It was about time I get sent to places like Fort Collins, Colorado for work. No longer could I get so upset when my American friends went to the Omahas and Jackson Mississippis of the world, while I was only being sent to the local national park.

And if work was going to send me all the way out west in America, then I was going to take a few days to explore Wyoming. Or wait, maybe a handful of days to explore Wyoming and Idaho? Or wait, my Orioles are playing at Oakland next weekend?

It was decided. I was going to take 10 days to drive from Colorado to California.

I would have woke up before work every morning to excitedly ride skateparks anyway, but this was also the time of year that Corner Brook makes me the crabbiest. It's when everyone else is posting about riding outside in 80-degree weather, while I try and ride cracked, dusty, below regulation height curbs in 35-degree temps.

It was so nice to be able to work and live the mainland life here at the end of April.

Fort Collins has 5 skateparks for its 167000 residents. The one closest to me was Northside Skatepark and it looked like it might be the best. I loved the wide spaces and street-like additions that must've come from DIY activities to the park.

Riding back to my motel, I was already on cloud nine but then I even saw a guy in a Brad Marchand Bruins jersey grabbing some Starbucks. Mannnn, Fort Collins ftw.

Speaking of the Bruins & winning, I had to skip out on the big conference dinner with my colleagues since the Bruins and Leafs were about to play Game 7. I was either going to get really emotionally unstable or tearfully joyful, and I just can't do that around acquaintances and people who don't understand fandom.

I swear that I get so upset with Leafs people on Twitter that I care more about the Bruins beating them than actually winning the Stanley Cup. With the Bruins playing the Leafs yet again in the playoffs for the 17000th straight year because of the stupid divisional playoff format, its year after year of such stress that I feel as if I'm going to throw up as I watch.

Thankfully this night I was dancing, fist pumping and whipping the towel like Larry Bird to the Bruins coming back and dismantling the Leafs. God I love sad Auston Matthews.

Other notes from Fort Collins include going to the Taco Bell that was half a mile from my motel.

Forget sorting by "cheapest", "highest rated" and "distance to downtown" on Priceline.com, the feature they really need to add is "distance to Taco Bell!" LOL.

I know I've been laying it on a bit thick with the Taco Bell updates on BRN recently, but I have to mention this one because it's a Taco Bell in an old house! Look at that door! It's like Nailhed's living room but with cheese quesadillas.

(Shout out to the City of Fort Collins for opposing the senseless demolition of this perfectly good house for a sterile, cookie-cut Taco Bell. The city argued why would Taco Bell Corp need to demolish an authentic Spanish-style house just to put up a faux one.)

Following the Bruins Game 7 victory, I posted a celebratory picture of Cam Neely doing a wallride at the Northside Skatepark.

Alerting facebook about my presence in Fort Collins by doing this, my friend Cale commented that I had to check out "an amazing skatepark" that he happened upon while on his own Colorado road trip. One that made him regret not having his bike with him.

Edora Skatepark was a little too ramp doggy for me, but I appreciated the recommendation enough that I rode the extra distance into the east side of Fort Collins. I enjoyed myself enough that I was thankful Cale let me know.

On the final morning of the conference, it was fun to get dropped off by my colleagues, as they were taking their rental car to go visit nearby state parks, while I had my own rental car & Isy had rode the shuttle van up from Denver that morning.

Reuniting with me trout, we left Fort Collins and headed north through stop-and-go traffic, grabbing Taco John's for lunch before the sparsely-populated Wyoming. Skirting around the capital of Cheyenne, I had an interesting location tip from my friend Cavemonkey and that's where we were headed.

Except that when we finally reached the turnoff, the dirt road was gated far further away than I envisioned. There was also some smoke from a fire up ahead. As we stood there we weren't ready at all for a lengthy hike, especially as we hadn't even bought our camping supplies for tonight yet.

We stopped in sizable Laramie to hit up the Walmart Supercenter. Especially with the price of accommodations in upcoming California, and the possibility of gorgeous camping in Wyoming, we decided to make this a trip where some nights would be spent under the fabric of a tent fly.

The Walmarts in Wyoming also apparently have liquor stores in them. It's a good thing we brought our passports inside, as the guy at the counter let us know that our provincial driver's licenses wouldn't cut it.

After we stuffed our rental car like a Thanksgiving turkey, we drove through actual Laramie and the University of Wyoming looked like an amazing place to watch football, plus there were plenty of motels and restaurants with old signs that I wanted to photograph. It was too early to call it a day just yet, but it's funny how travelling can add destinations to the list as you try to reduce them.

After another 90 minutes of driving, there was one last stop at the Shell along I-80 at our exit towards Saratoga Wyoming.

The guy inside was curt, there were dozens of elk heads on the wall & it seemed like we were the only 3 people in a 10 mile radius. It was your perfect, stereotypical Wyoming gas station stop for some caramel Milky Ways and a bag of ice.

About 15 minutes south of the interstate, with pronghorns fleeing Isy's roadside camera, we found a private ranch road leading past someone's farm and over to the GPS coordinates. I'd looked up somewhere for us to camp in south central Wyoming on freecampsites.net & the Foote Access Area was the right price ($0), secluded, and looked acceptable from the pictures.

As we pulled into a sandy, wide grove of stark cottonwood trees, my eyes grew wide and I knew this was more than acceptable. Stepping out of the car, the sandy circular drive dipped off into a little beach right on the calm, meandering North Platte River.

Not to mention that we were early enough in the season that there weren't any mosquitoes, we didn't see any snakes after just passing Rattlesnake Road, and the temperature was that perfect coolness where you know to get things out of the car and put together, but there isn't some mad rush to flee the pressing cold.

I couldn't believe how magnificent this site was and we had it all to ourselves. There's five or six campsites here and there wasn't another soul around. I was in heaven and couldn't shut up about the greatness of this campsite.

I happily pulled out the new camping equipment and provisions we just purchased. Putting the cheap folding chairs out on the sand, I then expanded the new foldable rubber cups and poured us a couple of bourbons from the Wyoming Whiskey bottle we just purchased. As I took my first sip and relaxed with plenty of time to make camp, I then heard Isy interject with, "we forgot to purchase batteries for the air mattress pump. We have to leave."

My glut of time evaporated into a worry of whether I'd now be back for sundown. I let out a sigh. Saratoga was only 5 miles (8km) away, so I left Isy and jumped into the rental, speeding over the dirt roads and into town.

There was a Family Dollar and of course the person in front of me was purchasing 30 items, but in the end I made it back for a few fleeting moments of dusk.

If only I'd remembered the stupid batteries back at that Shell on I-80 instead of admiring all the elk heads.

Isy may want me to mention how it got down to 34° (1°C) this night, but I have sweeter memories of not having to go back to the Saratoga Family Dollar, lounging in my camp chair and savouring the North Platte calmly flowing by.

The morning brought such an incredible amount of birdsong that it woke me. Isy was cold as the sun was still at a sharp angle, but I was wishing I had a better camera to immediately get up and capture all of the singing birds outside.

Reluctant to leave what may be the best place I've ever camped, while also needing to warm up, we got the blood flowing along a trail besides the North Platte. Along the way we spotted some fishermen down below the cliffs & a beaver also rustled off our side and sidled up the reeds across the river to get away from us.

From the hills outside Cheyenne in 2006, to cruising through this same area with Junix & Arntz in 2010 (R.I.P. Junix), to this fine morning and gorgeous landscape. All of this was cementing Wyoming's position amongst my top 3 states.

(Oregon, Michigan & Wyoming, in no particular order.)

Somewhere along the way of planning this trip, Isy asked me if there were any hot springs we could stop at & it occurred to me that hot springs are something I'd never thought of outside of that giant hot spring in Iceland.

As it turns out, there are hot springs all over the American West. Who knew! Isy was especially in luck this morning after a cold night of camping in south central Wyoming, as Saratoga is home to the Hobo Hot Springs - a free, public hot spring right in town.

Going into the impressive washrooms, we switched over into our swim gear and were soon swimming in the 105-degree water (and flirting with the area called "The Lobster Pot" where the temps reach 120 degrees).

The only problem had to do with how Isy can be prone to overdoing things. Where I followed the guidelines of only staying in so long, she stayed in much longer and was rewarded with nausea and light-headedness as she tried to walk up the stairs to the locker room. It would seem that someone should tell her guidelines exist for a reason!

(Even I'm not dumb enough to mention this in the moment, haha.)

Following a great breakfast at Lollypops on Saratoga's main street, we then had about 7 hours of driving to do today.

This was totally fine of course, since it was almost entirely within Wyoming.

Isy seemed to be getting it too, commenting that Wyoming was the quietest place she'd ever been, while also marvelling at the vast landscapes.

Sometimes I worry about telling people how much I like Wyoming because it's not for everyone. People see it simply as empty and don't appreciate the sprawling and walkable foothills, rugged towns, desolate shacks, and arid vegetation.

By mid-afternoon, we arrived at the first planned stop of Lander Wyoming. As part of my pre-trip research, I'd ran through the NorthwestSkater website and combed over the Wyoming skateparks, trying to figure out where places like Lander and Pinedale were in relation to our route.

Committed to riding more on this trip, I pulled out almost all of our clothes, camping gear and food from the car, then assembled my bike from being just a stem, frame & forks.

I got in a shortened ride because of the rain, but this was fine because we needed to get going anyhow. I'd probably give Lander a 7 out of 10.

The Fremont County Courthouse in Lander, Wyoming. An exciting one for my first in Wyoming, lol.

Lander marked the last city we would see in a while, and while I wanted to stop for lunch somewhere so we could watch the Bruins & Lightning afternoon playoff game, we couldn't stop just yet.

Passing through tiny places that were nothing more than a church and a gas station, finally we came to Dubois Wyoming as the Bruins & Bolts were into the 3rd period. A thousand people live in Dubois and the main street was promising with an actual grocery store, plus several motels and restaurants. The only problem was that most of the restaurants didn't look enough like sports bars to have an afternoon hockey matchup on.

We settled on the aptly-named Rustic Pine Tavern Bar, since there weren't going to be any towns in a while and America is usually good at having satellite TVs in their dining establishments.

I approached the bar and they didn't serve food, but you could order from the Cowboy Cafe next door. Okay, sure. Grabbing a Busch Light so that we could stay here and possibly see about the game being turned on, the bartender happily carried out my request and started flipping through the TV channels. Next thing I know, the whole bar got involved, yelling out which bracket of channels would have NBC ("try the 100s") and trying to conjure up memories of having ever watched hockey.

After a bit of searching the guide, Boston & Tampa Bay popped up in one of the blue guide bubbles and they had the channel. I happily thanked the bartender and everyone at the bar, before nervously sitting down even as the Bruins were winning 6-2, trying to show that I was really invested in this game and appreciated everyone's help.

As for the Cowboy Cafe? They prepare a damn good lemon pepper trout. Boy did we luck out in Dubois.

Continuing on US-287 here, we went over a pass with lingering snow depths that showed us why so many people come out here for skiing and snowboarding.

The deep snow wasn't even the main story though, as we were both blown away by our first glances of the Grand Tetons. Rushing against the fading daylight, I didn't want to stop the car when I knew we'd be driving alongside the mountains soon enough - but it was one of those scenes where monumental mountains dominate the sky window between the encroaching trees.

Turning south, I spotted the Cunningham Cabin Road and slammed on the brakes. I would have liked to hiked one of the short trails nearby, but most were still covered in snow & we didn't really have the time.

We had to make time for this cabin though.

Constructed in 1888, this is one of the last structures that still stands from the time when homesteaders reached the Jackson Hole area and set up their new lives. J.P. Cunningham and his wife Margaret lived in this cabin from 1888 to 1895, when J.P. then finally finished his main home & this building was turned into a barn and workshop.

Eventually the 1920s would bring an agricultural drought and plummeting cattle prices which meant that the Cunningham's farm was no longer profitable. Cunningham realized the potential of this area for recreation though, and along with neighbour Si Ferrin, created a petition that would be signed by 95 of his fellow ranchers, for the American government to buy out this land and create a national park or recreation area.

Cunningham would sell his land to the Snake River Land Company in 1928. The Snake River Land Company eventually donated 35,000 acres to Grand Teton National Park.

Down the highway was the town of Jackson Hole, which was neat to see to put a picture to the place Brad & Clarkman have went snowboarding, but it was also a pricy-looking mountain town that made me happy we had plans to again camp tonight.

I was also happy we stumbled upon that authentic tavern back in Dubois, instead of trying to bother some overworked waitress to put on the Bruins game at one of the busy tourist trap restaurants we were passing in Jackson Hole.

One more half hour of driving brought us to another new state for Isy, and soon after, into the darkness towards our campground.

Continue to Part 2...