July 13 Cheyenne to Casper, Wy. (stopping in Douglas)

    I-25 north was bouncy, but in pretty good shape a lot of the way.  They were actually resurfacing it for a couple of miles.  Drove past miles and miles of grassland, no crops or livestock.  Passed an area of nice homes that looked like they sat on 4-5 acre plots.  Eventually we saw mountains to the west.  Saw some coal trains - some full, some empty, going back and forth to Montana mines.
    Douglas, Wy.  (pop. 5288)

    Stopping here to visit Tom's cousin, David Campbell, brother of Bill and Mary of Colorado Springs.  He and his wife, Judy, have lived here many years.  For the past 12 years he has been the chaplain at the jail.  They are babysitting 2 of their grandkids for a few days so we enjoyed them as well.
    Douglas was established in 1886, across the river from Ft. Fetterman, which for 25 years had protected traffic on the Oregon and Bozeman Trails.  It was the setting of the western novel The Virginian.  Altough we didn't go in it, I read that the museum here holds the teepees from the movie Dances With Wolves.  By lunchtime it was 93 degrees and very windy.  There is a large statue of a jackalope on a hilltop on the outskirts of town.  A jackalope is a mythical creature - looks like a jackrabbit with elk antlers.
    After we ate lunch we headed out.  We saw wind turbine farms on 4 hillsides.  We could not understand this:  the wind was blowing so hard, yet only 4 of those turbines were turning.  They were in the midst of assembling many more, so maybe they weren't turned on or something.  I know an email has been circulating that says they are a farce-all subsidized by our tax dollars, don't generate much power, take a lot of electricity to run, etc.  Of course I haven't had time to research this while traveling.  We could see rolling hills for miles and a mountain range in the distance.
    My sister called to say she was taking my mom back to the E.R. because of some more internal bleeding.  We decided we would only go a few more miles in case it is serious and we had to go back to Denver.  But she was released after a couple of hours.
    We arrived in Casper mid afternoon, with the temperature of 94 and winds at 45 mph.  We set up the camper and stayed inside away from the dirt, heat and wind.  Its population is 70,000 and it is the state's business center.  It was settled in the mid 1880's because it was the point of convergence of 6 major westward trails.  We didn't see anything spectacular to go see.