Bozeman, Montana

Drove across most of Wyoming on Interstate 90 at 75 miles an hour. We were going to stop in Sundance, Wyo, thinking it was the site of the Sundance Film Festival, until we realized that it is actually held in Park City, Utah.

Buffalo, Wyo had a nice historic downtown and a friendly lady at the visitors information center. We had lunch at Taco Johns, a fast food chain we've seen throughout the region, which was founded in Wyoming and is a little nicer than Taco Bell (they have things like "Cilantro Lime Steak Tacos and Chipotle Chicken Tacos). We saw several airplane fuselages being transported on a train.

Oh, and we saw dozens of trains. This is BNSF territory, and they run lots of trains. Grain, oil, boxcars, mixed freight. But most of all, coal. Wyoming's Powder River Basin is, for the last few decades, the nation's foremost coal mining region, because of its close-to-the-surface, low-sulfur coal. We saw some of the open pit mines right next to the highway, and sure enough, the coal was close to the surface.

We left the interstate in Sheridan and crossed the Bighorn Mountains on a two lane road. These mountains rise out of the plains to heights of 12000 and 13000. Our road crossed the pass at 9400 feet. We met a family of American Indians who drove all the way from Alaska. We ended up in Bozeman, a college town in Montana with a cool, historic downtown with all local businesses and no chains. Ate bison burgers and bison meatloaf at the Montana Aleworks.