shanks that are preserved:


Web and I also got to experience the hardships of prison life:



We also found some more mystery rodents in the prisoner graveyard:


After our stop at the prison, we filled up on gas an headed to Utah, and passed by some cool rocks like this one:

Open Skies and Rawlins, WY, Part I

Between the Lincoln Monument and Utah, there was a lot of open spaces and Rawlins, WY.

And don't forget a ton of cattle, even more than in Nebraska or Colorado:


And the Rocky Mountains:


And clouds:


Wyoming has strange PSAs against secondhand smoke:


And more wind turbines than anywhere we've ever seen. There was at least 100 in one patch alone.

However, even though Wyoming has a lot of wind power, they also have some crazy fossil fuel burning going on:

After awhile we reached Rawlins, WY. A small city where there is cheap gas, buffalo burgers, and a state penitentiary.

Before checking out the jail and getting gas, we got lunch at a local diner called Sharp Shooters, where the hostess is a Rawlins native. And this diner was adorable and fit for any old time cowboy or cowgirl. They had a buffalo head on the wall:

A carved wooden cowboy and the diner rules. Wyoming actually doesn't have a Clean Air Act, so they have both a smoking and non-smoking section. Old school.



The salad buffet is a cover wagon!


And the most adorable bathroom room signage ever:

Their barbecue, buffalo burgers, and coleslaw, also were pretty darn good.

The Other Lincoln Memorial (WY)

Also in Wyoming there is a Lincoln Memorial. But not this one:


Its this one:


Someone got very lazy after carving the head and skipped the rest.

This giant angry Lincoln overlooks the highest elevated point of I-80.


And inside the visitor center they had really sweet welcome mats.

Egyptians in Wyoming, or Maybe Just Aliens

The second strange and interesting thing in Wyoming we found, aside from a one person town, was a strange pyramid off a dirt road from the interstate.


It is unclear whether it was the Egyptians or extraterrestrial beings settled Wyoming first, but they left us this mysterious monument:


It is also unclear what was so interesting about the Ames brothers to the Egyptians or aliens, because they were not very interesting to us. The pyramid itself (which isn't a true pyramid by any means), if in fact Egyptian, is probably from around 2500 BCE, around Dynasty IV, the pyramid building age of Egypt. This clearly was an earlier, less successful model that was abandoned. Perhaps Ames is also an early version of the sun god Amun that also was scrapped. How the Egyptians got to Wyoming is still unknown.

Did I mention this pyramid is nearly in the middle of nowehere?


Web in front of... well... nothing:


But we weren't alone near the pyramid. Remember those pronghorn antelope from Nebraska that were really digging the Kia and Web? Well, we found one in the wild, and he raced us! We let him win:

We also saw there strange rodents, and we aren't sure what they are. Prarie dogs? Large shrews? Small gophers? Who knows, but they were cute.

Wyoming, Home of the Smallest Town in America

We spent most of Wednesday driving through Wyoming, where there a lot of cows and a few cowboys. Neither Web nor I recall there being a welcome sign when entering Wyoming... unless it was this giant metal buffalo sculpture... a seemingly more fit welcome to Wyoming... since I don't think they want people moving in.


Aside from bovine species, you can find oil in Wyoming:


Wyoming, unlike many of the state we traveled through, had many things to stop and see. The first was the smallest town in America:


This is me, in front of the only house belonging to the only woman in Buford, modeling my new hat:


Aside from the house, there was a gas station and convenience store. The resident of Buford was kind of cranky. I guess I'd be cranky too if I lived in Buford alone.