5am. Go!

Goodbye, Boise.

It's been a long time since an alarm woke me from a sound sleep, but that's what happened at 5am this morning. We needed to finish up prepping the house for the house sitters, throw sheets in the wash, and finish the last details of packing. It's been so hot that I was afraid to even put the pantry food in the car.

Our goal was to get out by 5:30a, and we missed it by 15 minutes. Still, we saw the sky lighten on our way out. We also needed to give Jasper a small walk around the park for his constitutional. It was great. It was also like the old days of leaving for vacation, with both of us half asleep, John driving and me clutching a cup of coffee. Delicious.

It's cold, it tastes good!

Part of why we wanted to leave so early was that John had planned a hike in Logan Canyon. Getting there meant we didn't have to deal with any of the Salt Lake City traffic, but it also added quite a bit of time to the trip. We reaching the hike at about 11:15a, and while it wasn't as hot as Boise, it was still pretty hot in the sun. Jasper approved of the creek water. 

Clouds and land at Fossil Butte

We had intended to picnic at Bear Lake, but remembered belatedly that the facilities aren't great there, so we pushed on to a new place close to Kemmerer, WY, called Fossil Butte National Monument. The land in Wyoming ranges from utterly boring to stupendous in very short order. And it wasn't only the bizarre land forms today. . . the clouds were amazing. These images don't do them justice. We could see a storm happening in the distance (rain! Be still my heart!), but we didn't actually get to be in it. Still. 

Storm in the distance, Fossil Butte

We had a pretty quick picnic, then pressed on to Rock Spring, WY. It is not a pretty town. Like many western towns, it feels scrubby, dry and dirty; but we got a lovely hotel room on the ground floor, a comfortable bed, air conditioning and ate dinner in the room. We wandered out to the only public green space, Bunning Park, and walked around the perimeter with Jasper. We only read on the way out that one of the posted rules was "No Animals Allowed". We would never leave poop, of course, and it made me sad that there is no place to walk a dog where it is shaded and green in Rock Springs, WY. Ah well. We are only passing through.

A small picnic