YCGL - The New Adventure - Seminoe Dam and Reservoir and Casper (and Dams in between) - Aug 13, 2022

 YEEHAWWW!   This is why I wanted a trailer and truck!  If I had been driving the motorhome and pulling the car, I would have turned around about halfway down the road I was on and driven back to the Interstate, to Rawlins, to Muddy Gap and then to Casper.  And added about 120 miles to the trip (but arrived in the same amount of time....)        But I didn't!

Now, to my utter disgust and shame, I will tell you that I have never driven from Sinclair to Alcova, WY. 

 To Wyomingites, that's like saying I've lived in NYC for 40 years and I've never driven up Broadway, or Las Vegas and I've never driven up the strip.  Or Mulholland Dr in LA.  How could someone so ingrained into Wyoming never have driven Seminoe Road?  Of course, I don't fish. Or boat.  And that takes a lot of the glamour out of it.  And most people don't drive to Sinclair (four miles east of Rawlins) to drive to Casper.  I mean, why?  

It really was a spur-of-the-moment thing.  I wanted to get to Casper about 5:00, and it was 12:30 when I got diesel at the Sinclair station in Sinclair (notice a little similarity there?).  And I said to myself, "Self, you've never done this, you've got the time and the equipment, drive to Seminoe and the park and see what's there.  

Well, guess what?  There is this really big reservoir and dam there.  Like really big.  Like, 1,000,000 acre-ft big.  Or 100 square miles to a depth of 15.625 ft!  Well, it is when the lake is at spillway level, which it hasn't been for years because of the drought.  But it's still big.  

See the tree on the right.  If you go up, you'll go past the campground and into a bay.  If you keep going up, you see some white and blue almost on the horizon.  That is still the reservoir!  That's Elk Mountain in the background.  

River Canyon leading to the dam.

Really, the only thing I defend myself with, is this is a concrete arch dam, and I taught earth dams.  A whole dam different matter.  But it still is impressive.

But what really got the juices flowing was not the water, but the road!  The first 35 miles or so were paved, but I drove it at about 45-50 mph because it was shaking me to pieces.  Literally, I had to clean the trailer when I got to Casper because everything not tied down was on the floor.  But then I got to the unpaved road (notice, not the "dirt road", it's unpaved.  Remember that, it's on the quiz.)  and it's like a roller coaster at Coney Island.  And twist and turn.  I really don't think I could have driven the motorhome up and down.  Some sections of the road were at 10-12% grade.  

(I was afraid of that.  You really can't see the slope of the road ahead.  I was in 4-wheel drive, in first gear and braking all the way down!)  

On loose gravel.  I was in 4-wheel drive and loving it!  And the trailer was right there behind me!  I almost hit a couple of deer that jumped out onto the road as I was driving by.  The next dam is Kortes Dam.  It's 3 miles off the road and I didn't want to try that with the trailer.

And as we were headed to Alcova Dam, we drove over Fremont Canyon and came up to the Miracle Mile, almost 6 miles of river with some of the best fishing in the country.  But, the road to Alcova was closed for construction, so we detoured passed Pathfinder Dam.  (Fremont was known as The Pathfinder.)  And then the next dam is Alcova, and the one below that is Gray Reef.  Five dams in a row.  Wow!

And there were flash flood warnings all around me, just to add a little more excitement.  And the whole time I'm listening to Verdi's Simon Boccanegra

I'm staying tonight at a Harvest Host.  It's Gruner Brothers Brewery.  High up above Casper, right next to the Event Center.  I had my two beers and a pizza and came back to the trailer and slept for an hour.  (And I didn't go back to catch Last Call.  Good on me!)  I actually liked the wheat stout.  What a surprise.  I ate out on the deck overlooking Casper until the wind blew my beer glass over.  Which, I guess is better than me knocking it over.  I think.