About 20 miles southwest of Independence Rock, where Wyoming Highway 220 meets U.S. Highway 287, is the blink-and-you-miss-it outpost of Muddy Gap.
There's not much there. But there is gasoline.
On Wednesday, a gallon of regular cost $5.99.
"I think it's pretty ridiculous," said Casey Long, a Pavillion native who has a house in Riverton and has spent 26 years working in Wyoming's oil fields.
That price stood out even during a week when Wyoming motorists were already paying considerably more at the pump. AAA put the statewide average for regular unleaded at $4.24 Wednesday, meaning the Muddy Gap price is roughly 42% higher than the Wyoming average.
The difference adds up quick.
Fifteen gallons at the statewide average would cost about $63.50. At Muddy Gap, the same fill-up rings up at $90.
Yet out in the middle of nowhere, motorists don't have the luxury of shopping around.
'Very Sparse'
The lonely station sits at a crossroads connecting travelers headed toward Rawlins, Casper, Lander and Riverton.
Wyoming Highway 220 runs nearly 73 miles between Muddy Gap and Casper.
On Wednesday, the parking lot offered a snapshot of who depends on the place.
A camper from Minnesota. An RV from Indiana. Another car with Minnesota plates.
A couple of motorcyclists were there, too.
Ron Star and his riding companion, Nikki Knuckles, had been in South Dakota and were making their way west toward Reno, Nevada. Most places they'd encountered were charging around $4 a gallon, they said.
They knew Muddy Gap was going to be different.
Star said they look ahead for fuel stops because their motorcycles don't give them the option of simply driving until something cheaper appears.
One bike gets about 51 mpg, but its small tank gives it a range of about 80 miles. Typically, the riders begin looking for gasoline after 60 or 70 miles.
For Star, who frequently rides cross-country, that's part of traveling through places like Wyoming.
He said another gas station is usually within 50 or 60 miles, although he's encountered stretches approaching 80.
In Nevada, he knows of a 100-mile stretch where he carries extra gas.
'We Get Some Angry Customers'
Inside the station, Tavienna Lozier hears about it from motorists "all the time."
Lozier recently moved to Jeffrey City to be near her grandmother, Nancy Nuzum, who has managed the Muddy Gap station for about five years.
Nuzum now manages the operation from home, and Lozier came to help after her grandmother needed a crew to keep the station running.
"We get some angry customers," Lozier said. "We get some that know what to expect, especially being in the middle of nowhere."
She said the station gets its gasoline from Rawlins and they are charged heavily for it.
"They charge him a lot," she said of the station's owner, who lives in Florida.
The station did not provide its wholesale fuel price or delivery costs, so it's unclear how much of the $6 retail price is attributable to transportation, operating expenses or other costs.
Going The Distance
Running almost anything in Muddy Gap is different from a place like Casper.
Dozens of competing convenience stores aren't clustered around the next interchange. There isn't a large local population stopping for coffee on the way to work every morning.
Instead, customers arrive from everywhere.
For travelers, the stop is a place to use the restroom, grab snacks or cigarettes, and pick up beer or wine before getting back on the road.
Lozier recalled recently serving travelers from Thailand whose son attends college in Idaho.
Truckers pull in, too. Some park behind the business when their driving hours run out, sleep and continue down the highway the next morning.
Summer brings recreational travelers and groups participating in pioneer treks through the historic trails country.
Over the years, some travelers have literally left their marks.
Travelers passing through Muddy Gap have been leaving their names behind for years.
It is less a neighborhood gas station than a way station for people trying to get from one distant Wyoming place to another — a modern Independence Rock.
Lozier pointed out the names, hometowns, dates, drawings and messages scrawled across the ceiling and shelves of the store.
A Wyoming Problem
That dependence on the next available pump is familiar to Long.
His job has taken him all over Wyoming, and he still spends a lot of time on the road.
"Every day I'm going somewhere," he said.
Long drives a diesel, so his prices aren't directly comparable with the $6 regular unleaded at Muddy Gap, but he's been watching the same geographic swings.
He said he filled up in Riverton at $5.09 a gallon for diesel, then noticed the price there had jumped to $5.25 the following day.
If he's traveling and encounters an unusually expensive station, Long said he'll keep going — provided the fuel gauge gives him that choice.
"If I'm traveling and I've got enough in the tank to make it somewhere else, I will," he said.
That's the catch in Wyoming.
In Riverton, Long said, avoiding local prices could mean driving 24 miles to Lander or heading the other direction toward Shoshoni.
"You do because it's either that or you're driving 24 miles to Lander or going to Shoshoni the other way," he said of paying the local price.
But paying $5.99 for a gallon is "just insane," said Long.
In A League Of Its Own
Gasoline isn't cheap anywhere in Wyoming right now.
AAA's $4.236 statewide average Wednesday was up from $4.153 a week earlier and $3.877 a month ago. Diesel averaged $5.283.
Even within Wyoming, geography matters. AAA's county averages Wednesday ranged from about $3.87 in Goshen County to $4.72 in Teton County.
That puts $6 well beyond even the expensive end of the county averages.
In fact, the regular unleaded at Muddy Gap was more expensive than Wyoming's statewide average for premium gasoline, $4.83, but with the next fuel stop over 40 miles away, travelers continue to pull up at the pumps.
Kolby Fedore can be reached at kolby@cowboystatedaily.com.
