Rain needed in land of little rain

We drove west out of Laramie along I-80 into a landscape wrapped in a fire-spawned haze. We don't get much fog so when the mountains aren't visible, I suspect storms. If only that were the case. We need storms, and not the dry, windy type that produce only lightning that ignites still more fires. We need rain.

Wyoming doesn't have the fires that its neighbors do in Idaho and Montana (see NIFC map). These are the larger fires, but you can see that WYO has largely been spared up until now. But the forecast reveals a week of little rain in this land of little rain. Cheyenne is already down three inches of moisture for the year. We started July with a couple of good thunderstorms, but it's been dry for weeks.

We were heading west to get out of the high plains heat. First we had to drive through even more high plains heat. In Saratoga, which is just west of the Snowy Range, we swam in the town pool. Later, my daughter took her dog for a walk in the North Platte River that runs through the town. Water levels are down, so you can walk right across it, if you want. I didn't see a single raft or flat-bottomed fishing boat floating the Platte, unusual for this time of year. Ten years ago, when my son was a Boy Scout, we had to wait until August to canoe this section of the Platte. We had Tenderfoot canoeists with us, and we felt that rapids spawned by high water levels would swamp them. Even in August that year, we hit one set of rapids that tipped two canoes. On this July day, we would be out of the boats half the time, portaging over shallow spots.

"Water Restriction" signs were posted on all Saratoga businesses. Outdoor watering of lawns and plants is forbidden until further notice. The town's 100-foot-deep water tank, usually at the 80- to 90-foot level this time of year, was at 12 feet. The town draws its water from the Platte, so you can see the problem. Still, here we were, swimming away in the pool while tomatoes wilt in the heat. Better tomatoes that the tourists, eh? The season is short.

We drove back to Cheyenne over the Snowies. We kept the car window down, anxious for some mountain coolness. Very few cars on the road. A few cattle trucks and an ocassional haywagon. Can't avoid the RVs this time of year, but we didn't get stuck behind a single one. We picnicked on the shores of Lake Louise. Not exactly on the shore, as swarms of mosquitoes greeted us. Not wishing to consume mosquito carcasses with our food, anxious about West Nile Virus, we rolled up the windows and ate in the car.

A bit later, we watched the sunset from the lookout at the top of the pass. Couldn't see the Colorado mountains because of the smoke. But the particulates in the atmosphere made for glorious swatches of reds and oranges across the Wyoming sky. The West may be burning up, but it will go down in a blaze of color.