08/30/98

Post Register - Idaho News

Category: Feature Living

Published: 08/30/98

Page: E1

Keywords: Travel

Byline: Clay Carpenter  

As you enter Wyoming in Yellowstone National Park, you see the ravages of the forest fires of 1988, and the regrowth that has been occurring since. And you see all the features that make Yellowstone one of the most spectacular places on earth: geysers and hot pools, forests and canyons, rivers and waterfalls, elk and bison. After exiting the park, you're on a scenic byway to Cody, home of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, which pays tribute to Buffalo Bill Cody and his legendary Wild West Show. Look for antelope between Shoshoni and Casper. Then from Casper to Orin, you're driving through history, paralleling the Mormon Trail, Oregon Trail and Pony Express Route. The towns on the last, desolate stretch of Highway 20 in Wyoming are so miniscule that one state transportation department official jokes, the entering and leaving signs are on the same post." You'll want to make a rest stop in one of them, Lost Springs. With only seven residents at the time (and only four now), it was the smallest town chosen as a Bicentennial Town in 1976, because of this unique feature: A billboard offers "free cold water" to anyone passing through. A pump in the town park provides it. Before you leave, you pass through Lusk, original home of the once mighty Highway 20 Association, dedicated to promoting and improving the highway. The association still exists.

HIGHWAY HIGHLIGHT: Thermopolis is home to Hot Springs State Park, and one of the world's largest mineral hot springs, Bighorn Hot Spring, which releases 2.8 million gallons of water daily. Besides springs, there are also hot waterfalls and terraces. You can enjoy the therapeutic waters free at the park's bathhouse, thanks to an 1894 treaty between the United States and the Shoshone and Arapaho nations stipulating that the springs would always be open to the public at no charge.

QUOTE: "I saw a lady come in one time. She had been (partially paralyzed) in a car wreck when she was 4 years old. She heard about this mineral water. She came to our bathhouse. She spent a four-month period here and she stood up and she shuffled. And she walked up the ramp with the help of a handrail and she walked to her car and put her wheelchair in the trunk and put a sign on the trunk. And it said, 'Used wheelchair. I don't need it. You can have it.' " – Norm Sterner, longtime Thermopolis resident and the town's biggest booster. Sterner worked at the hot pools for 10 years, and still soaks there every other day.