Cross-Country Vacation
Day 7: Cattle Country
Saturday, September 9, 2006
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We all woke up early and got off to a quick start this morning. We were on the road around 6:30 AM, which was good because this was going to be the second longest driving day of the trip. It would be almost as long as the first day, when we covered parts of 4 states. But on this day we would only do parts of 2 states. We were starting in Grand Junction, Colorado, and had reservations to spend that night in Colter Bay Village inside of Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming.
Our destination was to the west of where we were starting, but the shortest and fastest route took us to the east to begin with. We headed east on I-70, which ran along the Colorado River and crossed it several times, until we got to a town called Rifle. From there we headed north on 2-lane state highway 13.
It was a pretty boring drive. The only thing we kept seeing were these black birds with white bellies and white tipped wings. They were all over the place, even more common than crows would be back east. We later learn that they were magpies, and it turns out they are from the same bird family as crows.
We crossed into Wyoming later that morning. CO-13 became 2-lane Wyoming state highway 789. I do no understand why some of these western states that do not have very many highways have to use such high numbers. They hardly have any that have just a 2-digit designation.
In additional to the magpies we saw a lot of cattle.
About 45 minutes into Wyoming we had our first crossing of the Great Divide. You would not know it by looking at the land. It was almost completely flat and covered by cow pastures. Our first crossing actually took us into what is called the Great Divide Basin, an area that does not drain to either ocean.
We would cross the Great Divide many more times over the next 3 days.
Just a little further north on WY-789 and we came to I-80. Again, we headed east, even though our ultimate destination was west still. We got off the freeway in Rawlins and had lunch at a quaint house that had been converted into an Italian restaurant.
Then we headed northwest on US-287, which would take us all of the way to our destination that day. We actually saw some cyclists along US-287 with their bikes all loaded up with camping gear. I was hoping we would get some views of the Rocky Mountain range to the west, but they seemed to be shrouded in clouds.
We made good time, though, and we were getting close to the park sometime before 4 in the afternoon when we caught our first glimpse of the Teton range.
We went into the park entrance and then straight to check-in at Colter Bay Village. Then we spent the rest of the afternoon doing laundry. One thing we have learned on previous trips is to pack half as much stuff and do laundry somewhere in the middle. Then we just had dinner and got to bed. We had another early morning ahead of us.
Day 7 Summary:
Start: Grand Junction, CO
End: Moran, WY
By way of: Craig, CO; Rawlins, WY
Route: I-70, CO-13, WY-789, I-80, US-287, US-287/US-26
Approximate Driving Distance:
This Day: 525 miles
Total: 2060 miles
Next: Day 8: Grand Teton