Bed & Breakfast Inns and Ranches of Wyoming

Between Rawlins and Rock Springs lies the forbidding Red Desert.  This region is the heart of Wyoming's ironically named Sweetwater County.  In 1872 its other-world landscape inspired a couple of unscrupulous Kentuckians to invest $35,000 in uncut gemstones -- diamonds, rubies, emeralds, garnets, amethysts, and sapphires -- and sprinkle them across the desert.  Then, they conned a San Francisco bank into paying them $600,000 for the rights to develop their "discovery."  The hoax didn't last long, but lots of eager investors lost money.  Legitimately, the area around Rawlins is a great place to search for jade, petrified wood, agates, and fossils.  Who knows, a lucky rock hound might stumble onto a leftover gemstone as well!

The Great Divide Basin also harbors Killpecker Sand Dunes, the biggest collection of active sand dunes in North America.  Nearby Killpecker Creek, one of the region's only sources of water, was named for the debilitating biological side effects of its alkaline water on early residents.  The Dunes, however, are an invigorating place for hikers prepared to handle the desert climate, and all-terrain vehicles are allowed on the stabilized eastern dunes.  Boar's Tusk, like its more famous cousin Devils Tower, was a volcanic plug that didn't quite make it to the surface.  Now it rises high above the nearby dunes, a favorite challenge for local rock climbers.

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