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Why-o-why-oming?


This post was published on Thursday 25 July 2013.

I have spent a considerable amount of time in the past 36 hours, driving through Wyoming.  As Annie Mae said, ‘Wyoming is full of a whole lot of nothing.’  That is certainly true.  Take a look at the scenery that my eyes feasted on for about 300 miles:

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Miles of nothing
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Even more miles of nothing
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Famous potatoes?!

By far the most interesting that happened for 300 miles was waiting half an hour in a queue to get through some roadworks.  I found myself wishing I had made my trip go through Idaho.

Famous Potatoes?  Why have I not heard of such an exciting draw for intrepid travellers driving 3000 miles across the country?  These famous spuds should be advertised at every international airport so people don’t miss out.

Eventually, after I stopped for a cup of ‘Seattle’s Best Coffee’ (we shall see) and some ‘gas’, the road got close enough to the Rockies for the scenery to improve somewhat.  The scrubland and cows became more scarce, and the highway passed through a couple of decent-looking places.

I was left wondering though: if Grand Teton and Yellowstone were put into Idaho, and Wyoming ceded from the union, what exactly would the USA be missing, other than a big space to drive through on impressively straight roads?!  There do seem to be a lot of cows so perhaps McDonalds would go out of business.

As the scenery kept improving, and I got very close to my destination lodge, I passed a sign warning of an approaching lake.  On the spur of the moment I decided to go and look at it.  The lake was beautiful—the ‘road’ was a gravel track, for five miles!  The car shuddered and skidded all over the place (it was immense fun).  And here is Brooks Lake:

As you can see the sky was really quite overcast, there was barely a break in the clouds.  So, when I eventually made it to Grand Teton, to the naked eye the peaks were impressive, but not to the camera lens.

So, here is a teaser for what I hope will be more impressive pictures tomorrow of the astonishing Tetons rising up out of the plain, with (fingers crossed) fewer clouds in the sky:

 Rise Up (older)
(newer) Grand Teton