We arrived at Little America, WY (pop 68) after a moderate in from drive from Boulder, CO. We added the Boulder stop as Kyle and I needed a travel vaccination booster and I decided to get us all vaccinated for Japanese Encephalitis. It is extremely pricey but I just decided the risk would prey on my mind if I didn’t do it.
Little America
Little America was definitely what I had ordered as far as Americana and kitsch. It’s the little roadside oasis in the middle of nowhere. They actually house some of their employees on site, as they really are not close to many towns. The rooms were very chintzy and quite lovely. Sort of decorated like your grandma’s house, lots of floral and gold leaf. The bathroom was 1950’s pink and had the mini-fridge and microwave built into the shelving. It was a little odd to go into the bathroom to prepare breakfast and coffee, but it was clean and we went with it!.As Liam has pointed out the only downside was the inconsistent wi-fi. It was a weekend so this was not a huge issue, but I am working on this trip and so it was an inconvenience for checking email etc. But there was a lovely outdoor, heated pool and a kids playground. There was also a 24-hour convenience store and snack bar which was part of the truck stop and gas station. This was where you could get their famous $.75 ice cream cones, which the kids loved.
Flaming Gorge selfie
The next day we drove from Little America to Flaming Gorge, Utah. There is a sort of loop you can do which covers a fair few of the scenic lookouts onto the gorge and we stopped at the visitor’s center for Flaming Gorge Dam. The kids got to learn about how the dam was built. The visitor center had some great videos detailing how the dam construction affected the local area as far as both natural resources and employment and the local economy. It was a surprisingly good learning experience!
We had lunch at a local diner, where the waitress offered us “fry sauce” as an option to ketchup. I was intrigued as I always love local flavor and asked, “what is fry sauce”? She said, “You are not from Utah are you?”. Ha, outed as a tourist again! So we tried fry sauce, which I think would go over well in parts of the UK, as it was a sort of mayonnaise/ketchup mix. It was tasty but didn’t rate much with the kids.
View of the gorge
We then tried a 3 mile hike with the kids. We are going to spend 3 days trekking in Thailand and I am nervous about both mine and the kids endurance for this task. So I’ve been pushing (somewhat
successfully) for more hiking to get us prepared. Unfortunately, this particular hike was not very shaded and the afternoon temperatures ran into the low 90’s. So we didn’t quite make it the full 3 mis but likely got to about 2.5.
The best views of the gorge were on the return trip and it really is an amazingly beautiful place. I would not have found it without the local advice of friend and colleague Tobi Anderson, so I am grateful for her help in planning this bit of our trip!