Road Trip 2014 - Wyoming to Nebraska

Day 3: Rock Springs, WY to Grand Island, NE

June 17 would be the longest travel day for this part of the trip. We covered 630 miles in 10 1/2 hours.
We took our time stopping along the way to stretch our legs. A bit east of Rock Springs we came across the remnants of old Fort Steele. Wikipedia tells us that this fort was originally built in 1868 to protect the Union Pacific railroad from attacks by Native Americans.

The Union Pacific rolls by near Fort Fred Steele

There isn't much left of the fort but it was built in a beautiful spot along a quick-flowing river.

While Wyoming is in the Rockies it doesn't feature the jagged mountain tops such as those the Saw Tooth Range outside of Boise. Nevertheless, we were cruising at over 8,000 feet of elevation for much of our trip. As we crested the last summit through some relatively low peaks in eastern Wyoming the world opened up below us as we looked down across western Nebraska. The only thing keeping us from looking across the entire country was the curvature of the earth.

As we lost elevation going into Nebraska we ran into summer. It had been overcast and on the cool side in Oregon, Idaho, Utah and Wyoming. Nebraska was in the mid 90's in the afternoon.

Our hotel in Grand Island featured a pond out back, complete with a couple of kids fishing. I wonder if it gets cold enough to skate on in the winter.

Fishing (and skating?) pond behind the Best Western Hotel in Grand Island, NE

We continued our streak of good eating! Carla yelped to find a nice taqueria a few miles north of our hotel. We had some really good tacos. There was a park across the street from the restaurant so we got a nice walk in after a long day driving.