Comments on: Wyoming: a Not-So-Happy Meal but a cowgirl’s dream

By: gina c in al

gina c in al — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 19:09:24 +0000

Many Many years ago on one of those mind-numbing cross-country mid-60s two-week vacation trips from Cincinnati to Disneyland Anaheim (long before D-world FL), my family and I stayed at the Little America property in Salt Lake City. I can still remember the furniture was made from real wood, not laminate, and the decor was primarily shades of powder blue. Your post brought that memory back from the depths. And more thanks to the Net, I found that the Little America is still in business in SLC. Must revisit one day, but not in the back of a 1961 Bonneville! (the two week trip was a staple then, now I’m doing good to get 5 days arranged around a holiday weekend).

By: NTBW

NTBW — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 15:29:26 +0000

You actually made me miss Wyoming a little bit, which is something I never thought I would say, having driven all the freaking way across it something like 6 times in the 4 years I lived out west. And we even spent the night at Little American one time. Our hotel room had the most amazing 1960s furnishings–not copies, but real, vintage stuff. I SO wanted to steal a lamp, but I refrained.

By: Historiann

Historiann — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 14:16:09 +0000

In the summer of 2009, we had to drive to SLC twice and had an opportunity to see Wyoming’s stretch of I-80 in June and in early August, when it was lovely and green. On the June drive, thunderstorms were crossing the area, and they were a beautiful sight as they rolled across and through the wide open valley of the Red Desert.

By: Perpetua

Perpetua — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 12:53:53 +0000

Coniferous splendor it is not, but I find the area around Green River (and most of southern Wy – central WY not so much)to be visually stunning. But I’m a rolling treeless prairie kinda gal.

By: Indyanna

Indyanna — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 02:35:12 +0000

I took the Oregon Trail through that area many years ago (before they made it an online game) without ever leaving Brooklyn. Got buried at Chimney Rock by an 8-year old with the tombstone epitaph “shouldn’t have let Indyanna drive the train…” My U.S. history survey kids think this is the funniest story I have to tell, every year, hands down, and in truth it probably is.

Too many bullets, not enough bacon, something like that. Forgot to pack the extra wagon tongue.

By: Leslie

Leslie — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 01:37:15 +0000

“We should have a “dullest stretch of highway” competition. I nominate Nebraska’s I-136. The far west of that state has some lovely stone bluffs, but after the first hour, it’s pretty much 6 hours of sand hills. Nearly ran myself off the road a couple of times because there was just nothing to focus on.”

I’ve ridden Amtrak through that part of Nebraska…. fortunately, it’s usually dark.

I had the good fortune of going through the Sandhills quite a bit further north, on US 20. Fantastic fields of sunflowers. Unbelievably gorgeous.

By: koshem Bos

koshem Bos — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 01:12:52 +0000

Wyoming and Arizona will stay Republican even after the second coming; so say the experts. (As if Jews care.) Jackson Hole, where the ultra rich have homes, voted 62% for Obama. May the experts are wrong.

By: Notorious Ph.D.

Notorious Ph.D. — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 22:54:19 +0000

We should have a “dullest stretch of highway” competition. I nominate Nebraska’s I-136. The far west of that state has some lovely stone bluffs, but after the first hour, it’s pretty much 6 hours of sand hills. Nearly ran myself off the road a couple of times because there was just nothing to focus on.

By: Indyanna

Indyanna — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 18:22:16 +0000

I crossed that same stretch of Wyoming on Amtrak years ago, before that outfit worked up the nerve to challenge the Rockies via the Colorado route, and I was pretty disappointed, visually. Of course, I was expecting it to be all connifer forests, with the evergreen lower branches swooshing the roof of the cars as we whisked by. Some kind of a John Gunther Inside USA fantasy, I guess. It was so long ago that only the eastern drinkotopians had even heard of “Coors,” which was only a regional brand. When we hit Denver they put some cases on the train, and there was a near civil commotion as these guys tried to get at it. But other than that, all I can remember is a reddish shale from Green River to Evanston, after which it got dark.

My own idea of what motorists in the 1930s were experiencing roadside is the Red Apple Rest, on the doorstep to the Catskills. I wouldn’t really know.

By: Perpetua

Perpetua — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 17:57:32 +0000

Of course, I always have my rifle with me, so that solves that problem!