Hello Everyone!
Greetings from the prairies of eastern Wyoming. I have officially turned my headlights east and I have begun my long journey home. It’s been a fascinating time here in the Rocky Mountain states and I would love to keep exploring for the rest of the year, but between the crazy heat of the last month and the issues I’ve had with my van this summer, I have decided it’s time for me to go home for a while. When I get there I’ll be able to sort some things out, regroup and get ready to get back to it again in 2027. It’s not been an easy decision, but I think it’s a good one and I’m starting to wrap my head around it at this point. Waking up super early so I can drive somewhere and then spend all day either inside or sitting under a tree is not a lot of fun and even though the summer is waning, it looks like another month of heat could be ahead. The work I needed to have done on Shadow Catcher this summer highlighted how old she is getting and how hard it will be to keep getting parts and also just how far away from home I am in a 30 year old vehicle. Even though she’s been running really well for the last few weeks, I think it’s time for her to find a new home with someone who needs and expects less from her than I do going forward. So I have slowly begun my eastward journey with no plans to speed across the country, but with every intention of getting there in the next few weeks. That said, I’ve had a really interesting week here in northern Wyoming and southern Montana exploring small western towns and some of the battlefields of the Plains Indian Wars. The heat broke on Monday and I have done my best to make the most of the last few days with cooler conditions to run in. I’ve certainly slept better, that’s for sure. So without further ado, let’s get into it.
After leaving you last week, I finished up a few things and then strolled down the road and checked into the historic Greybull Hotel for the night. The Greybull is a charming small-town hotel which was clean, comfortable, very reasonably priced and right in the middle of town. I plunked my stuff down and cooled off for a minute and then wandered down the street to the tiny Greybull Museum. The museum was really small, but had a lot of cool rocks and fossils from the area and some nice historic artifacts from the town as well. From there, I popped next door to CC’s pizza for dinner and then went for a beer at the Smokehouse Saloon. On Wednesdays they were charging 25¢ for a draft beer or $1.50 for a pitcher. I showed tremendous restraint by limiting myself to just one pitcher, but I had paid for a nice hotel room which I wanted to get back to enjoy it, which is exactly what I did. It was quite nice to relax on my couch, in the air conditioning, and watch some TV for a while. I know that is something many, many people do every night, but for me it was a luxury.