We woke up in Gillette, Wyoming, in our hotel. We had breakfast, and then we set out for Casper, Wyoming. In Casper, we stopped at the National Historic Trails Museum, an unexpected stop. Still, there were interesting tidbits about some of the major trails that came across the United States in history, including the Pony Express, the Oregon Trail, and the Mormon Trail. It had a good exhibit, showing details about how they got across the country in wagons and supplied themselves during a year’s worth of travel without extant trails. I was surprised and impressed at the quality of the museum.

From there, we decided to grab some lunch. We went to a place in Casper called the Bluebird Cafe, one of the best lunch spots I think we had on our trip. We ate a BLT and a club sandwich. Our server was telling us about places to see if we would go to Lander, which was later on our agenda for the day. She gave us a tip, which turned out to be pretty good.

We left the Bluebird and headed straight on toward Atlantic City, which was the entire reason why we started on this trip in the first place. On the way, we saw Independence Rock, which is a large rock that the travelers on the Oregon Trail would use as a landmark while making their way west. There are many carvings of people’s names in the rock, marking their travels. The idea was that you’d start your journey West to make it to this rock in time for Independence Day, hence the name. We saw the remnants of the original Oregon trail here, which was fascinating to connect to the museum from earlier in the day.

Atlantic City is way up there in elevation, some 7,000 feet. We drove past some beautiful views and stopped on the roadside for some exceptional photos. The trip into Atlantic City proper is downhill from the top of the mountain using a dirt road. We put the Jeep into 4-wheel drive, and it felt like driving off-road down this precarious dirt trail.

At the bottom of the dirt road, we pulled in front of Atlantic City Mercantile, which seems like either a steak restaurant or a fancy western-themed eatery, depending on your perspective. The server was apologetic that they were out of T-bones, to give you an example of what they serve at this place.

Having no idea what we were in for, and having already eaten, Riley and I simply got something to drink and some appetizers from the menu, some fried cauliflower and green beans. They were both tasty. The interior of this place was nuts. It had stuffed every kind of animal you can imagine hanging on the walls, wooden timbers, a giant wood stove, and even some memorabilia that looked like it came from Atlantic City, New Jersey. It had “DO AC” on it, which was pretty funny to see so far from the shore.

Riley and I both got T-shirts to commemorate our visit to this historic place. To make it official, we have pictures of the town sign saying, “Welcome to Atlantic City, population 57.” It was well worth the trip out to Atlantic City to cross off our central goal and enjoy the views we got on the way, which were just spectacular. I keep saying that about everywhere on this trip, but this stop had some of our best photo-taking.

From there, we went to Lander, Wyoming, to find our hotel. We checked in at the hotel and then went to this place called Sink Canyon, which was the recommendation from our server at the Bluebird. Sink Canyon is obviously a canyon, but what’s interesting about it is that there’s a river that runs through it called the Popojai River. Spelled as it sounds, it’s a Native American name. The Sink and the Rise are the things about this river that make it unmissable. There’s a place where the water runs into a cave called the Sink, where it goes underground and comes back up out of the ground at the Rise. The water flows out from the Rise down the hill.

If you go to the Rise, there are trout just waiting there. There are all kinds of mosquitoes for them to eat. Still, they’re basically spoiled on people using one of those little fish food dispensers you put a quarter in and then throw fish food into the water. When you throw the fish food in the water, they chase after it. These trout are big fish. Throwing the food in and seeing them chase it from above was fun.

Watching all the water run over the rocks and into the cave, we explored some trails near the cave entrance and the river. We got to see where the water overflow goes when there’s too much water coming off the mountain to fit in the cave. It runs overground over these rocks smoothed from eons of water flow. It’s pretty cool.

The whole area was unique, and it’s somewhere that we would not have stopped or even known about had we not asked the woman in Casper about Lander or had a conversation with her about our trip. So it was pretty cool that we got to stop there and see that. After that, we picked up dinner at a place that I won’t disclose because it’s not worth it, and then we went back to the hotel to watch War Games on cable TV before we all fell asleep.

Next up, we drive to Yellowstone National Park, which should be exciting.