Friday July 31, Torrington City Park, WY

Amazing what happens when you are travelling without any plans…and make a wrong turn!

The day started out with an 8am kickoff, it was a beautiful morning, very fresh. Back into Chadron and picked up some fresh supplies, then decided to take the road west through Crawford and Harrison and into Wyoming.

We were passing through some huge ranch country, so typical “Western”…. windmills pumping water, prairie grass and cattle grazing.

Somehow we (I!!!) took the road south at Crawford, and we were well down the road when I realised. Can you imagine the cheek Ian gave me! Not wanting to turn back, I saw a 4 mile connecting road through to another route back, but this was a dirt road. It looked okay, and in fact we met the grader and he said that it was fine, then a farmer pulled over to let us pass. We stopped to thank him, and as he said he farmed locally, we had a heap of questions to ask him about the local conditions.

He then asked if we would like to come and have a look at his property, he lived about 10 miles away,. It was too good an offer to refuse, so we turned round and followed Rex back down the dirt road and south on the highway.

His property is over 3500 acres, but he doesn’t have a road boundary, so we travelled about 2 miles from the road, down a dirt track, through the neighbours before arriving at his home. His wife Karen was home, and they even put on lunch for us.

We were taken for a great tour of the property by Rex in his truck, completely in awe of the vast open spaces. He buys in about 350 yearling steers in March and then sells them before the winter comes to feedlot farms where they are finished ready for market in about 4 months. The stock were mainly Angus, fabulous condition and amazingly quiet, as Rex showed us when he fed some pellets too them and some were happy to eat out of our hand. This is rattlesnake country and we had to be careful where we walked, I stuck close behind Rex. Acutally would have loved to have seen one…at a distance though.

Palenotologists have found fossils in a dry gulch on the property, bones of turtles and small horses, dating back thousands of years. Some of the larger pieces are now housed in a museum in New York. Rex took us there, and we easily found some pieces of broken teeth and bones, quite fascinating. Not sure if I will be able to bring them through customs, but will declare them and see what happens.

We were sent off with fresh cucumbers out of the garden and much more knowledge about how ranches are run in this area.

By this stage we decided to forget plans of continuing on where we were going and continued south to the town of Scotts Bluff, the major centre for this vast rural area.

Popped into the local library and got my emails, before continuing West and into Wyoming. Found a little town campground in Torrington that offers power hookups and a camping spot, for a donation. It’s been quite and unexpected day.