Hot August Nights 2012 - August 3

We are headed to Reno, Nevada to join friends at the Hot August Nights car extravaganza which begins August 7th. The RV was loaded and we were planning to leave Fort Collins by 9:30 this morning. Well, I wasn’t quite ready, then it was 9:45 and before we even hit the highway, we ran into road construction which delayed us ANOTHER 15 minutes. THEN, as we were driving north on CO Hwy. 287, we were stopped by a Larimer County sheriff because we were – are you ready for this? – GOING TOO SLOW! 56 mph in a 65.He didn’t give us a ticket, just a little talk and said we needed to speed up and pull over when there were too many cars behind us. That slowed us down another 15 minutes. In the big scheme of things on getting to Reno, not a big deal. Today, however, we wanted to reach Laramie, Wyoming to make the 11:00 am tour at the Territorial Prison. We arrived just as the tour was starting and missed only the first five minutes!The prison is one of only three federally constructed territorial penitentiaries that still exist in the western US and has most of the original structure preserved. It was built in 1872 and for 30 years held violent and desperate outlaws, including the notorious “Butch Cassidy.”

After the tour and lunch, we were headed west on I-80 toward the White Mountain petroglyphs north of Rock Springs. If you have ever been to Wyoming you might know that the wind blows most of the time and today it was blowing straight at us - at 35 mph! It made for slow going and poor gas mileage. To top delays off,  I forgot to pack the phone chargers and when Tobey’s phone went dead we had to make another stop to buy a charger.

We finally turned north leaving Rock Springs behind about 5:30 pm. The petroglyphs are about 20 miles north of Rock Springs on a gravel road – washboard gravel. It took an hour to get here! After a quick dinner we took a short walk up to see them – and they are amazing.

Etched into the sandstone surface some 200 to 1,000 years ago, several figures appear to portray bison and elk hunts while others depict geometric forms or tiny footprints. Handprints are worn into the rock, as well.Higher up on the rock outcropping were three or four huge nest, maybe eagle nests. We will hike back in the morning for a longer look before heading out. We both miss having the “Banda” portable internet we had while traveling in Mexico – we will have to wait for a free WIFI spot before we can post!