Places that you may never have heard of

I’ve made countless cross country trips by car usually traveling our Interstate Highway system. Sometimes I’ll see a sign with a name that I don’t recognize and it’s these places that my pique my curiosity.

Driving in Wyoming between Cheyenne and Laramie is a place with an odd name – Vedauwoo.

While not conclusive, its name is said to come from the Arapahoes who have called this area home for centuries. By taking this exit, a short drive will take you Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest which is home to an abundance of wildlife and fauna.

But Vedawoo is best known as a popular destination for bouldering and rock climbers who are challenged by a very extensive group of huge, hard granite formations.

Above photos is an example of one of these challenging formations. [photo courtesy of Stacy Bender of Climbing Older website]

To find climbing information and personal experiences from Stacy Bender visit his website at Climbing Older. And while Stacy’s site may target the older (read: senior) among us, I’m sticking to the hiking paths rather than hanging from rocks with ropes, etc.

For more for in information about the tackling the Vedauwoos through climbing, biking or hiking click here.

Still Interested?

Here are a few more places that you may never have heard of –

Argenta, Nevada
Aragonite, Utah
Beowawe, Nevada
Dunphy, Nevada
Jackpot, Nevada
Mercury, Nevada
Rhyolite, Nevada
Wamsutter, Wyoming

Two Weeks and 6000 Miles

For most of this past summer we stayed close to home and enjoyed the great Michigan weather.

When September rolled around it was time for a vacation so we packed up and hit the road to beat the West’s cold and snowy fall weather.

It’s taken a few weeks to organize all of my photos from the trip but I’ve finally completed this series of photographs. So here is my picture report as I try to show some of the less spectacular visuals throughout the west.

Our car is in the driveway, all loaded and ready to go.

Here we’re crossing the Mississippi River over the bridge in the Quad Cities.

Heading west into Nebraska we pass by a large grain storage facility in Omaha.

We’re about to drive beneath the Gateway Arch that’s built over Interstate 80 in Kearney, Nebraska

If you’re a beef eater you’ll notice many of the western feedlots such as this one in Ogalalla, Nebraska.

At a rest area near Laramie, Wyoming is a Lincoln statue dedicated to the nearby Lincoln Highway which once served as a main auto route to the west.

This is an older style bridge crossing the North Platte River near Ft Steele, Wyoning.

A few miles down the highway brings us to the huge refinery in Sinclair, Wyoming.

We don’t often see loaded freight trains in Michigan but this long freighter was transporting intermodal containers stacked two-high.

We stopped in Salt Lake City to visit one of our grandsons. Here’s the Univ of Utah stadium downtown.

We pass by the “Tree of Utah” sculpture at mile marker 26 of Interstate 80.

At the Bonneville Salt Flat rest area a young girl was taking drone pictures above the flats.

We hopped off of the interstate and drove US-6, one of the loneliest roads in central Nevada towards Yosemite NP.

We were disappointed to find that the entrance to Yosemite was closed due to snow. Instead we viewed the tufas at nearby Mono Lake.

We stayed in Reno for a few days to visit with our son and grandson. The Truckee River flows through the city’s downtown.

Leaving Reno we followed US-12, another lonely but beautiful road through central Idaho on the way to Glacier NP in Montana.

In Glacier NP we hiked along the trail to Hidden Lake at Logan Pass.

Here are the crystal clear beach waters of Lake McDonald. During the summer, kayaks and canoes abound.

Along the Going-To-The-Sun road you can see the McDonald Creek.

Beargrass grows on the many slopes in Glacier NP.

A half-day drive from Glacier NP takes us to Yellowstone NP.

The terraces at Mammoth Hot Springs show off some of nature’s beautiful design work.

A short hike along the Mammoth Hot Spring trails shows of more of the travertine terraces.

Leaving Yellowstone we headed to the northeast entrance to traverse the Beartooth Highway before the snow falls.

Near the top of Beartooth Highway we were awed by the gorgeous view.

After leaving Montana, we stopped at the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in Wyoming.

This is a solemn view of the cemetery at Little Bighorn Battlefield NM.

From Little Bighorn we traveled to adjacent South Dakota where we visited Badlands NP.

We found this bighorn sheep foraging along the road in the park.

Looking at the terrain gives you an idea of why the park is called the Badlands

This amazing statue celebrates the Native Americans in South Dakota and USA.

Arriving back home in Grand Rapids, our odometer tells us that we traveled 5900 miles during out 14 days outing.

Written by:

Arnie Lee