Spring Break short road trip - where? (Cheyenne, Casper: restaurants, most dangerous)

[Wyoprairie]

This is kind of a different tack....but if you were looking for a Spring Break-late March road trip/getaway for 4 days or so,
how about south of the Springs instead of north? Have you been to Palo Duro or Caprock Canyons in the TX panhandle?
Easy drive down I-25 and 87.

Might be better for March weather. I have been to Palo in late April or early May, and it is really nice then. Carpets of
wildflowers, literally acres of them, and lots of wildlife. Many hiking trails. Don't know if wildflowers have started yet in
March. Nearby town of Canyon is nice, it's a college town, with a really good Thai restaurant-family owned. Just an idle
thought if you were heading out in March instead of June.

[otowi]

Thanks everyone.

[Crashj007]

I always see videos and pictures of how crazy it is at Lake Powell in boats, but that is more midsummer than midwinter. Some of my best skiing has been Utah in March. Bright sunshine and still ten feet of snow in the Wasatch Mountains.

[CadenceMG]

I would recommend lander (lots of choices for day hikes in sinks canyon, cute shops and restaurants, breathtaking mountain views) and Thermopolis (worst case scenario if the weather is bad, I could easily spend 2/3days there between the 2 hot spring pools, nice little restaurants, museums and shops, spas, walking trails.)

Lander is (approximately) 6.5 hr drive from Colorado springs, with Thermopolis being another 90 minutes farther.

[sunsprit]

Originally Posted by CadenceMG

Lander is (approximately) 6.5 hr drive from Colorado springs, with Thermopolis being another 90 minutes farther.

I don't know what you're driving ... Good luck with that driving estimate.

450 miles in 6.5 hours might be a wee bit unrealistic for this trip C
Springs to Lander.

Add in inclement conditions and/or normal traffic on the roads and I'd be planning a lot more road time.

Just getting past the CSprings through Denver snarl can be time consumptive and it's pretty common for there to be a significant amount of traffic through to FtCollins.

You'll not be on interstate highways once you head West through much of the Wyoming drive, either.
Lander.

[Ltdumbear]

Just goes to show how 'disconnected' modern-day society has become from actually LIVING thier lives, when they refer to travel-distances in 'hours' rather than 'miles'.


May the Good Lord strike me down where I stand, the moment I start becoming more concerned about 'how long it takes' rather than 'whatever I might see & learn along the way'.


...truly it is becoming more & more of a human 'race', as the days go by...


For what it's worth, I hope you enjoy crossing-off each and every 'item' on your bucket-list...but at least promise us that you'll at least TRY to 'stop and smell the sage-brush' while you're here ? ? ?

[sunsprit]

Originally Posted by Ltdumbear

Just goes to show how 'disconnected' modern-day society has become from actually LIVING thier lives, when they refer to travel-distances in 'hours' rather than 'miles'.

C'mon ... you have the luxury of having made those choices which allow you to live and work in the areas that the OP would like to visit ...

So you are presented with an entirely different paradigm of "connectivity" to LIVING and "smelling the roses" than the OP who is apparently in the CSprings area.

At that, there is a significant amount of rural/countryside/hiking access to spectacular vistas of plains and mountains for the OP to visit essentially "right off their doorstep".

But that's what travel is all about ... broadening one's horizons, experiencing what's on other people's plate.

So the reality of access ... measure it any way you will, by time or distance ... becomes an all too real aspect of such travel. Neither you nor the OP can instantly arrive at your far away destinations without paying the price to get there and return to home.

With the OP's limited time frame, it's reasonable for them to balance their travel time available and requirements with their enjoyment and appreciation for the journey. And it will be a balance of their priorities, not yours. Certainly not a "modern-day" development and disconnect, it's been a essential aspect of "travel" for centuries of mankind ever since a mode a transport was developed.

[CadenceMG]

Originally Posted by sunsprit

I don't know what you're driving ... Good luck with that driving estimate.

450 miles in 6.5 hours might be a wee bit unrealistic for this trip C
Springs to Lander.

Add in inclement conditions and/or normal traffic on the roads and I'd be planning a lot more road time.

Just getting past the CSprings through Denver snarl can be time consumptive and it's pretty common for there to be a significant amount of traffic through to FtCollins.

You'll not be on interstate highways once you head West through much of the Wyoming drive, either.
Lander.

The ETA I quoted comes from Google maps. I apologise for quoting potentially erroneous information....although I did state "approximately.".

I would be interested in knowing if Google maps works (or not)in Wyoming....the way this article claims it does. I've personally always found it to be fairly accurate in predicting "how long" it will take me to get somewhere.

https://electronics.howstuffworks.co...ct-traffic.htm

[Wm Jas]

Google Maps has worked well for me concerning both times and distances across the State - with good driving conditions.

[sunsprit]

Originally Posted by CadenceMG

The ETA I quoted comes from Google maps. I apologise for quoting potentially erroneous information....although I did state "approximately.".

I would be interested in knowing if Google maps works (or not)in Wyoming....the way this article claims it does. I've personally always found it to be fairly accurate in predicting "how long" it will take me to get somewhere.

https://electronics.howstuffworks.co...ct-traffic.htm

we use Google maps a lot for travels around Wyoming ...

but there are more than a few instances where the database/roads are off ... ranging from a little bit "off" to significant errors.

Some rural addresses simply won't be found via those maps ... the database has roads charted which simply don't exist as viable transit roads.

In an effort to save time/distance, I've tried numerous routes to access our ranch from trips into Colorado ... and the turn-by-turn directions had me heading down an oil patch service road that lead to a dead end at a facility/well, or a road that was "private" access to a facility and closed to public use. Same with a trip to a client at a ranch straddling the WY-CO border, and they knew of the fault so advised me in advance not to rely upon Google map to reach their place. Maybe some of the roads are platted in the county planning, but not constructed.

We've had casual temp workers try to find rural locations and the maps had them taking routes adding 20+ miles around to get to their destinations. Additionally, the routes assume that you will travel at posted speed limits which are not too infrequently in the database as faster than the actual posted limits.

In any event, the big fallacy that frequently presents with Google maps ... and with other similar services ... is not having road conditions/inclement weather reflected in their travel estimates. The intent of the services to adjust for reported travel speeds is much more accurate in large metro areas, such as Denver metro with a lot of road sensors/android users ... but once you're "in the sticks" in areas of much less traffic reporting, the map system doesn't do a very good job at all. I've had numerous days in Wyoming with road closures posted and Google maps was still giving me their normal travel times/speeds.

Same thing with construction zones, especially in those places without a flagman and "traffic controlled" lights ... encountered this most recently last year on Hwy 85 on a repaving project North of Greeley where the traffic was down to one lane; you'd sit for quite awhile waiting for the automated traffic lights to allow you to go through. I had one trip down that way where the lights short cycled ... allowed only a portion of the traffic to go past. It took me 3 cycles to get through that stretch on that trip when there were a lot of semi's backed up at the light. Their software apparently didn't recognize the increasing time between the semi's as they started back up and went through the light, interpreting that traffic gap as "no more traffic" needing to pass. A flagman would have readily seen the back-up traffic and cycled it through.

And a real glaring example of the errors of relying upon their directions is this thread's 450 mile trip in 6.5 hours. That's a 70 mph average over many miles of roads to Lander which are posted significantly slower than that speed. You'll not make the time up on those interstate stretches of 75 mph of the trip.

PS: another major "fault" of relying upon Google Maps in this area is that the software isn't as "smart" as you'd like it to be.
For example, last summer we headed to a Wool Festival/Market that was about 100 miles away from us in Nebraska. Our friends had their iPads with Google Maps on to navigate us to the rural ranch. They directed us to a circuitous route from the state highway to the destination. I was in the back seat, looking at a NE map and it showed a county road that was only 1/2 mile North of the intersection that Google map had us turning South to reach another country road. Driver followed the Google instructions and it worked out to be 22 miles further going South, then East, then North, then back West to our destination. Had do I know the distance difference? Because when we left the place, I continued West from the ranch to a country road that let into the one that was a 1/2 mile North of where we'd departed South at that T-intersection. We were literally only 2 miles from the ranch at that T-intersection but the Google directions had us head to another Easterly county road.

I've had the same thing happen in Colorado on trips to Burlington. Last year, I had to pick up some equipment in Burlington, Sterling, and Brush. If I'd have followed Google maps, I'd have driven many additional miles from Hwy 6 to get across the South Platte into the towns. At one of those times, I was on the East side of the River at a truck stop getting fuel and could see the road leading East under I-76. Yet the Google map had me turning to a frontage road leading to another 26 miles of driving to reach my destination ... NorthEastward along the river to an interstate intersection and then back SouthWestward to my destination which was only a few miles SouthWest from where I was at the truck stop.

The bottom line is that Google Maps is not entirely reliable in this region of the country. Software/Database errors can frequently confound one to reach a destination, and their time estimates can be really bogus. It's a good tool to have along for many trips, but it's not the only tool you should rely upon ... especially when their priority to reach an intersection can be miles out of your way and it's very obvious that their directions are grossly in error.

YMMV. Drive safe and "stop and smell the roses", too.