Nebraska Trip 2017 - Day 2

It was a quiet night in Elko last night.  We got up at 6:00 am and were on the road after breakfast and refueling by 9:00 am.  It was a fairly easy 330 mile drive east on I-80.  The skies were clear & the winds were fairly light, at least until we got over the Wasatch Mountains east of Salt Lake City.  From Park City, UT to Fort Bridger, WY where the terrain at 7,000 feet was a little more barren, the wind picked up.  By the time we arrived at Fort Bridger at 4:00 pm local (we are now in the Mountain Time Zone) the wind was pretty steady at 20-30 mph, although it was essentially out of the west and didn't impact driving all that much.

We are staying at a small, funky, mom-and-pop RV park in Fort Bridger,  It is nice and has everything we need - full hook-ups, cable TV, Internet, etc. and will work fine for an overnight.  As the evening progresses the wind is still blowing pretty hard.  As I think about it, I cannot recall ever travelling through/stopping in WY when the wind was not blowing pretty hard.

And, as another example of how small the world really is, as we pulled into the RV park, another RV pulled in right behind us.  In talking to the young couple with two kids in the RV we discovered they live in Grass Valley about 2 miles from where we live.  They also spent last night in Elko - also heading east this morning,

Fort Bridger is a historic place in the history of the emigrant pioneer migration.  A trading post was established in 1843 by Jim Bridger, a famous mountain man of the era.  It became an important stop on the Oregon Trail and other westward pioneer routes.  It was taken over by the Mormans in 1850 and was established as a military fort in 1858.  It was abandoned during the Civil War and like many military forts in the west, fell into disrepair and were abandoned by the end of the 19th Century or earlier after the Indian wars  The state of Wyoming took possession of the grounds in 1933 and, with the cooperation of several historical preservation organizations have since restored a number of the original buildings and established a museum with numerous artifacts of the fort's history.  It is now a state historical site that has been very well done.  Unfortunately, we are not able to spend another day to check it out and will have to do so another time.

Fort Bridger Pictures

Tomorrow is another day in "drive-over country" heading east on I-80 to Cheyenne, WY.  We have been this way before and it is across barren rolling hills with an occasional small town/city en route over high plains/desert at the 6,000 -7,000 ft level.  We can expect more wind in the PM and hope to get an early start.  We will be staying tomorrow night at F.E. Warren AFB, a USAF missile base in Cheyenne near the Nebraska border.

Dinner tonight was in the RV and it will be early to bed.