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It was still dark when the buses left the parking lot on the east side of War Memorial Stadium.

Two buses, to be exact. They were white with brown, gold and green stripes running horizontally across the sides. They were also packed with roughly 50 yawning Wyoming football players.

At 6:20 a.m. on Friday, a light rain pattered on the buses' windshields. A rainbow jutted out from the roof of the Arena Auditorium to the west.

First, the buses pulled out. Then, a red truck -- its bed filled with a mound of sand that peeked out from over its walls. Behind the truck, a parade of cars filed out one by one.

The cavalcade headed west from Laramie on Snowy Range Road, zigging and zagging through the tree cover and shrubbery of the Medicine Bow National Forest. Impromptu rivers ran parallel to the highway, recent snow runoff transforming walking trails and embankments into a series of rushing rapids.

The destination was Saratoga, 80 miles and roughly a 90-minute drive away. Distance, however, was meaningless -- an irrelevant detail.