Chasing Lander, WY

Lander is a fun little town in the center of Wyoming.   The main fishing draw is the Popo Agie river.  It’s pronounced: “Puh – Po Shuh” (two words).

Popo Agie is a Crow Indian word that most people believe means “gurgling river.” When the first white trappers arrived in the area the Crow people were here, and that is what they called the river.

Unfortunately my time at the Popo Agie and Lander was more of a tourist and mountain biker than a fly fisherman.   While I did some fishing, I was more interested in the town and surrounding wonders.

Back to the river.   It runs through Sinks Canyon State Park.   Sinks Canyon is named after the pretty cool natural phenomenon that occurs in this canyon called the Sink and the Rise.   The Sink is where the river bends a corner and turns right into the side of the canyon and just disappears into the side of the rock wall.  The Rise is about a mile downstream where the river pops back out of the canyon and begins its normal flow above ground.   But get this, The Rise comes out the other side of the canyon.   So weird and cool.

Fishing is closed for about 500′ below The Rise as there are huge trout stacked up where the water comes out of the limestone hillside.   Park services have built platforms and buildings in this area for tourists, and a platform at The Rise where tourists can see the rise also has a machine that dispatches fish pellets for $.25.   The fish go crazy for these pellets as they are thrown into the pool at the The Rise.   No wonder they are so big.

The canyon also has some great trails, some resident moose, campgrounds and visitor centers.   The locals use this outdoor playground for all sorts of fun activities.

The town of Lander is really cute.   There is one main road and all the shops are on it.   There is a good selection of restaurants (even Sushi and Thai) and bars.  Enough to keep me fat and happy for my short time there.   There also a few fly shops as well as a music/instrument shop.    One day after stopping into the fly shop to shoot the shizzy with the local flyheads, I was walking back to my truck and notices the music shop.   It reminded me that I wanted to learn to play guitar as one of my retirement zens.   Cool story here.   I stopped in thinking I was gonna get a used guitar for not too much cash.   I walked way through the abandoned shop with instruments every, and into a back shop type area where I found a local chatting up the shop owner and his helper.   The local excused himself to let us talk business after I mentioned why I was there.  The owner of the shop started quizzing me to help find me the right choice.   After a bit, I realized he was blind.   But that didn’t really slow him down.   He knew that shop like the back of his hand.   He knew where all the different guitars were, but he had to ask me the prices on them.   After we negotiated a used guitar and case we moved on to discuss strings and straps, again, moving through the store like he owned it, ;-).   Finally his lacky came out to help ring me up at the register and we chatted for a bit before I left, but not before I got a closing selfie.   Maybe I’m dumb for thinking that was a cool experience, but hey, it’s my experience so step off.

After I got back to Marge with my new sword I watched some YouTube vids and checked out a few apps to learn to play.   I decided upon Yousician app.  It gives you lessons and hears your sound and lets you know when you have messed up or done well.   Pretty cool.

Bad part here tho, is that I stopped playing until I get caught up on the blog.   I was (am) sooooo far behind on blog that it and the guitar lessons were stressing me out, and I’m retired, and not supposed to be stressed, so, until I get caught up, no lessons for me.   I keep having so much fun that I’m not blogging enough.   Speaking of which, I should be out fishing right now…   Lander was cool, cant wait to get back, bye Felicia!