Day 21: Greybull, WY to Greely, CO
One last drive with in mountains, and then we were out onto the plains today. Our hotel stay in Greybull had a few bumps in it, but worked out fine in the end. We scrapped our original plan to get to Cody, WY as it meant backtracking west, and we need to press east and south for home.
The Greybull Motel seemed like the right place in this little town. Truly Mom & Pop, good reviews, homemade breakfast, etc. We arrived a bit late so I dropped MB off at a restaurant to get our place before they closed. I went to the motel and checked in. I didn’t unload our stuff, but I did go in the room and it looked ok. Pretty good for $100 anyway. After a nice dinner we drove around the little bit of town that there was, and went back to the hotel. When I opened the door to our room - there were two guys in there! Of course I was shocked. They said they had the room and even had a key. So I marched into the office and asked Sharon (the Mom) what was going on! It was never real clear, but they had reserved it for two nights, but left for the day and took everything, so the motel thought they had checked out. Anyway, she told us she had a room around the back that we could stay in - and would discount it to $80…
This was our room in the back. Right across the back from the train yards. You can imagine what we thought pulling up here in the almost darkness! But it was the presidential “Lincoln” suite, and turned out to be ok. The best thing was a full washer-dryer and we had a growing load of dirty clothes. So that saved us from a bit of sink washing, or spending time at a laundromat. And when the trains banged together, it just sounded like mild thunder through the insulated walls!
Inside the Lincoln Suite at the Greybull Motel.
Greybull, WY
Basin, WY on US 16 / US 20
Thermopolis, WY and it’s “worlds largest” hot springs was a surprise to us. This small town has a large state park with all of the above items in it. The park was right in town on the Bighorn River and was well maintained and quite busy.
The hot spring water was enjoyed via what looked like several concessionaires in the park. There was no park HQ or visitors center. This one had an indoor and outdoor pool, two hot tubs (presumably different temperatures) and a water slide. The park also had 2 motels.
Pray for the Rainbow Motel. Thermopolis, WY. Like so many of these older businesses we saw out here, this one is for sale too.
Another treat just south of Thermopolis was a drive through the Wind River Canyon of the Bighorn River. For 15 miles, US 20 cuts through this canyon along the river. This would be our last drive through mountains. This train is one of the few trains we’ve come across on this trip. I am surprised we didn’t see more.
We are now out in the mostly empty plains of Wyoming, heading to Casper on US 26.
Downtown Casper, WY
Casper, WY.
Casper is the 2nd largest city in Wyoming with a metro area population of 82,000. We also later passed through Cheyenne, WY, the largest metro area in the state with a population of about 101,000.
Keeping a clean windshield was a battle, day or night.
I-25 heading south to Cheyenne, WY on our way to Greely, CO. Nice skies like this were common on the trip and rain was rare.