7/11/2013–Kaycee, WY to Thermopolis, WY

With temperatures expected to be pushing 100 today, we got an early start on our trip from Kaycee to Thermopolis.  I had been down to the Chris LeDoux Memorial Park earlier in the week but didn’t take any photos, so before leaving today I walked down there to get some pictures.  For more information about Chris LeDoux and the park, you can read about it here.

After getting on the road, our first stop was in Casper to take on some fuel at $3.839 a gallon.  From there, we drove through a few towns that have obviously seen better days.

And a lot of the usual high country desert scenery.

We eventually got into the Wind River canyon area and the scenery improved.

We drove through a series of three tunnels.

We followed the Wind River through the canyon.

An older DeSota driving toward us.

While stopped in a construction zone, there were some beautiful home perched above the red bluffs.

We arrived in Thermopolis and were able to snag a couple of nights at the Eagle RV Park which was probably lucky as the Wyoming State H.O.G. (Harley Owner’s Group) is here for the weekend.  After lunch, we drove around town to look at the hot springs and bison area.

Yes…we know buffalo are dangerous…bison are dangerous too.

This group does appear to be pretty laid back.

There are also dinosaurs in Thermopolis…we’ll find out more about them tomorrow.

Several people seem to be enjoying the hot springs.

A view of Thermopolis from up on the hill.

This was an informational sign about Tepee Fountain and how it’s evolved over several years.

Tepee Fountain.  We also found a similar fountain in town.

We returned to the RV for dinner and an evening doing our computer and tv thing.  That’s it for today!

7/10/2013–Kaycee, WY–The Outlaw Cave and The Hole in the Wall

Last night we decided along with Pete and Jo to head out this morning at about 10:30am to the area of the Outlaw Cave and The Hole in the Wall (of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid fame).  After our morning routine, we packed lunches, cameras and ourselves into Pete and Jo’s jeep and headed west of town.  I posted a few photos of the red bluffs yesterday and we were back into some more amazing country today.

We drove up this road for a ways and didn’t see the campground until we returned to the main road.  We saw some grown over electrical posts and that was all there was of it.

An old log cabin and it was for sale.

We continued on in our search for the Outlaw Cave.

We passed through the Hole in the Wall Ranch.

The remains of an old silo.

We finally arrived at the Outlaw Cave access area and campground.  We talked to a few people camping there to try to get some additional information and we pretty much decided to just look around, eat our lunch and continue on our way.  Like I said earlier…this is some spectacular country.

Pete and Jo posing behind their jeep.

This arrow to the Outlaw Cave is pointing down…about 1000 feet down…which means about 1000 feet up on the return trip…with the temperatures in the 90+ range it was a no go!

We believe this next photo is looking down at The Hole in the Wall.

We returned to Kaycee for a well deserved ice cream and the local grocery store.  Once that difficult task was completed, we took a self guided tour of the Hoofprints of the Past Museum.  After that I paid a quick visit to the Rusty Spur to pick up a Chris LeDoug “20 Greatest Hits” CD…rather than a worn out tape of Chris LeDoux…for those of you familiar with Garth Brook’s “Much Too Young (to feel this damn old)”.

There was quite a bit of memorabilia of the past at the museum…along with an old antique or two.

Okay…I’m not very good at keeping secrets, and I’m sure quite a few of you know that Dennis and Carol Hill have sold their Dutch Star and have ordered a new RV to be built to their specifications and it won’t be ready for a couple of months.  If you follow Dennis’ blog, you know he was recently in Kaycee for a rodeo before heading back to Maryland.  He’s being very secretive as to what he has on order, but I’ve decided to let his secret out of the bag.  So….you can see why it won’t be ready for a couple of months….enjoy your new RV, Dennis and Carol!

We’ve had a very enjoyable stay in Kaycee.  Our cell phone signal has been very less than desirable for phone calls, and our Millenicom jetpack MiFi has been working much slower than we would like, but the people in this town our fantastic.  Although it has a population of only a little over 250 people, there is a tremendous amount of history here and the people are doing a fantastic job of promoting it.  We’re leaving in the morning to continue toward Yellowstone National Park, but I’m sure we’ll be back here next year to look around some more.

7/9/2013–Kaycee, WY–Cattle Drive on Slip Road and TS Was Here

We received a call from Pete and Jo this morning that they would be arriving in Kaycee close to noon, so we did our morning thing as we waited for them to get here an get set up.  After a quick lunch, we all loaded into their jeep and headed west of town to the Slip Road where we were told there was a cattle drive going on for the next day or so of a herd of about 2300 cattle.

Here’s the start of Slip Road.

We drove up into a clearing and saw a herd of cattle looking to be all settled in so it looked like the drive was over.

We stopped for a while to talk with the cowboys (and girls) to find out they were just at a resting point until ready to move again.  We found out we were misinformed and that there were only about 350 cattle in this herd.  After a short break we decided to continue on the road to see what else we could see and there is definitely some beautiful country in this area.

What do ewe know…we found some sheep.

And and old ranch down in this draw that didn’t seem to be set up with any permanent homes, so maybe just a stop during the cattle and/or sheep drives.

We turned around and headed back the way we came an found the cattle drive continuing on up the road.

There were some beautiful red bluffs on our drive back to town.  We could see where the color in the Powder River comes from here.

We came across a spot along the road where people write their names in rocks.  Who would have known that TS had been here!

This photo just doesn’t look quite as nice as the real thing, but there is some really cool blue coloring in these rocks.

Although it’s been in the 90’s around here, the Bighorns still are capped with snow.

Back at the RV’s we enjoyed happy hour outside, but moved inside out of the wind for dinner.  We have another great trip planned for tomorrow.

7/8/2013–Kaycee, WY–Old Fort Reno and The Bozeman Trail

After lunch, we decided to head out on a road trip to see Old Fort Reno and The Bozeman Trail.  We drove approximately 20 miles east of Kaycee then took Lower Sussex Road about 8.5 miles north.  There’s basically nothing left of the fort, but there are informational signs and a monument at the former location of the fort.

Front of the monument.

And for easier reading…a close up photo.

The backside of the monument.

Informational sign about The Bozeman Trail.

We saw a few deer along the way.

and several antelope…this one was resting.

This one was trying to hide.

A doe leading her fawns away from us.

Three antelope enjoying what little shade they could find.

This big bull was trying to get away from the paparazzi.

A young antelope resting at the side of the road.

The Powder River.

And we saw these sand hill cranes in a field as we neared town on our way back to the RV.

We still have a couple of sightseeing trips planned for this area before we continue toward Yellowstone National Park.

Cheyenne in the Rear View Mirror

Our last week in Cheyenne kept us busy.  Ken made a return visit to Skip for his final synthetic rooster comb knee injection.  We made a few modifications to things in and outside the RV to ready ourselves for travel.  We awaited our forwarded mail patiently…not.  The USPS is sadly lacking in it’s tracking service.  We made a trip to the post office on Friday to see if we could find out what was happening since there had been no updates other than leaving Denver on 7/4.  Anyway we pretty much figured out that if we didn’t get the mail on Saturday, we would be there until Monday or Tuesday at the latest.  We had a very good dinner out with the kids on Friday night at the local Olive Garden.

Saturday morning, I kept a vigil on usps.com for the status of our mail and with no updates, I went into the house to report that they may be stuck with us for a while.  Peggy went out to check the mail and I was amazed that she returned with our missing package.  We didn’t waste any time getting ready to hit the road (I did wake Ken from his nap), and we were ready to go before noon.  We said our goodbyes and were on I-25 north shortly before noon.

Our first stop was the rest area at Chugwater, WY for the dump station followed by lunch.  Knowing he location of the two-way dump station, we took the second entrance into the rest area only to find that three (3) trucks hauling 5th wheel trailers parked to the left side of the dump station to take a lunch break effectively blocking our entrance to the right side of the dump station.  Ken says I should have got a photo beforehand, but at after talking with them, the first one moved allowing us to move in and dump our tanks.  After dumping the tanks, Ken had to ask the last one to move ahead to allow us room to move out.  With that task completed, we found an empty RV parking area for our lunch break

We had every intention of stopping at Casper for the night, but as we approached Douglas, we decided to check out the state fairgrounds as an alternative.  That idea worked out great.

Here’s our parking spot and Ken is out making adjustments to the Wilson cellular antenna which had fallen from it’s mount.

On Sunday 7/7 we headed north to Kaycee, WY and spotted some antelope along the way.

We arrived at the Powder River Campground in Kaycee, WY which is a Passport America for $15 a night for up to 4 nights.  We decided to go with the 4 night option so here we are.  The Verizon cell phone signal is pretty bad and our Verizon internet is not that much better, but we’ll make the best of it.  We’ve got some day trips planned and will report on them later.