Friday, Saturday and Sunday in Thermopolis—May 27th, 28th and 29th

Thermopolis is an absolutely beautiful town--3200+ population along the Big Horn River just north of the Wedding of the Waters.  When early explorers came across the river from different directions each named a section of the river not knowing the other had named it.  The rivers come together at Wedding of the Waters where the Wind River becomes the Big Horn River.  The campground is just north of this area.  After getting settled in we hit Pumpernicks for lunch, the waitress, originally from Thermopolis, used to live in Tampa and has friends in Perry.  Pumpernicks is a quaint place in the downtown district, which could use some fixin’.  The downtown area and Pumpernicks.   Pictures of Butch and Sundace standing at the bar...guess they used to hang in the area.  Then we did a drive around town, up Round Top Mountain to find the best advantage point for pictures.

Round Top Mountain from Airport Road

The Wind River Canyon from Round Top Mountain

A view from a mountain

The town of Thermopolis from a bird's eye view

The Thermoplois Airport Terminal

looking somewhat to the north down the runway

looking somewhat to the south down the runway

looking across the runway

the first tee at the 9 hole golf course right next to the runway

 

a deer we saw coming down off the mountain

Some of the sights we saw driving around town....

 

 Park where you can

 sorry the deer are blurry, the derned ole Nikon just doesn't stabilize like the iPhone does

It was decided that we would try to catch the Wind River Canyon at sunrise to get some pictures.  Now, ever since we started this trip and changed time zones twice, we’ve be waking up around 5:30-6:00am mostly because the sun is shining brightly at that time in the west.  Anyway, Dan gets up while I, forgetting about the picture taking excursion, want to sleep a little more.  No such luck, after about 10 minutes, Dan says if we want to catch the sunrise we need to go.  What!!...no coffee!!  I know only a few have seen me first thing in the morning...believe me it’s not a pretty site, even for taking pictures, but we’re gonna get breakfast, so I had to at least try.... 

there were 3 tunnels for cars so they also had to have 3 tunnels for the train

the water is the most beautiful shade of teal through the              entire canyon

 Believe me there are about 100 more pictures but I don't want to be known as the "neighbor" who bores everyone with their vacation photos....

OK, now we’re on to breakfast at Lil’ Wrangler.  Now, remember Dan got me up at O’dark thirty to take pictures, so we arrive at 7:15am to be greeted by a group of 7, 4 adults and 3 kids, having a birthday party, yes, you read that right, a birthday party.  I heard Grandma say “Elizabeth, in three minutes it will be three years since you were born!”  Just what I want is to celebrate my kids’ birthdays at the exact time they were born.  Alex would be easy, 5:50pm.  Ryan on the other hand would be a tad difficult unless we were able to find a truck stop that caters to birthday parties....back in the day things weren’t open 24 hours like they are today.  In my youth the stores were open until 6pm except Thursdays where they stayed open until 9pm and they were closed on Sunday.  Can you imagine that today, there’d probably be some sort of uprising or revolution or something.  Gotta have things available when we want...I mean need them.  Anyway, I’m pretty sure the rest of the family wouldn’t want to get up for a 2am party.  Sorry no pictures...lol

Later that day we went to the Dinosaur Museum.  Saw some really cool fossils and dinosaur bones.  The dig site was a fer piece, so we didn’t venture there.   

 In case you can't read the info, this fossil was used as inspiration for the "sentinel" robots in The Matrix movies

 This is a turtle shell

  Sure glad we live now and not back when these guys roam the world

Left the best for last...mineral hot springs, what Thermopolis is famous for.  WOW...what a wonderful thing they have captured.  The Hot Springs State Park had a bathhouse that you can use for free or you can go to 2 other establishments and pay through the nose.  Guess which one we chose?  You’d be right, the FREE one at the state park.  What a wonderful place, the water was 104 degrees and had only a slight sulfur smell.  The warmth was wonderful cause it as 50 outside.  Refreshed we went “home”, rejuvenated I cooked a nice pork tenderloin with parsely potatoes minus the parsley, I forgot to bring some.  Oh well, it was better than most of the fare we’ve had in restaurants.

Pictures of the mineral hot springs that fill the pools

Sure wish we could import to our area...

Sunday brought rain and later in the day snow flurries, that’s right snow flurries.  Good thing we decided to stay in and veg for the day and that’s just what we did.  Tomorrow we leave for Cody...stay tuned

Casper, WY to Thermopolis, WY--May 27th

The road to Thermopolis was almost paved with gold...almost I said.  The roads were fair and the winds were fairly rough, but we putted along...putted being the operative word.  Lots of beautiful mountains, we actually climbed to 6000 feet and the cats are getting more restless.  Both almost escaped a couple of times.  We arrived a small town, population like 4 called Hiland and the following is what awaited us...

 If you look real hard you can see the word MOTEL just about the 2nd post.  There were 4 rooms with heat and air, not sure what else.  Notice the out houses to the left.  Just to the right was the gas station/ grocery/ bar/casino and whatever else could be crammed inside...obviously a lot of people stop in, evident by the number of liqueur bottles, photos and business cards.  A happenin' spot in Wyoming!

Dan had a conversation with the owner, a nice woman, very jovial despite being in the middle of nowhere.  She offered him a job as a handyman, thankfully he declined.

On up the road we headed toward Shoshoni.  According to the map a fairly sizable town, yeah, sizable like Red Level is sizable....

Then we turned right to stay on the proper road to Thermopolis and to our surprise saw

I know it doesn't look like much in the picture but the best was to come.  Had no idea we were going to be traveling through a reservation.  Someone who was on the ball would have realized we were out west and just came through the town of Shoshoni, what would you expect.  Well, I'm a Florida girl and reservations are just not part of my thought process.  After consulting with the map I could safely say we were in the Wind River Canyon....wind, check, river...not so much.  A few mile later the river came into view..and what a view it was.  The first thing we saw was the Boysen Reservoir and then the canyon it self....enjoy

So, we finally get to our appointed spot, Eagle RV Park and Campground, get registered and set up camp...do I sound like a really camper.  It's a lot more work than you'd expect.  It still amazes me how much all the stuff inside can shift.  More on our stay in Thermopolis to come...stay tuned.

Hot Springs, SD to Casper, WY--May 26th

Once again the weather Gods were not looking out for us...as usual on this trip we had to break camp in the rain.  Now that doesn't bother me much because I'm inside doing all the stuff that needs to be done, while Dan gets to be outside doing all the outside "duties"....I believe that's the way it was intended don't you!
The road out of Hot Springs were pretty good and not a lot of traffic, but the wind, was it ever blowing.  Dan says we were getting 30-35 gusts.  Now that's not bad if it's a tail wind 'cause then you make up time and get better gas mileage, which we are in desperate need of or we're gonna have to rob a bank along the way.  These were crosswinds, which I do believe are the worst kind when towing a 25' trailer.  It was real noticeable when the semi's would come whizzing by at 75 mph, yes you can do 75 in WY and SD, what are those people thinking!  Don't they know that at 55 mph you get better gas mileage and save lives, plus it would make us feel like we were keeping up.  Back to the winds...besides being pretty brisk, they were somewhat chilly, think the temps were in the 50's.  With that said the next thing we saw was a group of about a dozen crazy people riding their motorcycles and some of them didn't have on leather!  Guessin' their momma's didn't teach them to dress warm in the cold weather.
 It wasn't too long before we entered Wyoming...we made it

and here's the proof....

 There are a couple of things we saw along that way that were a tad unusual...   

We’re headed to Casper and plan on spending a couple of nights there because they have a MALL and I can shop...I’ve been so deprived the entire trip, no TV and no shopping.   Only a couple of things of interest, besides the gorgeous scenery.  There are tons of cottonwood trees and I mean tons, everywhere you turn there they are nestled in around a creek or a pond...

see anything wrong with this picture...all the trees are DEAD

 and that's the way it was at every site.  Having been trying to figure out why, but no one seems to know , they just accept it and go on.  

Can anyone tell me what this picture is of?  Now if you've lived in the west you probably know, but if you're from any where else, you still might know because you read Wikipedia or some other reference material.  For those of you who don't know what Wikipedia is I won't keep you in suspense any longer...are you ready, OK it's a snow fence.  There is just so much open, unobstructed land that when it snows and it does snow and when the wind blows and it does believe me and when they do it together the drifts can be as tall as the mountains.  I'm guessing the WYDOT people got tired of finding cars and other stuff when they started to plow the roads, covered up by the a fore mentioned drifts.  So with taxpayer money, WYDOT constructed miles and miles and miles of snow fence to prevent the snow from drifting on the highway and burying cars and cows alike.

So we make it to Casper and it's around 1:30 pm MDT, we get off the interstate and follow the bouncing ball to our campground...wait a minute, there's no campground on this road, lots of campers, but no campground

Guess I'm partly to blame for this mix up.  When I Googled the address it came back with two locations, same address but different zip codes.  Well, I had no clue what the zip code was so I just picked one...not the thing to do especially when the driver has been fighting 35mph crosswinds for the last 5 hours.  So we turn around and head back from where we came only to realize we should have made a left when we made a right.  OK, we see the sign and enter the park...wow the roads are full of pot holes and it's difficult to maneuver to the office.  I can see that Dan is having second thoughts about this place, but on we go to our site.  Understand that most campgrounds are used for both permanent residents and travelers like us.  We pull in behind all the permanent trailers and locate our spot....

Do you notice anything unusual about this spot....good eyesight, yes, it's a train within spittin' distance from us, and it came through town at 3:00am, yes that is AM as in the middle of the night!!  Dan did appreciate the graffiti and the sunsets, but that was about all...

 

Casper is a very industrial town, I'm sure there are some nice areas, but it wasn't in the cards for us to find them.  

  Dan decided after about 20 minutes of listening to the "noise" that we were not staying two nights in this PLACE.  He actually said something else which I will refrain from repeating...lol  He went and changed our stay and the office had no problem meaning that they most likely do this often.  Called the RV place in Thermopolis and got their last spot, after all it was a holiday weekend.  We shopped at a Wal-Mart to get some basic stuff, ate at a pretty miserable Mexican place... Dave you would have liked it!!!  I paid dearly for what I had...a salad and chicken tortilla soup...does that tell you anything.  Needless to say Casper is not on our list of places to visit again!  We left for Thermopolis at first light...it's got to be better....stay tuned.