“Dear God, please welcome our friend Bill Jones into your loving arms,” was my silent prayer as I drove down one of my favorite roads to the Muddy Gap intersection on Highway 287 and State Highway 220 last Saturday morning.
This column was going to be my love letter to this famous road known as U. S. Highway 287, which I drove this past weekend from central Wyoming to Fort Worth, Texas. I paused to say a prayer for my friend when I came over that hill and drove down to the site where this horrible collision had occurred.
Jones, 66, was killed in a head-on collision with a semi on this spot back on July 30. His wife Lisa is recovering.
He founded and formerly owned Bill Jones Plumbing in Lander. Among his many hobbies was raising mules. With his big fluffy mustache, he would mount one of his favorite mules and let you know that his name was “Buck Valdez.” He was a fixture in the annual July 4 parades with his mules and antique tractors. He was a good friend and is missed terribly.
Now, About That Road
I have been driving both ends of U. S. Highway 287 for over 50 years.
This road travels 1,700 miles from the top of Glacier National Park at Choteau, Montana, and travels southeast to Port Arthur, Texas, on the Gulf of America.
I was part owner of newspapers in Whitefish and Columbia Falls, Montana, back in the 1970s and traveled Highway 287 to get there. Also, for 15 years, I was on the board of the Wyoming-Alaska-Montana AAA auto club, which is headquartered in Helena. That Montana capital city’s main street is Highway 287.
Heading south on that road from Helena was the wonderful town of Three Forks, where three rivers converge to form the headwaters of the Missouri River. It is a spectacular place.
Just up the road is the main bakery for Wheat Montana, where you can buy the freshest bread on earth.
This highway is also known as the “National Park Highway” as it covers Glacier, Yellowstone, and Grand Teton National Parks.
Diagonal Ribbon Through Wyoming
Travelers on Wyoming’s 287 leave our two big national parks and head for a wonderful place called Wind River Country in Fremont County.
There, you cross Togwotee Pass at 9,200 feet, and look over your shoulders at the best view of the Tetons in the world. Then you descend into Dubois and soon encounter the National Museum of Military Vehicles, an absolute “must-see.”
Dan Starks and his family have put together a world-class facility there.
Then you cross the Wind River Indian Reservation which features the towering Crowheart Butte. There in ancient days, Shoshone Chief Washakie killed the Crow Chief Big Robber. Washakie cut out his opponent’s heart as a sign of respect and either ate it or displayed it, not sure.
Further on, you come to the town of Fort Washakie where we Wyomingites believe Sacajawea was buried. Yes, it is controversial but please go visit her cemetery. It is a totally unique site.
Lander is your next stop. A pretty little town full of very nice people. It is also the home of Sinks Canyon, where the Popo Agie River disappears into one side of the mountain and emerges from the other side farther down the canyon. Very unique.
Then heading southeast, you enter the high plateau, semi-arid land that borders the Red Desert. This is also Oregon Trail Country where 500,000 hardy souls made the largest voluntary mass migration in world history. Take your time and try to imagine what that was like. These folks were literally heading into the unknown.
Jeffrey City is a modern ghost town that once had 4,000 people living there, all dependent on big uranium mines and mills. It all went bust in 1982. Quite a list of hardy souls and characters inhabit that burg today.
Next stop is Muddy Gap and then on to Rawlins and Carbon County, which have lots to offer. Then the road pretty much merges with old US Highway 30 until Laramie, where 287 goes south to Fort Collins. This is a very scenic route but also famous for some horrible fatal wrecks.
Colorado, What Is Your Highway Like?
I had never driven on 287 south of Denver before but on this trip drove Interstate 25 south to Pueblo and then headed east to Lamar to catch up with my favorite road.
A guy named Dan Sniff in Lamar helped found the Two-Shot Goose Hunt there and he always said we were distant cousins. We would meet up at the Lander One Shot Antelope Hunt, and he always wanted me to come down there to participate. Never made to his town. Not until now, that is. Dan died last year.
Lamar is a nice town with one very OLD building. They have a building made of petrified wood. Similar to our building in Medicine Bow made of fossils. Not sure which is the oldest? They claim theirs is 175 million years old.
Farther south the road got emptier. And emptier. We call Wyoming The Big Empty, well folks, this Colorado stretch is big, wide, flat, and did I say, empty? Except for windmills, it’s pretty boring.
These parts of Colorado, Oklahoma, and Texas were the center of the famous dust bowl of the 1930s. Towns like Boise City, Dumas, and Clarendon were all impacted by those dry years.
Amarillo is a nice small city and the road to Fort Worth was very busy on this day. On this day, I was dodging downpours and hailstorms and tornado warnings.
At Wichita Falls, the temperature indicator in my vehicle showed 106. Yikes, I knew I was no longer in cool Wyoming.
We are spending a little time with our daughter’s family in Allen where Nancy can get some specialized medical treatment.
As for Highway 287, I know it runs both ways. If this heat continues, I will be anxious to turn my rig around to head back north to cooler climes.
In the meantime, I invite all of you to stay off the interstates and drive roads like Highway 287. You will not regret it.
Bill Sniffin can be reached at: Bill@CowboyStateDaily.com
