There’s very few humans in Wyoming
Marc invited me out to Colorado back in August of 2017 to view the Solar Eclipse. Him being the science nerd that he is, he plotted the path of the eclipse and determined that a specific point in Wyoming would be the best location to see the eclipse in totality. Truthfully, while I thought seeing an eclipse was cool, I was more excited to go on a road trip with my buddy into Wyoming than anything else, the eclipse was just a bonus.
So we left Denver early on August 21st and headed up to Wyoming with the goal destination to be Jay Em. The trip up was relatively uneventful at first. Being from the East Coast, I am used to being engulfed in vast oceans of humanity, as we drive deeper into Wyoming, the lack of humanity and for that matter, really anything else was amazing. The sheer sea of nothingness as far as the eye could see brought tremendous joy to my cold, introvert heart.
Traffic began to build as we got closer to our destination, something we hadn’t anticipated, at least not to the level we were experiencing. Seems there are a lot of solar eclipse aficionados out there!
The traffic was crawling at this point and it was evident that we were not going to make it Jay Em in time for the eclipse. People in front of us were just starting to pull off to the side of the road and set up camp there so that they would not miss the eclipse.
Anyone who knows Marc knows that when he has something set in his brain, there is no deviating from the plan. My job was to provide him with continuous time updates and visual updates since the sun was on my side of the car. I could see the writing on the wall and told him we should just pull over like everyone else so we wouldn’t miss the eclipse, but Marc insisted we continue as we were still not close enough to experience totality. As the minutes ticked by and we made little to no progress in traffic, I again implored Marc to just pull over, but nope, he wanted to press on. I contemplated neck punching him, but incapacitating him would have yielded nothing other than making me feel a little better.
The time was near, I could see the edge of the moon begin to move in front of the sun ever so slowly. At this point so many people pulled off the road that traffic started to ease, but not enough for us to reach Jay Em in time. At this point we were in the town of Torrington. There was no more time to find the perfect spot, we just needed someplace to pull over and set up shop. So we pulled into the first empty lot we could find, the Torrington Livestock Market. With about 5 minutes to spare, we set up our lawn chairs, and watch as one celestial being crossed in front of another to create total darkness in the middle of the afternoon. Marc was like a kid in a candy shop. While I will admit it was cool, I was excited to be in the middle of a nothing town in Wyoming.
The eclipse ended and almost instantly, the one main road in and out of Torrington was flooded with traffic. Marc and I decided to eat our lunch and wait it out a bit, thinking it would ease up after a while. Little did we know the tsunami of humanity that had descended on this part of Wyoming was going nowhere fast. And so our adventure began. Please listen to There’s Very Few Humans in Wyoming for the conclusion of our journey.
The Torrington Livestock Market, the perfect spot to view a Solar Eclipse.
Olson Tire Shop, where we realized escape from Wyoming was not possible.
Where we ate
The Western Travel Terminal, a place for fine dining!
You want a side of lead with that burger?
Livestock Market
