Thermopolis – Hot, Hot, Hot!

8-9 July 2012

Pulled into Eagle’s Rest RV Park in Thermopolis in the late afternoon.  Decided to go out for dinner and had a delicious Mexican meal at Casa Fuentes – one of the best chimichangas I have ever had. Different flavorings than we get in Southern California, not too hot and very tasty!

Decided to forgo the hot springs – didn’t seem that refreshing to be sitting in a 94 degree pool in 99 degree weather. Yes, the weather continues to be hot.  We haven’t had a day with less than the mid-90s. Sure hope that changes soon.

The state park is right next to the town, with the hot springs area actually integrated into the town. Thermopolis has the mineral terraces similar to what we saw in Yellowstone many years ago, but most of the water has been diverted to a bunch of soaking pools for visitors. We took a drive through the rest of the state park and saw a few bison, a dead car cemetery and a bunch of very dry hills.

The Wyoming Dinosaur Center was more interesting. There was a 106 foot long Supersaurous, complete with cape (well, just kidding about the cape). And the earliest known bird, an Archaeopteryx, the only one of its kind on display. I really enjoyed the displays about what was going on way before the dinosaurs, from the beginning of single cell organisms to the types of creatures that existed millions of years before the dinosaurs.  A lot of alligator type creatures and fishes. Helped me to understand that, in the total span of earth time, dinosaurs are recent arrivals and we arrived about a nanosecond ago. 

Took a drive out to Legend Rock, where there are around 300 ancient petroglyphs. It was an interesting drive out there, bumping down a gravel road for about 5 miles, crossing over several cattle guards and passing many prong horn antelope. One of the visitors said that, as he was coming into the parking lot, he saw an antelope and honked his horn so he could spook it (go figure).  A side effect was about a dozen horses and mules racing towards him – we guessed that they are trained to associate a trunk honking with food and came a running. They were pretty tame and kept us company while we walked down the trail to see the petroglyphs.

After Alaska, I swore I wasn’t going to go see any more “garage museums”, where people have basically donated stuff to be displayed and there really isn’t any rhyme or reason to the displays.  I debated about going to see the Hot Spring County Museum but I am glad that I went.  The exhibits were very interesting, telling stories of the residents of the area and giving me a sense of what it was like to live in the area during its early days. In the lobby there was a mounted Canadian wolf.  Boy, the museum person certainly had an opinion about the value of introducing Canadian wolves to the local area. She said that the area already had a group of native wolves and they were stable, not much of a nuisance. But then the Canadian wolf was introduced and they have become a big problem, increasing in population to the point where they are killing a lot of livestock to feed their offspring. My understanding is that Wyoming is considering taking the wolf off the Endangered Species list which is quite a change from 25 years ago when they were almost extinct in the U.S.

Late in the afternoon, we took another beautiful drive through the Wind River Canyon.  It is fascinating to me to see the changing ancient rock walls, from sandstone to fractured granite to deep black stone. The rocks range from 150 million to 2.9 billion years old! We were fortunate to see some mountain sheep, including a white one.

Well, I am ready to move on to Cody, planning on staying for several days in order to see all the sights. Hoping for cooler weather.




The country's largest hot springs.  Much of the water is not channeled off for commercial thermal pools.

A bison in the Hot Springs State Park.  Not a huge herd - we saw only about a dozen.



A dead car cemetery in the State Park! We were impressed with the age of the cars, no new models here.



In 1909, this was a pipe for venting steam from the thermal pools.  Look how the minerals have built up over the years!



An ancient really large fish.



An Archaeopteryx, an ancient bird.



This looks like a shark-whale.  Wouldn't want to encounter it while swimming, that's for sure.



The Supersaurous is suspended from the ceiling.  It is so long, we could only get a picture of it from the shoulders back.



Pretending to be one of the "Hole in the Wall" gang at the bar they frequented while in Thermopolis.



This pronghorn antelope wasn't very frightened of cars, does not bode well for its future.



Some equine friends who accompanied us on our petroglyph walk.



An albino sheep in Wind River Canyon.