Riverton, WY
We planned two nights at the Hampton Inn in Riverton, Wyoming (from September 24 - 26, 2026).
24th - The day started with a great breakfast at Bob's diner.
I had a nourishing cheese filled crepe and a short stack of pancakes.
Chris had his entire English breakfast wrapped in an omelet.
On the way to Riverton, Chris found a great site at Red Gulch where they found dinosaur tracks and you could walk right down next to them. Surprisingly, they didn't know what sort of dinosaur made the tracks. The tracks are rather hard to see and I put my hand where the three toes were in the stone (easier to see the fake ones in the sidewalk).
Along with the tracks were ancient shrimp burrows.
This place was really remote and was an ancient Native American route.
We enjoyed just sitting in the quiet for awhile.
After that we stopped in Devil's Kitchen. Devil's Kitchen had a "Badlands feel" with beautiful colors and shapes.
It was also very remote.
We stopped for a coffee in Thermopolis next. Thermopolis is a historic resort town renowned for its natural mineral hot springs and dinosaur fossils. We didn't go to the hot springs national park because we were a bit "hot-springed out", but did go to their dinosaur museum which had a foot print surprisingly like what we just saw in Red Gulch....
From there we drove through a very pretty canyon which paralleled a rail road line. Here are some of the rail tunnels.
We also went through some tunnels
and stopped at a very pretty river view where we saw some ducks(?). Merlin thought it was a Great Blue Heron and I know it's not that.
We stopped to get a photo of the old railway bridge and got a bonus shot of a dead goat.
Our hotel in Riverton is the Hampton Inn
which also served a free happy hour which was our dinner (no photos).
25th - Today we drove an hour (each way) to Dubois, WY (pronounced du-boys) in order to see the National Museum of Military Vehicles. The only reason we did this was because it got rave reviews from several diverse people we spoke with over the past week. It "offers an immersive experience that highlights the pivotal role these machines have played in shaping our nation’s history."
I should have looked it up ahead of time, but we didn't really have anything else to do. I don't care about military vehicles. It was expensive. That said, they had some interesting things; for example: the original gun that shot the first salvo in the US Revolutionary War
and well preserved US military uniforms from the past 200 years, or so.
The most interesting part of the day for me was traveling through Burris, WY.
Burris, Wyoming is a small historic unincorporated community located within the Wind River Indian Reservation in Fremont County, WY. (this is the entire community)
I was told it was named after my ancestor who travelled with the Louis and Clark expedition, but Dr. Google has two other interpretations:
1) It was named by the community's first postmistress, Mrs. Morrison (sometimes recorded as Mrs. Allen Morris), who named the local post office after her first husband.
2) Local legend sometimes tied the name to "Dutch Charley" Burris, a notorious 19th-century outlaw and train robber who was captured and hanged by vigilantes near Rawlins, but historians confirm the naming was purely personal to the early postmistress.
Still standing is the Burris General Store building (which was moved from across the road)
and what used to be the post office. We spoke to the current owners, but he hadn't heard about any of the area's history. There are no Burris's currently living there.
Tonight we had a pretty good Indian food dinner at the Nepalese/Indian Bistro.
Tomorrow we are off to Grand Teton National Park and the Jenny Lake Lodge.
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