Casper, Wyoming

Did I say good-bye to Wyoming? Whoops, we're back. We decided to loop around and go to Yellowstone National Park before we leave the midwest.

I'm falling in love with Casper. It's working class. It's slower paced than Southern California. It's not multicultural. It's not crowded. It's a no personal income tax state (one of seven in the U.S.). It has a college which I need for when our son reaches age 15 or so. There are incredible thunderstorms and I'm crazy about thunderstorms. The air is clean.

Today we visited the refurbished Fort Casper. 'Twas a pretty good museum and fort. Casper is named after a sergeant who died fighting Indians near the fort. Next we did some marketing. Went to the mall and got our son new sockies. They'll stay white for one, single wearing no doubt. The mall has excellent stores. No vacant storefronts which is a sign of good economic health. We got up early in the morn, 5:30am, to see the first annual hot air balloon event. Nearly singed my hair when I got close to one of the balloons being filled with hot air to get a photo. Cool! I couldn't decide which photo to upload so I'm not uploading one at all.

Our reservations for Yellowstone are for the 10th to the 15th of August. We're going to cruise around and check out some cities around Yellowstone in the meantime. May stay at Grand Teton National Park for a week or so if we can get reservations. Through our entire trip, Yellowstone is the first place we've needed reservations.