The original plan for Day 8 was to spend most of the day at Fort Laramie, with a quick stop at Ayres Natural Bridge on the way to the ol’ fort. But when looking at the route the night before, I spotted Register Cliff between the two, and added it to my agenda. It was forecast to be another unusually hot day in eastern Wyoming, a great day for rattlesnakes to come out from underground and lay on trails to absorb the sun’s energy. I didn’t end up actually seeing any snakes, but they were on my mind as I packed up and checked out of the hotel that morning.

WARNING: If you go to Ayres Natural Bridge, do NOT believe your GPS if it tells you to leave the paved road. I was using my Android phone with the built-in Google Maps navigation app. It correctly guided me from the hotel to Interstate 25, and to the appropriate exit, and even told me the correct direction to turn from the exit ramp. After that, you should ignore anything else that lyin’ bastard has to say, and just follow the signs. I was approaching an intersection with an unpaved farm road when my GPS app suddenly announced, “Your destination is on the right.” So, I turned right, and went a couple of miles through farm land before realizing the GPS had lied to me. At least I got to see a few pronghorn antelope, though they were too fast and wily for me to get photos of them. Well, OK, I got one:

After seeing the pronghorns, I made a Y-turn, headed back to the “main” road, and found the natural bridge quite easily. The park where it’s located has more than just the natural bridge itself to be seen. The parking lot, for instance, is partially surrounded by a big, red cliff. Plus, trees on crutches:

---

If you decide to visit this place yourself, on a hot day, don’t park in the lot at the end of the entrance road like I did. The road is a one-way loop at that point. If you make the turn to start heading back towards the entrance, you will very shortly encounter some very well-shaded parking spaces. By the time I left, the heat was already bothering me, and getting into the hot car didn’t help. So, I cranked up the AC and headed for Register Cliff Historic Site.

Register Cliff is one of several places along the Oregon Trail where the travelers carved their names into the rock formations they encountered along the way. Since then, it seems to have become almost a local custom for just about everybody to add themselves to the “register”. There are a few names still visible from the Oregon Trail years (1830’s through 1860’s), but many more from the 20th century, and a few from the 21st. During the 1920’s, this land was part of a ranch; the ranch owners made a BIG mark on Register Cliff by blasting out part of it to make a fruit cellar. If you decide to visit this place yourself, on a hot day, be prepared – there is absolutely no shade available here! That said, here are the pics:

---

At this point, the heat had just about done me in. I pulled up the GPS app to get me to Fort Laramie, but noticed that I was surprisingly close to my next hotel. I expected that the old fort would not be air conditioned, and pictures I had seen did not show any trees. So, I made the decision to skip Fort Laramie and head for the Best Western Torchlite in Wheatland, Wyoming. My room there felt flat-out cold. The thermostat was set to 60 degrees, and it wouldn’t let me adjust it. This was fine with me – I needed the break from the heat.

Day 9:

My destination for this day was the Cheyenne Depot Museum. The reason I had stayed overnight in Wheatland was that the annual Cheyenne Frontier Days celebration was underway, so hotel prices in Cheyenne were through the roof; I couldn’t find anything for under $300/night! So, as I drove in from Wheatland to Cheyenne, I halfway figured traffic and finding parking would be awful. But they really weren’t. There were no traffic jams and I was able to find a public garage with ample parking. The restaurants seemed awfully crowded, though.

That said, I’m getting tired of municipalities that require me to install an app on my phone just to park my car. Having the app as an option is great. But it should never be the only option! Especially in areas where you have a lot of one-time visitors coming in. It’s an unnecessary burden, and it leaves me inclined to take my tourist dollars elsewhere. Now, on with the show…

I had kind of expected the Cheyenne Depot Museum to be a museum about the building itself, given the name of the place. As such, I was expecting some grand architecture inside. There wasn’t any. Instead, the museum focuses more broadly on the regional history of Cheyenne’s ‘local’ railroad (i.e., the Union Pacific). But I’m always up for a railroad museum of just about any kind, and this turned out to be a good one. I did get an exterior shot of the building:

---

Being the Cheyenne Depot, this building is not surprisingly right next to the railroad tracks. On the second floor there’s an observation room where you can relax and watch the coal trains come and go, and let your eyes wander around their rather large (but not the UP’s largest) railyard.

Quite a few railroad museums have model railroad displays, and this one is no exception. But O, how overjoyed I was to discover that this museum’s model railroad display is a replication of Colorado’s old Georgetown Loop! Anyway, I stayed at the Cheyenne Depot Museum, enjoying their interesting displays and artifacts right up until closing time. Then it was off to Colorado for more family time. So let it be written: my official Wyoming State Vacation is complete.

One last thing, though. It’s been quite awhile since I’ve added a formal PD Travel Tip, and I did learn something on this trip. So, here we go…

PD Travel Trip: Make sure someone has access to your home while you’re away.

Here’s what happened: On the second night of this trip, I realized one of my bedtime meds was absent from my bags, despite my having used the same checklist I use every time I pack. I called my pharmacy to see if they could refill it at a location in the areas I was visiting. Their response was that this prescription had reached its refill limit, so they needed to ask my doctor for a refill. The next day, I was surprised to hear that he had denied the prescription. Luckily, I had a house/dog sitter at home, and I could just call the sitter and have him locate a bottle of the needed meds and ship ’em to me. I say “could” because I didn’t actually do so. The prescription I was missing was the “least important” of my meds – mirtazipine, used as a sleep aid, and to dislodge barnacles from my underbelly. I was able to do without it out for a couple weeks, though I didn’t get as much sleep as I would have liked. Had I forgotten something more important (like my Levo), I would definitely have had the sitter overnight it!