Eastbound

(Image from Esquire.com)

Only 30 miles from the white shirts of downtown Salt Lake City is the funky ski town of Park City, Utah, with its tourists, gift shops, and even a brew pub selling the irreverently named Polygamy Porter beer (Wasatch Brews).






We said good-bye to Utah and started the long journey east through southern Wyoming, our least populous state and second only to Alaska in low population density. The drive across I-80 proved that fact to me - although I think that if you counted the number of big rig drivers, you could double the population count.

Mountains arise in the distance at the far eastern end of Wyoming's I-80, but the 300 or so other miles heading east from Utah are an endless vision of wide open spaces dotted with buttes, livestock, trains, windmills, and snow fences.

I-80 traverses the country from California to New Jersey (or vice versa), and its high point is at over 8,600 feet near Laramie Wyoming.  The location of that summit is marked with a 48 foot monument to Abraham Lincoln because I-80 approximates the route of the original Lincoln Highway, the first road across the U.S.

Our otherwise uneventful day ended in Cheyenne Wyoming, which we had visited a few years ago.  This time, our tour of the city was a little different and focused on finding a veterinarian for Gracie, who has had a few bouts of gastrointestinal distress during our journey.  Our GPS was not of much help, so we instead sought out the Cheyenne police station to get our hands on a copy of the local yellow pages (phone booths are hard to come by these days!).  A quick phone call later, we were on our way to a clinic across town and managed to get there minutes before closing time --- saving us the fees imposed during emergency after-hours.  Gracie seems to be doing just fine on some meds and special food; the vet's assessment was that she is otherwise healthy but may be a little stressed from the travel.   She's always been our little worrier!