Rock Springs, Wyoming
July 29, Saturday: Vernal, CO to Rock Springs, WY
We left Vernal this morning for Rock Springs, Wyoming, home of friends, Randy and Jo. We repeated the drive through the spectacular scenery through Flaming Gorge – this time driving over the dam and up the east side of the reservoir. The Rock Springs KOA is behind some fuel tanks right along I80. It actually looks much worse from the outside – it was a reasonably comfortable campground and convenient to Rock Springs. Most of the campground was filled with semi-permanent folks working the oil and gas boom in the area. Rock Springs is a sorry little town – the historic downtown has lots of closed up shops. North of I80, there are some new subdivisions and stores going in – part of the oil and gas boom, I guess. We stopped to take pictures for Randy of the huge American flag that he told us was installed by the Chamber of Commerce. The town had added a nice bronze sculpture of kids around the flag.
July 30, Sunday: Rock Springs, WY
We drove 110 miles one way up to the old preserved gold mining town of South Pass. On the way, we stopped at a dilapidated old town called Reliance where we saw a tipple that was used to sort coal. It was a poor, small town with abandoned cars and trucks everywhere.
Further north, we stopped at a number of places where the wagon ruts and tracks of the Oregon Trail, Pony Express trail, California and Mormon trails could be seen. It is fascinating that folks actually walked these distances and endured the hardships. Most of the tragedies involved disease or drowning – 15,000 to 30,000 lives lost. Just over 300 died in Indian skirmishes – so much for the historical accuracy of the old west TV shows and movies that showed whole wagon trains being decimated! 
When we first arrived in South Pass, it was pretty cold and then the wind came up, making it cold and nasty. Jack was wearing only shorts and T-shirt, and wanted to buy a sweatshirt, but the souvenir shop didn’t have his size. The woman at the shop suggested we drive to a small town called Atlantic City where the restaurant there sold sweatshirts. We drove the five or ten miles over back country dirt roads to Atlantic City and were pretty nervous because the roads had some steep grades, were not in good condition and the rain could make them very slippery. We arrived without incident and found a few homes and a restaurant. We found out later that people come from all over the area to this restaurant for its steak dinners. The only size sweatshirt the restaurant had that fit Jack was neon orange – definitely not Jack’s favorite. So back to South Pass we went, where Jack talked the shop owner into selling him the oversized sweatshirt she was wearing – at a discount, of course. 
Now that Jack was warm, we could explore South Pass with its restored buildings including their original contents from gold mining days. They did a fabulous job and we thoroughly enjoyed the town.
The weather cleared up while driving back to Rock Springs, so we decided to return via a circular route on 28 west to see more wagon ruts from the Oregon Trail and check out the town of Green River. Green River was a very pretty, vibrant little town only a few miles west of Rock Springs on I80.
July 31, Monday: Rock Springs, WY
We played golf at the municipal course where Randy and Jo used to play – a nice course in good condition.
