Saturday, December 31, 2011

 I love to travel.  I really don't do that much of it but I hope to do more someday.  I really like the idea of seeing exotic places.  I was thinking about that recently when we were driving home from my Mom's house.  Our travel covered about 120 miles of the middle of Wyoming.  It is a drive I really enjoy but I have heard others who comment that it is a boring drive with nothing to see.

What I love about the middle of Wyoming is all the wide open spaces.  I find it to be prettiest in the warmer months but the winter scene is fascinating to me as well.  For one thing, it is so very barren.  My great grandparents homesteaded in this area.  I think that must have been pretty scary!  They came there from North Carolina where it is warmer and a LOT greener.  There must have been some trial and error as they learned what they could grow in Wyoming.  They had children; my own Grandma Rose was an infant.  I am sure that there was fear.  Apparently I come from some hearty stock!

Anyway, as I was looking out the window, thinking about exotic places I'd like to see, I realized that there are a lot of people in this world who never will see the expansive views of Wyoming.  There are people who would be so excited to see a herd of antelope or a golden eagle sitting on the fence post.  There are people who live surrounded by so many buildings or trees that they never get to have their eyes stretch over a view miles away.  It occurred to me that THIS is an exotic place to some folks.  So, I started snapping some photos from the car window.  I hope you enjoy this little exotic trip through the center of Wyoming.


For my readers who don't live where there is a lot of snow, this is a snow fence.  It helps catch blowing snow, placing the drifts on the prairie rather than across the road.  It helps some anyway.


If you look carefully, you can see the snow-capped mountains in the background.  We weren't travelling through the mountains that day but they were visible.

I love this scruffy tree.  When trees are sparse, you really notice their character as individual trees.


Wyoming is known for its cowboys.  Where there are cowboys, there are often (not always) cows.  This is their pantry.



It looks like nothing could live out there but it supports lots of animals, including antelope, deer, fox, gophers, sheep, birds and much more.  I didn't get any pictures of buffalo that day but there are some buffalo herds in that area.


This bridge is rather curious to me.  It didn't seem to have a road that goes to it.


There are lots of weird roch formations in this part of the country.

They drill for oil all over Wyoming.


This is a small version but that is an oil pump.  This area is the teapot dome.  Have you ever heard of the Teapot Dome Scandal? 

Thanks for coming along!

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