Welcome to Wyoming

In the last two days, I passed 2.5 million steps, passed through Alzada, the last town in Montana on my route, and made it across the Wyoming border.

I entered Montana with three days left in January, crossing at high elevations with freezing temperatures, and walked about 1,364,000 steps, or 682 miles, before finally leaving today, with temperatures in the low sixties. On an average Montana day, I covered 11,700 steps, a little short of six miles. More than half of my walking so far has been in Montana, and that amounts to almost twenty percent of the full trek to Miami.

I can tell you three places I have visited in Wyoming: Yellowstone Park, The Grand Tetons, and Devil's Tower, which is the big rock in the picture here. I think the old legend is that seven sisters were chased here by a bear, and the ground rose up to save them and tossed them into the sky, where they became the Pleiades. The bear clawed at the rock trying to climb, and you can see his claw marks on the tower, but he could not get them. At least I think that's the legend.

We visited Devil's Tower on our Lewis and Clark trip with the boys nearly twenty years ago - a little detour, because Lewis and Clark never visited Devil's Tower. We stayed at a KOA very near the tower, and every night of the year they showed Close Encounters of the Third Kind, projected onto the side of a building at an outdoor theater. I remember that Lucas asked me during the movie, when Devil's Tower was onscreen, "Where is that place?" and I pointed up and to the right in front of us to the actual tower, which was visible from our seats. That was the most memorable thing I will ever do at a KOA.

I will pass through Wyoming, not very near to Devil's Tower, in less than one week. My route goes about twenty miles through the very northeast corner of the state, then on to South Dakota, following highway 212, as I have since back at Crow Agency about four weeks ago. The only named place I will pass is in Wyoming is called Colony. Google claims Colony, Wyoming is a "populated place," but photos on Google maps make it look more like an unpopulated place with a business that appears to be mineral extraction of some sort.

Where we're going in South Dakota seems like it's bustling with activity compared to where we've been, so that's something to look forward to.