My phone rang as I waited for Stephanie to pick me up from O’Hare last night. It was Steve. He had ridden 78 miles from Dubois to Lander, Wyoming. Yes…the temperatures are warming up he said. He managed to score a spot for camping at the Lander City Park and said that others were camping there too. Lander is the county seat of Fremont County.
Where he will go today I’m not sure. His next “big” city would be Rawlins. Out of curiosity I decided to try MapQuest and provide Lander as the start point and Rawlins as the end point. From Lander Steve goes “straight” for 80.7 miles, then there’s a “slight right” for 0.2 miles as the road bends. Then he goes “straight” again for 42.8 miles. A “slight right” into Rawlins. Some of his straight days in Oregon seemed to go on forever as he continued to focus on a hill or mountain ahead of him. I’m not sure if he can see mountains or hills as this point, unless he looks back! It does look like there are two small and lonely options for stopping tonight in Sweetwater Station or Jeffrey City. They don’t look populated and may just be a gas station if he’s lucky or a collection of buildings along the route.
Sweetwater Station was so named as it was a stop for stagecoaches and the Pony Express along the Sweetwater River. Do we have stagecoaches or the Pony Express nowadays? Yup…may not be promising as an overnight unless a gas station emerged during the gasoline era. Jeffrey City is listed as a ghost town!! Stay tuned for where he ends up.~~Diane