2026 Road Trip - Day 3

We left early May 5 for Laramie and navigated our way in light rain through the nightmare of Salt Lake City highways and byways and freeways.

By 7:00 a.m. we discovered that it was snowing in Wyoming.  By 8:00 a.m. I got a notification that Highway 80 was closed between Rawlins and Laramie.  We stopped in the nearest town, Evanston, Wyoming, to avoid the snow and road closure.  Even though we had chains, neither one of us wanted to use them, chance a highway closure, or possibly no rooms available further up the road.

We were able to get a hotel room for two nights to wait out the storm.  We were super early and had to kill time before the room would be ready.  We had coffee at a cute coffee shop called Gigi’s in town and Laramie and I considered shopping at a store that offered prairie dresses as their primary window dressing.

Just as we finished our coffee, it started snowing so went back to hotel.  Dad did some tai chi in the snowfall and sent the video to his teacher.

We hung out in the breakfast dining area until the local Boot Barn opened and the snow stopped so we could get some warm jackets.  We had only light sweaters with us.  Dad did have a beanie and gloves in the emergency supplies we'd put in the truck.  The truck was covered in snow when we went out, but at least it wasn't actively snowing at that time.

We went back and hung out at the hotel again waiting for our room to be ready.  The desk clerk, Matison, was awesome our whole stay.  We confirmed with her that we could order Door Dash to the hotel, so we ordered pizza.  We finished lunch just as our room was ready for us. Dad was pooped.  We both were, even though we hadn't driven that far.

Apparently this was the first snowstorm of winter – it’s been very dry until we decided to come through!  I can't remember dinner that night and think we just finished the leftover pizza before getting some sleep.