Living in the Moment: Casper, WY #MondayBlogs #Wyoming

If you’re new to my blog and want to know how this road trip began, click here for the first post.

We arrived in Evansville, WY, just outside Casper, in the evening, early enough to take a walk around and become oriented to our new “home” for the next few days. To our surprise and delight, we found a “rail trail” that would take us all the way into Casper. Following are some photos of the trail, overpass and tunnel.

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Downtown Casper was pretty interesting. Well, this was just plain weird:

The Dick Cheney Federal Building. Seriously.

Although my husband doesn’t like to have his photo shared on social media, it was his idea to pose:

The convention that made this trip possible. And my husband doing his best cowboy impression.

The Chamber of Commerce was one place we stopped to pick up maps and to gawk at this “water feature”:

Since the trail is about 2.9 miles one way, the next day we elected to walk into town, assuming we could find a bus back to Evansville. (Spoiler alert: we assumed wrong and wound up walking all the way back. Over 20,000 steps went on my Fitbit that day.)

We spent some time at the convention and then went searching for Hell’s Half Acre, a 320-acre geologic wonder of ravines and rock formations. We had seen pictures. We were prepared to be awed. It was only a 40-mile drive from Casper. We had snacks and water with us. And long underwear.

Hell’s Half Acre wasn’t hard to find. As we approached, to our left stood tall chain-linked and barbed wire fencing. Yup, the geologic wonder was not just closed but sealed off.

I should have taken out my iPhone and started snapping the fences that obstructed our view, but I was too upset. And my husband … more so. We had researched Hell’s Half Acre. We already knew the original diner and motel were no longer there. We already knew there would be no amenities. An aerial view on Google maps suggested that we should be able to view the rock formations and ravines. All we had wanted to do was park and film.

My husband found an opening in the fencing and decided to investigate, see if it would be worth dragging his gear through. I sat on a splintery post and wondered if we would be both charged with trepassing, or just Greg. I mean, there were no “No Trespassing Signs” to be seen. And we had come all the way from Florida so we could put the “duh” into Flori-duh if needed.

Greg came back, still angry but now resigned (to my relief) to the fact that the county meant to keep people out. There was nothing to be done but find the nearest supermarket, buy some wine, and drown our disappointment.

Since he failed to achieve the Holy Grail of a time lapse of the Milky Way over Hell’s Half Acre, the next day Greg decided that we would drive up to a scenic outlook on Casper Mountain Road. There he would film a time lapse of Casper as the sun set and city lights came on. Following are my humble iPhone photos and video.

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Next week: the eclipse! Let’s hope I can show you more than just my humble iPhone renditions. (I keep telling my husband, the photos don’t have to be perfect … ).