Thursday, August 14, 2014, On to Wyoming

At 8:55 we were packed up and on the road under sunny 22 C skies. Continuing south-east on I-84 through the mountains at 4800 ft. This is ski country : Snow Basin, Powder Mountain and Nordic Valley among others.



 By 9:35, we were driving along the base of the mountains at 5,000 ft.!



We gradually climbed to  6800 ft by 10:15 when we entered Wyoming.

There was a nice Welcome Centre, complete with a covered wagon and bison.

That is our "covered wagon" to the right of the old one.






After climbing to 7400 ft, we encountered a Wind Farm.
At this Wyoming Wind Energy Centre, there are 80 1.8 megawatt Vestas wind turbines.
Each turbine is approximately 350 feet tall from the ground to the tip of the blade when extended.
Each blade is more than 125 feet long.
The tower diameter is approximately 14 feet.
The total weight of each turbine is about 260 tons.




Following a stretch of construction which reduced the highway to one lane each way, we were back to the four lane highway at 6500 ft. We drove through a barren wasteland.












After a lunch break, the road was tunneled through the mountain. Thank goodness we didn't have to go over it!









We stopped at a Rest Area at Bitter Creek and learned about the importance of the Sagebrush.
It seems endless, the sage, the rolling sage, covering Wyoming hills. Sagebrush is the shrub that means survival to the world's largest populations of pronghorn antelope and sage grouse. Blown free of snow by the Wyoming winds, sagebrush is the main winter food for these species, and provides important habitat for a host of small mammals and birds.


As we continued on, we crossed the Continental Divide twice at 7,000 feet, and saw nothing but sagebrush before arriving at the RV park in Rawlins, Wyoming.