On The Road to Alpine Wyoming

On The Road to Alpine Wyoming! This segment of our summer travels should be another highlight for sure. Pat has wanted to get back to the Teton Mountains since we first saw them in 1979 – 40 years ago! We had just been married a few years and we were both working full-time and I was attending college classes in the evenings. This was my first real vacation and it was surely needed. I used my entire annual two weeks of vacation for this trip! But, it was worth it! The Tetons are sure a magnificent sight!

Trip Planning with the Big Rig

To get there we have many miles, two stopovers, and some tricky roads ahead in our slow-mo style of RVing! We prefer to travel 150 miles or less in a day and stay about a week at each destination. That way we can really see the area and get to know the culture. And a few days to relax. Although, Wyoming has proved to be such a vast state that it requires some interim stops. Doh…

In addition to the long miles, there are several mountain passes to involved. Any route we select has some tricky mountains to negotiate it is just a matter to avoid the 10% grades! Almost all roads north are two lane scenic byways as well. Which is great to see the countryside, but pulling our condo on wheels, I have to research everything to make sure it is suitable.

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We scheduled two stopovers in our travel plan to Alpine in the far western edge of the state. The stops were in Laramie and Rock Springs, before arriving in Alpine. It was a total of 473 miles. We traveled west on the I-80 corridor to Rock Springs, then ventured north into the wide open spaces. Towns are spaced about 100 miles apart due to the old steam trains needing to take on more water. Most all of these small towns began as a railroad stop with rich rail history.

Laramie Wyoming

We stayed two days in Laramie, a decent sized town of 30,000 people and at 7,200 feet elevation. Doing a little trip advisor research we found a couple of things to do. First, we did the historic Wyoming Territorial Prison Museum. Built in 1872, it held many of the early desperate outlaws.

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Before the prisons were built, most US towns had some sort of branding/flogging/stockade style punishment for wrongdoers. At some point, it was decided this was not right, so the US went to a prison system. Called the Auburn System.

The Auburn Prison System was adopted to manage the prison population. Under this system convicts were sentenced to hard labor, required to be silent at all times, wear black and white striped uniforms, and their identities removed by replacing their names with numbers.

We also took a guided tour through the Historic Ivinson Mansion. It was built in 1892 and was the grandest home in town. Over the years, it has been used as a boarding school and now a museum. Our guides were two 12-13 year old girls who had mostly memorized their script. Cute.

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And we found another great Elks Lodge with helpful people for local information.

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Rock Springs Wyoming

Rock Springs was a three day stopover where we resupplied groceries and fueled for the longish two-lane mountain trip to Alpine. We did have one good lunch out at the Bitter Creek Brewing. I had the grilled trout and it was excellent. Best I’ve ever had! Good beer as well.

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They also have an incredible family recreation center that I used a couple of times. It includes all the normal gym equipment plus an ice rink, racquetball and pickleball courts, plus more.

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Alpine Wyoming & Wapiti Village RV Park

Our weeklong stay at this small, privately owned RV park was just not long enough. LINK. The views out over the bird sanctuary to the snow capped mountains were not something that I ever got used to. We had a couple of down days to just relax under the awning and enjoy the breeze. The temps were in the low 80’s by day and upper 40’s at night in this town of 828 people. Beautiful.

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Wrap Up

Next up is our visit to the Grand Teton National Park, the hike at Jenny Lake, an off-road mountain trail ATV adventure, and Jackson Wyoming! Thanks for following along. We love to read your comments.