Green River, Wyoming could be called...
- The gateway to one of America's great reservoirs.
- Major supplier of an internationally needed mineral.
- Site where one of the great explorers of 19th-century America started two famous expeditions.
Green River is a city of 12,000 residents, easily overlooked along the windy expanse of Interstate 80 in southwestern Wyoming.
It's worth taking a look.
That's what a pre-schooler named Amonn was doing when I met him in Green River's iconic Expedition Island Park. He was looking through a pair of binoculars almost as big as his head.
"What do you see across the river?" I asked Amonn.
"Gooses!"
"Do you know where the water goes?"
"Yes!
"Where does it go?"
"To the pipes!"
Can't argue with that logic, though it kind of buries the lead.
Amonn's family and I were on the banks of the Green River, one of the Southwest's two major arteries, combining with the Colorado to make the major source of water for more than one in 10 Americans.
After the Civil War, a Union army major secured funding and headed west to explore, study, and map the two rivers in the vast unexplored region of the continental United States.
John Wesley Powell must have projected competence to the men who followed him. He had lost an arm to a gunshot wound in the Battle of Shiloh. Even modern-day river running asks a lot of a person with four functioning limbs.
Expedition Island gets its name as the launching point for both Powell expeditions, in 1869 and 1871. Both can be seen as a success. The first turned into a fight to survive the rivers in inadequate wooden boats. All but four of the crew made it to their planned terminus at the confluence of the Colorado and Virgin Rivers. One of those four bailed on the group (pun intended) one month in. The other three left, believing they stood a better chance on foot. They were wrong. They disappeared in the desert canyons with no trace. The mystery remains today.
Back to modern-day Green River: You may wonder what makes a big town maintain its vitality in the expanse of open space called Wyoming.
For Green River, it's all about a non-marine evaporite mineral. I don't know exactly what that means, but I liked the sound of it.
The mineral is called Trona. It's the stuff that makes baking soda, and much of the world gets its supply from southwestern Wyoming.
I learned this from Tim Kuball as we sat in the stands of Green River High School's stadium and watched the girls' soccer team take on the kids from the big city.
In Wyoming, Casper is a big city with about 60,000 residents, and their soccer team owned the day. That said, Green River proudly boasted a winning record.
Kuball didn't mince words.
"Why do you live in Green River?" I asked.
"Because I love Wyoming," he said.
Having buttered him up with this witty repartee, I made my big ask, hoping to get the inside scoop on a place at Flaming Gorge Reservoir where even an incompetent angler like me might catch something.
"What are some of your favorite spots?" I asked.
"I don't tell anybody my favorite spots," he said to chuckles all around.
"You have a fishing hole you don't reveal?"
"Hunting, fishing, whatever," he said.
So the charm got me nowhere.
My last refuge: pity.
"I wasn't catching anything yesterday, but I never do," I told him.
You could almost hear the violins, though Kuball was immune.
"Oh yeah? Well, I'm not going to tell you."
Despite that rebuff, my trusty sidekick Chaco the Labrador and I had a great trip. Good people, open spaces, no fish, and plenty of tennis balls to fetch.
