Odometer: 106,217
6:30 Marco is getting up for the first time. It is still very early though and I can convince him to stay another half hour. He gets some coffee and an American ‘Berliner’ and then tries to connect to the internet (only with limited success).
We leave at around 8:30 heading south on scenic SR 120. It’s very dry, and only along creeks we see farming. Otherwise it’s just horses and cattle grassing – if at all. What we see though in this dry land are pronghorn antelopes. The landscape is hilly with no big mountains in sight. The closer we get to Thermopolis the greener it becomes again. The Hot Springs State Park promises hot springs, thermal basins as well as Bison. The only thing we see is a fun water-park that smells of rotten eggs and a big fence around a huge area with mountains and creeks, but no bison.
Around towns there are hundreds of thousands acres of farmland and plantations (mainly corn and wheat and hay). But, outside it is all very dry and desert like – ideal for antelopes.
We decide to proceed to Rawlins, an old western town with a population of 9000. We didn’t expect much, but what we found was even worse. This town had seen better times. A lot of run down or empty buildings and only a few ‘acceptable’ motels. We take a room for USD 70 at the Days in and quickly go across the street (with the car) to Pizza Hut and for desert to McDonalds. The evening we spend watching TV in our room.
