The original plan was to leave at 8:00 p.m. right after my class, but having a bad cold and sinus infection really had slowed down our preparations so I felt pretty good about leaving around 9:15 p.m. Funny time to head out on a trip but it gave us an opportunity to get three hours of driving down in the cool of the night and a little bit of a head start on the long drive.
Our first night stop was in Rock Springs......yes, at the Wal-mart parking lot. They have an open invitation for truckers and RVs to park at the back of their parking lot. Gary had found a review that said this was a nice one. I was amazed how many vehicles were parked when we arrived after mid-night. Not a bad deal for them as we made a quick run in for milk and a couple of other items we had forgotten.
Wednesday morning, Gary woke up before six, made another quick run to Wal-mart and then started driving...while Jena and I were still cozy in our beds. (These mode of travel is excellent for couples like Gary and I--he is a "wake up early" person and I like to sleep in, especially on vacations. Win-Win!)
The countryside in eastern Wyoming turned into evergreen trees which were beautiful.
We saw a sign for the Lincoln Monument and although we had no idea why there would be a Lincoln Monument in Wyoming, we decided to check it out. Turns out that this rest stop had a lot of history around it. I am one of THOSE people who like to read all of this stuff and try to remember what it is about.
We learned about ranching....
About the telephone line near here through which the first conversation in the west was held in 1982.
This rest stop had a free book library as well where travelers could leave books or take one.
The view outside from the visitors center/rest stop. This was a high class rest stop as you can tell. Rest stops have really upgraded from 'back in the day'!
And there was a huge Lincoln Monument. It turns out that this freeway--US 80 goes from New York to San Francisco and it was the first one completed that transversed from sea to sea. It was called the Lincoln Highway after the president. And in the mid-1900s they built this bust here to honor him and the accomplishment of this highway.
This spot was chosen because it was the highest spot on this freeway between the two coasts.
And it also has been identified as "The Purple Heart Trail" and we saw signs about this often as we traveled along this freeway.
I didn't know all of this about Freeway 80 and it was the perfect start for our trip since we traveled on 80 from Echo Canyon in Utah all of the way to Des Moines, Iowa.
(And just because of this rest stop, I am considering whether I want to add a trip from coast to coast on this highway to my bucket list. How fun would that be!!!)
And this was just our first spot of the day...............
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