Hangin out in Bozeman, Montana

We are spending the week in Bozeman seeing relatives and the sites.  We have been unable to post due to no sprint coverage through most of Wyoming and all of Montana.

Casper to Sheridan July 4- 11th, 2013. Pictures Added

We had planned to find parking for a day in Kaycee and drive the jeep over to see the Outlaw caves and The Hole in the Wall, but weather was bad in that area, with flash flood warnings, so we just spent the night at the rest area in Kaycee and headed for Buffalo in the morning. We got into Buffalo and pulled into a truck stop and took the jeep for a drive.  We saw a ton of neat old houses but not much else.

Our next stop was a gravel parking area I read about on the internet.  The parking is right on the northern edge of Lake De Smet. It is one of those really great places to park.  It’s free and very dark and quiet at night. 

 

 

 From here we  took the jeep and went over to the Fetterman Massacre Monument. We walked along the ridge were the battle took place. 

 

 

It has information plaques all along the trail explaining what took place during the battle.  It was pretty interesting.  We also went to Fort Phil Kearney and to the memorial sight of the Battle at Wagon Box Corral.  We were both really surprised to see the name of 1^st Lieutenant John Jenness as one of the casualties. We were able to take a picture of the monument which has a picture of him.

  I will definitely be doing some genealogy research on him to see where he ties into Jim’s family.  Chances are good that he does tie in, as all of the Jenness’ families trace back to a Francis Jenness who came to New Hampshire in the 1600’s.

I mentioned that we are currently parked at the edge of a lake, it was so hot and muggy yesterday that we ended up going wading in the lake, and boy did that feel good.  Jim actually did some swimming while I was happy just to walk around waist deep in the water.  We had a heck of a rain storm go through shortly after we got done playing in the water.  The sky turned dark, the wind started blowing and the temperature dropped like a rock from 89 degrees to 59 degrees.  There was thunder and lightning and so much rain you couldn’t see the far end of the lake. It lasted about an hour and then the sun came back out.  My only regret in being here is we don’t have fishing licenses or fishing gear.  We have seen a lot of people fishing and some of them have caught some pretty good sized trout.  Jim talked to one fisherman that said they catch a lot of wall eye out of the lake. 


There was a storm one day complete with thunder, lightning and a downpour of rain.  We were lucky.  We heard that just over the hills from us they had gotten golf ball sized hail.  I can't imagine what that would have done to the MH.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Almost forgot to mention the wildlife.  Jim couldn't get a picture of all three but there was a doe and buck sharing the field one day with a pronghorn buck.

 

Casper Wyoming- July 1, 2, 2013

We spent the first day in Casper doing the fun and necessary things like laundry, shopping, and fueling up. We actually had our first stay at a Walmart parking lot.    The second day we took a drive around town, visited Fort Casper, and went out to dinner. I was surprised by the number of RVs that spent the night at Walmart. Both nights we stayed there were at least a dozen other RVs. Thanks Walmart!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wheatland to Casper June, 29-30, 2013

For this leg of the trip we again took to the back roads which lead us through Medicine Bow, past Shirley Basin and on up to Casper.  The town of Medicine Bow is very small but is the town on which the old TV show the Virginian is based.  The old hotel, The Virginian, has been refurbished and is still in operation today.

Fort Laramie June 28, 2013

We took off in the jeep this morning having decided we would travel the back roads from Wheatland to Fort Laramie.  The drive was much more interesting then it would have been driving over on the Hwy.  We were both surprised at the size of Fort Laramie. I’m not sure about Jim but I was expecting the TV version of a fort, surrounded by spiked poles.  This place was more like a small town, spread out with all sorts of buildings.  It had buildings for officers, barracks for the enlisted men, store houses, a jail, and even a bar.  All that remained of many of the buildings was the adobe shell.  The Bachelor Officer’s quarters, known as Bedlam has been restored and is the oldest standing building in Wyoming.

We spent four hours touring the area.  The only thing we did not take a close look at was the remains of a hotel that was built shortly after the fort was abandoned. It sat on a hill next to the fort, but unfortunately we ran out of time before the area was due to close for the night.  One of the plaques we saw at the fort was in memory of a horse that had carried his rider 236 miles, in sub zero weather,  in two days and upon arrival at the fort the horse had dropped dead from exhaustion. They made such a hurried ride to seek reinforcements for a battle being fought at Fort Phil Kearney, following the Fetterman Massacre.  

More moth Mayhem Thursday June 27th

I turned on the propane for the hot water heater this morning and it went on and off about three times so Jim went out to check it out.  When he came back in he informed me the entire compartment was full of crispy moths.  He cleaned them out and I’m happy to report no more problems with the water heater.

 

 

 

                                    

                                                   Cowboy and horse just inside Wyoming

 

We arrived in Wheatland about lunch time. Within minutes of our arriving we had visitors checking in with us to find out what was on the menu for lunch

 

                                      Lunch was sandwiches for us and plain bread for our visitors.
 

 

After lunch we took a ride through Wheatland (Jim was so impressed by the width of their streets that he had to have a picture.

 

 

We went out a country road past the Laramie River power plant and on to the Guernsey Reservoir .  I took a picture of the reservoir, but Jim said it was to blurry.  We had gone out to check on the camping there but decided it was nothing special.  Mostly dirt, scrub brush, and very little water in the reservoir.

 

That night we didn't even turn on any lights before going to bed so we weren't aware of the moths until about midnight when I got up and switched on the bathroom light. Immediately the mirror above the sink was covered in moths.  Having dealt with them myself the night before I woke Jim and made him help.  Just when he was getting the last one taken care of I wandered out into the living room and saw the windshield was just solid with the creepy little things.  I brought them to Jim's attention and told him there was no way we could possibly kill all of them unless we were planning to stay up the whole night.  I thought maybe we should open the door and turn on the porch light with the hopes of their flying out the door to the brighter light, but you know guys, They always think they have better ideas so Jim went and grabbed his mag light and said "this will attract them better then the porch light".  (Now I am sure he will love everyone knowing this next part, but you all have to envision the entire scenario.) He is standing in the living room in just his shorts and doesn't bother to wait to turn on the mag light.  I tried to tell him he didn't want to turn it on yet.  Anyway he flicks on the light and is immediately covered head to toe with moths.  Talk about someone doing a scared little girl dance.  I laughed so hard I cried. He now loves moths as much as I do and in fact pointed out to me, they aren't just fuzzy creeping little things but their beady little eyes glow yellow when the flashlight, light reflects in them.  As I write this I'm still laughing and he's still cussing me for laughing  about it so much.

 

A quick look at Nebraska- June 26, 2013

Before bed last night we took a look at the map and decided we were so close to Nebraska we might as well add it to our list of States we visited. So, we headed east on Hwy 14 towards Sidney, Nebraska.  We arrived in Sidney only to find the entire main street being dug up and no way to get the MH through town, so much for our visit to a town in Nebraska. What we saw of Nebraska, we saw from Interstate 80 as we made our way to Cheyenne, Wyoming.

 

Jim liked the water tower made to look like a coffee pot.

 

Having no plans made for our time in Wyoming we took advantage of a Rest area just on the edge of Cheyenne and did some internet searches for National Forest and BLM lands in Wyoming.  We didn’t find any National land close by, but we did locate a City Park in Wheatland that had RV spots with electricity for FREE for three day stays.

With plans made, we sat back to watch a little TV before bed.  I love Rest areas close to large towns as we can get TV reception and usually at least spotty internet reception. As the sun set we fired up the generator and turned on some lights and that is when the fun began!  Within minutes of turning on the lights we had at least two dozen moths fluttering around our heads and the light fixtures.  Zoe thought it was great fun, I did not!  I think my estimate of two dozen is pretty close because before bed I had done away with nine of them and Jim got rid of way more than I did.

Once we had that taken care of we breathed a sigh of relief and headed for bed.  Jim didn’t take long to fall asleep but I lay there for a while worrying about fuzzy little critters crawling on me in the night. I think I was just starting to drift off when I began to hear little fluttering wings and fuzzy bodies bumping into the bedroom window.  I sat up and sure enough there were five of the creepy things in the bedroom window.  I was so tired after battling them earlier that it took me just minutes to slaughter all five of them, Jim never even wiggled.

A glimpse of moth mayham Tuesday-June 25, 2013

Our third day there we took a walk around to outer edge of the park and ran into several moths and Jim remarked that they were probably what attracted the birds and was therefore the reason the park was part of a bird sanctuary.

That afternoon we opened the jeep doors and were greeted by a mass exit of moths.  We battled moths our entire trip to and from the towns of Alton, Greeley, and Eaton. Once we got back Jim decided he should check out other hiding areas in the MH to make sure moths weren’t nesting in places like the engine compartment, like they had been in the basement door.  He pounded on the engine compartment door and a few dozen moths fluttered out. Later after dinner we decided that he would bang around on the outside of the MH before we took off so the moths would clear out.  We even made a couple of wise cracks about driving down the road spreading moths behind the MH each time we hit bumps in the road.

We lazed around the Tuesday morning and didn’t head out until after noon. As planned, Jim banged on the side of the MH around the slideout before we pulled it in, and banged on the engine compartment before I started the engine and even went around banging on all the basement doors.  When he climbed into the MH he told me the most moths he found were under the boards our leveling jacks set on.

Big towns and back roads of Colorado – Monday, June 24, 2013

We got up the next morning and took a walk and then after lunch a drive.  We traveled through Briggsdale, which is a one street town with a small grocery and a post office.  Then we headed on a back road to Hereford.  Hereford has a bar and a bus stop.  On the way back from Hereford we swung by Grover which turned out to be the largest of the three. Grover had a school, a post office, a park and a building which proudly boasted a grocery, restaurant, laundromat, and realty company all in one. We went into the grocery to buy something cold to drink and I spotted a good looking steak to take home for dinner.  What we saw the most of on our drive around were abandon houses and oil drilling equipment,

 

 

When we got home I decided the best way to cook the stake was on the grill so I walked outside and bent down to open the basement door and a just as I pulled it open about fifty moths came swarming out brushing against my face and hair and I of course let out a scream and started jumping around brushing them away from me. Jim came out and had quite a laugh at my antics to get away from the little buggers and kept telling me I was acting like a scared little girl. 

Boondocking in the Pawnee Grasslands –Sunday, June 23, 2013

Sunday morning we headed east from Hwy 25 to check out the Pawnee National Grasslands. According to the internet there were a ton of roads that wandered through the grasslands and many of them had areas designated for boondocking.   It wasn’t long before we discovered that the boondocking areas marked on the map were not exactly places you could pull up with a motor home.  It was more a case of you better have a four wheel drive and a tent.  The only place to park would have been in a rather steep ditch or on the far side of the ditch and the only place to sleep would be in your vehicle or in a tent on the side of the road.  We did however have a nice long drive wandering along gravel roads all through the grasslands. It was pretty boring!

Here are the Grasslands.

Here is a close up of the grass lands

 

After traveling more than 75 miles at 25 miles per hour we ended up only 23 miles from where we had started.  When we pulled back onto Hwy 14 I noticed a national park camping sign so we thought what the heck and went to check it out.  We parked the MH at the entrance unhooked the jeep and went on into the park for a look around. The campground was picturesque, green grass, beautiful shade trees, and almost empty.  It was also right in our price range, $6.00 per night with Jim’s discount.  What could be more perfect after a slightly disappointing day?  We were soon to find out.

 

I noticed when we were getting parked and set up there seemed to be quite a few months fluttering around and even mentioned it to Jim. I have to admit they are not one of my favorite bugs as they always make me think of bats with their flapping wings, fuzzy little bodies, and beady little eyes. Ugh!!

We decided our budget would allow for us to spend three days in the park so we put down our leveling jacks, extended our slideout and started planning what we would do each day of our stay. 

All day long we had been watching thunder clouds build and then drift away.  We listened to the weather report and learned that there would be some heavy thunder storms to our east but we were not expected to have any in our immediate area.  About ten we headed for bed and I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.  About midnight we were both blasted awake by thunder and lightning.  We opened up the curtains and lay on the bed watching it for awhile, and then I got up and walked to the front of the MH and opened up the curtains and called to Jim to come and watch from the front. Lying in the bed we had been missing a lot.  The storm went on for 2 ½ hours and we sat up the entire time watching the lightning, most of which was lightning bolts going from cloud to cloud rather than from the clouds to the ground.  There were times that it actually looked like it was daylight. Jim tried and tried to get pictures and then just as the show was winding down he put the camera on video and did catch a couple of good shots but we haven’t  yet figured out how to get snap shots from the video, I remain optimistic that we will eventually figure it out.