We've returned home to Western Wyoming, got in today in the early afternoon. We concluded Rock Springs, sadly typical with mining towns, is a fairly tough place. Our opinion of Green River was "not as grim" as Rock Springs, the setting has more charm.
The trip was definitely a good one, we really enjoyed looking at the gigantic old steam locomotive in action. It is so amazingly mechanical and analog, there is nothing electronic or digital about it.
On Big Boy everything is huge and made of steel, a lot of it is in eccentric motion when the train is moving. The last time I saw something mechanical in motion that was this fascinating was the steam powered paddle wheelers on Lake Lucerne, some of whose moving parts were even more massive, very shiny and purposely on display.
Wyoming, like much of the mountain west, is lightly populated. Plenty of square miles with nobody living or working there. You also see this kind of emptiness in Nevada, parts of Utah, and Montana too. Actually eastern CA and OR are lightly inhabited as well.
I experience the west's emptiness as an antidote to crowding and congestion. It evokes optimism about the future's possibilities, in me at least. I may well hold a minority view.
