Road trip!
Here in Wyoming, two of my favorite times to travel are the months of July and August. Sure, the roads are full of tourists, but there is just so much to see and do around the Cowboy State.
Plus, we have so many friends we need to check up on.
Two of my annual trips will be my annual Yellowstone trip for the 55th consecutive year and my annual trip to the Red Desert.
My focus on Yellowstone will be a trip through Riverton, Shoshoni, Thermopolis, Worland, Greybull, Cody and then on to the park.
Although it takes a lot more time, I am hoping to drive into the park through the famous northeast entrance out of Cody through Sunlight Basin. This is one of the most beautiful drives in all of America.
My column last week was about the Red Desert. This next trip out there will be Steamboat Mountain and the Tri-Territorial site. Long-time desert rat Pat White says he will give me an extended tour of the area.
Central Wyoming
The Casper area offers so much to see and do. I am hoping to get up on Casper Mountain for the first time in years. Also, the canyons and reservoirs south of Casper are just spectacular.
Lots of friends to catch up with in Casper and one of my grandsons, Hayden Johnson, just moved there.
Between Casper and Douglas is the famous natural bridge at Ayers Park. It has been decades since we visited that and it is on my bucket list.
I also love Fort Caspar and the National Trails Museum in Casper.
Lots Of Places
My favorite places to travel are all inside this wonderful state. We have discovered amazing things, people, and places in diverse locales like Evanston, Newcastle, Worland, Rawlins, Rock Springs, and so many others.
I am excited to revisit Carbon County. Folks who blast through Rawlins at 80 mph really are missing out on all the unique things to see and do in that wonderful place. Leslie Jefferson who heads up the Carbon County Visitor Council always has a number of places for me to visit.
Vince Tomassi of Kemmerer-Diamondville is still frustrated that we do not visit the Fossil Butte National Monument enough. Would like to see it again.
Up north, I have some friends who are anxious to show us Big Horn Canyon and all the wonderful sites around it.
In southeast Wyoming, Cheyenne is a wonderful place. But there are fabulous places in Goshen, Platte, and Niobrara counties as well.
In the northeast it would be fun to visit the wonderful town of Newcastle and see Devils Tower, Ranch A, and the Vore Buffalo Jump again.
In 2012 to 2015, I produced three of the best-selling coffee table books ever done about Wyoming. One of the main reasons Wyoming readers loved the books so much, or so they told me, was that the books did not focus on just Jackson and Yellowstone.
In my half-century in the Cowboy State, I have been privileged to see the entire state. And this state is full of wonderful and unique places.
Each year I write a column called my Wyoming Bucket List. It lists the places that we have still not seen. Hopefully, we can go see a bunch of the places this year that are still on my list.
Wyoming is unique because many of our residents live in areas where they can be easily lured to neighboring states to see the unique places in those states.
One of my goals all these years has been to get Wyoming people to go visit their own state – to have folks from Gillette visit Evanston, for example. Or folks from Cody and Lovell visit Saratoga and Green River. I know some folks who still haven’t visited Yellowstone yet.
Just last week, we heard from some folks who finally got to visit Devils Tower. They were flabbergasted by the magnificence of it.
Back when my companies produced tourist magazines about Wyoming, we traveled the state learning about all these unique sites.
Then when we did the coffee table books, we worked with 54 Wyoming photographers and writers like Pat Schmidt, Jim Hicks, Phil Roberts, John Davis, Rodger McDaniel, Shelli Johnson, Mike Enzi, Clay James, Gene Bryan, Randy Wagner, and others who are scattered all over.
What a joy it was to travel from one end of the state to the other – and to get paid for doing it!
We hope to see you on the road in 2025.
Happy Trails.
Bill Sniffin can be reached at: Bill@CowboyStateDaily.com
