Day 81 - Tuesday, August 17

Before we begin with today, I forgot to mention the great food we had locally in Casper yesterday. The town itself is a great little spot - years ago BP refinery occupied major acreage downtown and with the town and other companies cleaned it up with an investment of $60mm and today there is beautiful green space and a vibrant down town. We began the morning eating at Sherrie’s Place which we were told has been here for over 100 years. Breakfast was exceptional - i had chorizo, jalapeño, cheddar and onion omelette with perfectly done has browns. When we returned from Fort Collins, we went back to Rockfire Steakhouse for our second night and also an incredible restaurant which qualified as our top 4 restaurants on the trip with Ellijay Wood Fired Pizzaria, Murray’s of Columbia, and Salt and Smoke in St. Louis. Chris’s T-bone lamb was out of this world, so much so he ordered it 2 nights in a row.

We launched today on a 12 day mission to get to Salt Lake City. These will be extremely remote areas where we have a waypoint of 115 miles to a tiny town that has a gas station and we have 3 days to get there. Lucky and I left our campsite on the North Platte this morning at 4:15am and ascended towards Casper Mountain gaining 1,000’ before we went through Red Butte Pass and onto the High Plains. There was nothing between us and our target of Alcova Resevoir, a small fishing and boating community. Chris met Lucky and I at 15 miles on a turnout near the North Platte River. From there I went straight to our destination 15 miles later where Chris found a fly fishing RV camp on the bank of Alcova Lake.

Chris whipped up his usual exceptional dinner - panko crusted halibut soaked in 1/2 and sour cream with fresh corn and a German potato salad. He is also working on his next version of chili to save for upcoming nights.

An interesting interview today from Sarah who pulled over to offer me a ride on a long lonely highway with the winds hitting me hard.

All for today -

Thank you for your ongoing support.

Cheers,

David.

100 year old restaurant in the heart of Casper

Each mug had something good

Chris’s T-bone lamb with mashed

Lucky and I cresting the climb towards Casper Mountain

Cut off Route 220 onto a country road that took us through a canyon

Red Butte along the way known for the red rock mountains

In summertime many of the river and creek beds are dry

The small country road through the canyon

Water break for Lucky in the North Platte

The A-Team after our pitstop

Not many trees on the High Plains outside of the river area - here was a grove that didn’t survive

An old 2 lane bridge left standing as it was replaced by a more modern version

Herd of Antelope which is common in Wyoming

A white tail deer watching us at our campsite

The one bar in Alcova which is across the street - of course had to have 2 brown beers…