33rd Stop - Independence Rock, Martin's Cove, then Rawlins (WY)

Blog Post #44 - Written December 5, 2025

Stay: July 25-27, 2025

From Casper, we followed the same general path the pioneers followed, which took us passed Independence Rock. Unfortunately, we were hesitant about stopping (as if we had this exciting destination we were heading to) so we hemmed and hawed and didn't decide to stop until we were about 2 miles down the highway 🤦  So we found a place to turn around (keep in mind we're towing our 36' trailer) and drove back. Growing up in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I had heard of "Independence Rock" in the context of the Mormon Pioneers, but I actually had no idea what it was or it's significance. And if we're being honest, I apparently didn't even know what it looked like, because in my mind I always imagined Chimney Rock haha. 

Independence Rock is so named because the pioneers should reach it by July 4th in order to reach their destination (Oregon, California, or Salt Lake) before the first mountain snowfalls. And it's also known as the Register of the Desert, because approximately 5,000 pioneers carved their names into it. It was fun to climb up onto it and try to find all the names.

Example of one of the pioneer names carved into the rock.    View southwest of Devil's Gate.

We then drove a few miles down the road to the Martin's Cove visitor center. This is where many LDS church youth groups do a "pioneer trek" reenactment, walking along the pioneer trail pulling handcarts for several days. We saw a couple groups starting/ending there treks while we were there. We got to try out a couple handcarts ourselves with the kids. It was kind of neat because my grandparents (Dale and Verla Butler) served a mission here 25 years ago when it first opened and they're the ones that built the original handcarts that all these trekkers use! My grandpa was a skilled carpenter.

 

We then arrived at our campground (KOA Journey - Rawlins) and there's not much else to say because our campground was pretty lame and no offense to Rawlins...but there ain't much to do there!

This is how close we were to I-80. You could see, and hear, the freeway from our site.

The one cool thing we found in Rawlins was a fun little thrift shop where all clothes are 25 cents and all stuffed animals and books are free! Megan also found these creepy (probably haunted) old dolls for her mom haha.

We did enjoy church on Sunday and even got to help them with a little service project afterwards. We then spent the afternoon doing puzzles and playing games.

If you're wondering why we even stayed in Rawlins if it is so boring, it's because we had a couple of days to kill before our Butler family reunion started in Flaming Gorge. On Monday we packed up and hit the road! We met up with my brother and his wife, Richard and Nancy, in Rock Springs for lunch. Then make the rest of the drive to our campground at Flaming Gorge. The next blog post will be much more exciting, I promise. Flaming Gorge was awesome!