After realizing the largest town in Wyoming was only an hour and a half north, we packed up the dog and headed to Cheyenne, WY.

I did some research first on the tourism web site and it looked like a cute old western town. With a population of 50,000 people I shouldn’t have been surprised at how boring it was. There was a nice Governor’s mansion and the town is apparently a major hub of the Union Pacific Railroad.

I stopped in the tourist information hut to ask the local employee if there was anything cool to see in Wyoming. She told me to drive 4 more hours until I got to Yellowstone. I didn’t exactly have 4 hours so I asked if there was anything cool within an hour of Cheyenne. She thought hard for a moment and advised me to go to a park 30 minutes away. It was her one and only idea so we took it.

The park was pretty nifty, actually. The bumpiest dirt road in the world led us to huge granite formations. I have a hard time imagining how those giant, dull blobs of granite will eventually end up flattened down and sparkly in my gourmet kitchen someday.

Bob found a small dirt trail off the paved path and decided we should follow that for a while. Once we reached a destination Bob was pleased with, we started heading back to the car. I immediately knew it wasn’t the exact direction we came from. Bob said “don’t worry, I’m taking a short cut!”. Mind you, he didn’t have a map or any knowledge of the area and is notorious for having a terrible memory and sense of direction. I was immediately grateful to have Coda’s excellent sniffing abilities so help re-trace our steps if needed. Thank goodness Bob guessed right and his short-cut led us back to the main trail and we were able to get the heck out of boring Wyoming!