Wyoming. Windswept sagebrush plateaus dotted with antelope & windmills -where a dirt path off of I 80 takes you to a relatively new National Historical Monument (2017)! A largely forgotten memorial to a pair of men whose memory is consigned to oblivion – the Ames brothers. Who, you ask?

Oliver was president of the Union Pacific Railroad while Oakes was a Massachusetts Senator. Convenently Oakes was also the railroads point man in Congress and saw to it that Olivers wildly expensive (padded with pork) part of the transcontinental railroad was funded by taxpayers. Oops. A few years after the scandal died down Union Pacific had the Ames Memorial Pyramid constructed (perhaps to whitewash & rehabilitate the railroads reputation?)

Less than a decade later train route was relocated south, the booming railroad town that was here has long since disppeared along with any sign of the railroad tracks. The whole thing reminds me of the poem Ozymandious by Percy Blysshe Shelley.

Our next stop also has a railroad theme! The little tree in the rock! The railway men were so taken with the spunky little tree growing out of a boulder that they moved the path of the railway tracks to preserve it! Now it resides between the east & west bound lanes of I 80.

Continuing on down the road eastward on our way to Gothenberg, Nebraska. As we got on the road at 4am (don’t ask…) we had time to spare today so a gazillion offbeat oddities are totally happening!

Where to begin? Why not with a 20′ tall cowboy waving hello?

An old west Main Street?

Perhaps a massive cowboy boot?

Or a 1920’s gas station repurposed as the town visitors center?

But perhaps my favorite is the UFO water tower!

Which at night is transformed magically into a hovering alien spacecraft!

Life. Is. Good!