Nomadic 2005 ‐ Goodbye, Black Hills

2005-10-08

East of Moneta, Wyoming on Highway 20/26The gold rush is over. I admit defeat--for now. Time and time again my pan would turn up pin-head size shiny things just as I was told to look for. But I could never tell if the shiny things were gold or pyrite. I think my technique was sound, because I often produced small chunks of iron-encrusted rock, which in theory should fall to the bottom of the pan just like gold. I'm just too ignorant. Someday I shall return to the Black Hills and hire a local to show me how it's really done. In the end, the only thing of interest to be caught in my gold pan was a five inch snake I came across on the trail. Cute little thing.

I left the Black Hills around noon with some sadness. I'm not sure why, but I have a real fondness for the place. I drove 385 into Lead (pronounced Leed), took 85 south into Newcastle, Wyoming. From there I headed West on 450 and 397, cut down to Casper on I25, and continued West on 20/26.

On 450 and 387 I saw hundreds of pronghorn antelope (once a herd of about 40 and again a herd of over 120), dozens of white-tailed deer, several snakes, and about a thousand bunnies in various stages of annihilation. Sometimes there would be herds of sheep. It's easy to distinguish between pronghorn and sheep at a distance, because the sheep are more round, and, more telling, every last sheep in a huge herd is always facing the same direction.

For the most part, after leaving the Black Hills, I traversed nothing but grassland. Some of it was flat, but most sported a topography similar to the Black Hills. I wonder why no trees grow here? In places you can drive for miles and miles without spotting a single tree. There's not a lot here in Wyoming. If you look at a map, the space between the towns is just that, space.

I stopped by Hell's Half Acre, which was closed. You could still peek over the fence into the depths of this badlands-like formation, which is more like 300 acres altogether.

I have also conceded that my motor-stove just doesn't work. I had rigged up a small holder which allowed me to place canned food on top of the engine with the goal of having hot food after a couple hours of driving. After a good six hours of driving, I was still eating cold vegetable soup for dinner.