Friday, August 3, 2007
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Kemmerer to Lander WY
Today I packed up and got a late start on the drive to Lander, Wyoming, but it was only going to be about 150 miles plus side trips. I wanted to stop at an area known as the Blue Forest for petrified wood. However, I found that the road leading to it was dirt and a bit muddy, and over 10 miles long, so I decided to skip this stop.
Next I proceeded up to Farson, Wyoming, a VERY small town near a large reservoir. I drove out to the reservoir, across the dam to an area known to have stromatilites (fossilized algae). I had learned of this site in "Rockhounding Wyoming" which even showed a good picture of the site. It turned out to be easy to find.
The stromatilites were easy to find too; other collectors had knocked off a bunch of them and so I only needed to pick up a few like this one:
I also found pieces of rock with turitella fossils in it:
I headed back to town for lunch in the only restaurant in town. I decided to have a steak sandwich, expecting something like I would get in LA, about the size of my open hand, about 1/4" thick served open face. What I got was a 10 ounce steak the size of two open hands, 1/2" thick served with 2 small pieces of garlic bread to make it qualify as a sandwich. It also came with a huge basket of onion rings. It was outstanding! I ate it all!
Next I drove next door to a world famous ice cream place that my geology buddies have raved about, that claims to have the largest ice cream cones in the world.
Luckily for my waist line, they had a sign on the door that they were closed for remodeling and would be open again on July 27, 2007. It was July 27th, but clearly construction delays are common in Wyoming too.
I then proceeded up Highway 191 to a gravel road leading south a short distance to a site where I found petrified palm root Then I continued on towards Lander Wyoming, passing over the Continental Divide. Going down the mountain I passed a fabulous enormous red sandstone canyon, called Red Canyon, but the road was to steep and busy for me to stop for a picture.
That afternoon we had some rain in Lander and there was a bid double rainbow off to the east
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