Lander, Wyoming to Thermopolis, Wyoming, 2026

 After visiting the National Military Vehicle Museum, it was time to continue our trip.  We left Lander, Wyoming, and continued to experience wide open spaces.

We were trying to stay off of interstate highways and stick to two-lane blacktop roads. We would frequently see small herds of antelope along the side of the road.  They blend in with the countryside so much that Suzie has yet to get a picture of them before we are past.

As we continued toward our next night's stop in Thermopolis, Wyoming, we came to the town of Shoshoni, Wyoming, which is located on the Wind River.  This river flows out of the Wind River Indian Reservation, which is one of the reservations that is home to the Shoshone Indian tribe.

The town of Shoshoni is located on the south end of the Boysen Reservoir, which dams up the Wind River, creating a very large lake called Boysen Reservoir.  Water flowing out of the reservoir becomes the Bighorn river.

Boysen Reservoir pictures from the internet.

As we continued past Boysen Reservoir, the road followed the Bighorn River.  The problem with building a road there is that the steep hillsides running down to the river did not leave any room for a road bed in several places.  Because of that, they had to make some amazing tunnels through the solid rock.

The train tracks followed the river on the opposite side of the river from the roadway and here you can see the train tunnel as well as the car tunnel.

There was very little traffic on this highway, and we were glad of that as we went through these tunnels with our monster motorhome. We were glad that we did not pass any semi trucks going in the opposite direction.

It was amazing as we followed the river to see how the terrain and vegetation changed as we moved from mountains into the high plains.

We followed the Bighorn river until we arrived at our overnight stop at Thermopolis, Wyoming. The word Thermopolis in Greek means Hot Springs.  The sign coming into town announced that Thermopolis had the largest hot springs in the world.  We found out that this isn't actually the largest acreage of hot springs in the world, but this hot spring produces more hot water than any other hot spring in the world.

In 1896, the state of Wyoming purchased the land where the town of Thermopolis was built from Northern Arapahoe and Eastern Shoshone Indian tribes.  Those tribes considered the Hot Springs to be sacred and a requirement of the treaty with the state of Wyoming was that the springs would always be available to the tribes.  The state decided that the land would always be free to everyone and a beautiful park has been created.

The state even built a very nice bath house. That bath house is an indoor hot spring pool as well as an outdoor pool.  Use of the facilities is free, but there is a restriction that you can only soak in the water for 20 minutes.  The water is 104° and we found that 20 minutes was plenty.

There were quite a few people that used both the indoor and outdoor pools and we tried both.

The state park also has a very nice loop road and this road took us around the rolling hills of the park where we were able to see several buffalo.

Also in the park, we found several steam vents.  These were structures that were built in order to vent the hot steam at a location where it could not hurt anyone. In order to build the vent, they embedded a pipe over the steam vent and then supported the pipe with a large pile of rocks. Over the last hundred years, the steam that is vented is carrying minerals and as the steam vents to the atmosphere, it condenses and falls back onto the pile of rocks. Over the years, the minerals suspended in the steamy water have completely coated the pile of rocks and all you see now is a giant mineral mound.

There were also very large steam beds that were allowed to just vent over the years. They also had extensive mineral buildup.

They had a very nice boardwalk, that traversed the top of the mineral buildup from the Hot Springs. This pathway lead to a suspension bridge over the Bighorn River.

The sign they put up on the mountain, says worlds largest mineral Hot Springs.

This picture was taken as we were walking on the boardwalk past some of the hot mineral pools.  Various colors are caused by different colonies of algae that grow in the hot water.

The different colors represented here is where the water temperature is conducive to that particular form of algae.

It was fun walking across the suspension bridge, but it was very wiggly.

The next day, we continued our trek towards South Dakota. As we entered the Black Hills, the scenery was beautiful and we couldn't wait to see what wonders our next stop held for us.

We hope you are enjoying our trip as much as we are and we hope you have an opportunity to get out and explore our amazing country.

See you next time,

Tom and Suzie

National Museum of Military Vehicles 2026

 Our good friends, Bob and Lynne McCrainie told us about an amazing museum that they had been to in Dubois, Wyoming.  It is the National Museum of Military Vehicles that displays over 500 restored military vehicles. It was built at a cost of $100 million dollars, all privately funded so that the government couldn't tell them what to do or how to do it.  

 

The vehicles have been immaculately restored and look brand new. Almost all of them still run.The museum also had many different firearm displays as well as numerous uniforms and equipment displays.

 There was a huge collection of firearms located inside a giant safe. 

It is absolutely incredible that the very first shot fired at the Battle of Bunker Hill came from this rifle and it is in beautiful condition!

This is a machine gun inside of a briefcase.  The trigger is in the handle of the briefcase and the bullets exit the side of the briefcase.  I am not sure this would really work because I don't see any way for the spent cartridges to be ejected.  It still looks cool and I bet they could make it work in the movies.

There were way too many firearms to show in this Blog and still leve room for the main event . . . . the vehicles. As we left the firearms vault, we moved into a large room and the vehicle display began.

There were a very large number of vehicles in this museum and all of them were beautifully restored. They looked brand new, even the tires on the wheeled vehicles 

and the treads on the tracked vehicles.  All of these vehicles were different models and I have no idea where they were able to find parts.

There was room after room of vehicles of all types, and it was interesting trying to imagine what the men that operated these vehicles must have gone through. Words can't really describe what we saw so I will let the pictures do the talking.

We got to the museum right when it opened at 9:30 in the morning. As we continued to examine all of the vehicles in the museum, we finally realized we were hungry and that it was already lunchtime. We left the museum and went next door to the conference center where they also had a very nice snack bar. Suzie got a little child size cheeseburger and I got a regular size hamburger and we were surprised at how expensive the final bill was. We got over it when we saw the amount of food that they served us and feel that we got a really good bang for our buck.

After our lunch, we continued our trek through the museum.  This was a full size model of the first atomic bomb dropped on Japan. It's amazing how small it was. The placard beside it says that they estimate that it killed 80,000 people but they're not sure on the count because they believe that many were vaporized.

This placard was next to a display of a German railroad cannon that was used against the Russians. This cannon fired a total of 48 rounds, and they are said to be the largest artillery rounds ever fired.  Doesn't look too impressive on the following picture.

 

This is a model of the artillery piece. It was so large that it had to be transported on double sets of railroad tracks and you can get a feel for how big it was by looking at the model trucks that are also displayed in this diorama.

 

This is what the projectile looks like that that gun fired.

These are examples of what the projectiles look like that were fired out of the 16 inch naval guns that were mounted on US battleships during World War II. (That is World War 2, not World War eleven) 

 

The displays just went on and on.

I keep repeating how beautifully restored each of these vehicles is and that is because they had one vehicle to compare to.

 

This is an M60-A1 main battle tank that is in absolutely like new condition, at least on the outside. This is what I trained on and served on for six years while I was in the California National Guard.

We finally got to the end of all of the vehicles inside of the museum and thought we were through. We were wrong and found that there were a whole bunch more waiting to be restored outside. They were all under a covered shed.

There were many more vehicles than we were able to share with you, but I think you probably get a feel for what it is that's located at the National Museum of Military Vehicles. It's too bad that this place is so far out in the sticks because if it was in a large metropolitan area, it would absolutely be a must see.  It's located way out in the middle of nowhere in Wyoming, but if you're ever in the area of Yellowstone, you might deviate south  into Wyoming about 100 miles, and you will have a treat visiting this museum.

I will be starting on the next leg of our adventure soon.  Please feel free to share any of these chapters with anyone that you think might enjoy them.

Tom & Suzie