Visiting with Pam and Ben

I'm a little behind here, so am doing some "ketchup" work as Roger would call it.

We have been pretty busy - visiting with friends in Denver and then with our daughter and son-in-law in Colorado Springs. Both days of travel (Wed and Thurs) were easy short days.  We avoided the interstate as much as possible and took US routes to stay away from traffic and road work in the Denver area.  It worked well and added only a little time to the drive.  

We are at the U.S. Air Force Academy FamCamp just outside of Colorado Springs.  The campground is big, has some weird sites (one of which we have) but is very well maintained - something the Air Force does best of all the services.  It sits in pine trees at the foot of a mountain right at the edge of the academy grounds.  We  have great WIFI!!!  It's hotter than we expected at 7,000 feet, but we are having cloud cover so the sun isn't baking us too much.   Our biggest issue with the place is that it is near some train tracks and they run all night long.  Of course there is a crossing not far from here so we get the horns blasting as well as the sound of the train.  I don't notice them so much during the day, but, wow, are they noisy at night. In addition to the trains, this RV park has mountain lions and bears.  We've been warned to not leave pets outside unattended as the aforementioned predators will make quick snacks out of our pet. 

Maggie decided to eat a pine cone yesterday.  We were up cleaning the remains off of our carpet all night! That's how we knew it was a pine cone. Unfortunately, Maggie needed to go outside to continue to relieve herself at 3:15 A.M.   Rog took her out and was nervous as hell he was going to come face-to-face with lion who would make him a main course meal and Maggie the dessert.  Needless to say, it took him quite a while to go back to sleep once he and the dog got safely back inside.

Pam and Ben are due over in about an hour for the evening. They are well - Pam is loving her new job at Colorado College in the library.  We get a tour on Sunday!   Tomorrow the Air Force is having a home football game and access to the FamCamp is restricted (we will have to figure out what we are going to do). They must get some big crowds for their football games.  We drove past the stadium this morning and they were setting up the parking areas in several large fields.  

We will be here until Tuesday.  We haven't yet decided where we are going from here.  Watch this space..........

Glad not to be lion food!!!

A Trip Into Town

Mary Ann taking a picture for the journal.

We spent several hours in Cheyenne, WY today playing tourist.  Most of the time was on a history tour on their "trolley."   It was 90 minutes long and should have been no more than 60!  Rog said he lost interest after 20 minutes.  The tour guide talked lots about local history involving local celebrities and spent a lot of time talking about Cheyenne Frontier Days, so our interest waned as the ride went on.  We did see some lovely old homes, the capital building, the old governor's mansion, museums and, of course, the rodeo grounds which were enormous!  It was 90 degrees and the bus had no A/C.  The tour guide handed us hand fans as we got on!  That's probably another reason it was way too long and a bit uncomfortable, but for $10 we learned some Wyoming and Cheyenne history.

This sculpture is in honor of the fact that Wyoming was the first to give women the vote many years before universal suffrage in the United States.  There were several sculptures of women around town celebrating the pioneer spirit and the important contributions made by women during the settling of the Western Frontier.

This boot is one of about 200 painted by various artists and groups (one was by middle schoolers) and are spread throughout the city. They have some interesting motifs. One has all the names of the governors.  Another, examples of license plates through the years. This one has the elusive (to us) pronghorn on the front and a big trout on the back.

I took this photo because the window was just so pretty.  It was on a building built in Cheyenne's early days that now houses a western museum.

We had a nice lunch in a small "health food" type place.  We asked the city information receptionist where we bought the tickets for the tour where we could find a good restaurant.  When we told her we were vegetarians she just shook her head.  Cheyenne is not a town that you will find a vegetarian restaurant or non-meat meals on the menus.  Cattle country, I guess!!  She was kind enough to direct us to where we were able to get a vegetarian lunch and then said "if we wanted a good vegetarian meal, we should go to Laramie!!!"

My theory about the dog and leaving her on non-travel days? Well, she debunked that theory today!  She managed to get her paws between the edge of the screen protector and the screen and tore a hole in the "pet" screen.  It now has duct tape covering the hole until we can find a way to cover the opening between the screen and the grate that's a little more classy than duct tape. This is becoming a source of frustration for Rog.

Tomorrow we are due in Aurora, CO, which is a suburb southeast of Denver.  We will be having dinner with an old friend and we are looking forward to it.  We haven't seen him in two years (since the last time we came through visiting our daughter).   

An Extremely Windy Day

The wind came up about 3am and the tree beside our RV on the bed side decided to disturb our sleep.  The branches were beating on the slide-out right over our head. At first we thought it was hard rain but it was only wind.  We were pokey this morning getting ready to go in hopes the wind would die down, but nope, it continued to blow like a Nor'easter.  So, do we stay or get on the road?  We decided to move on and hoped the wind would dissipate.  We had a tail wind for about an hour, but then a cross wind most of the rest of the afternoon.  About 20 miles north of Cheyenne (our destination) it abruptly stopped.  It was a hard day for Roger battling to keep the RV on the road (although he says he had experienced worse times) and I was dosed with the dog's dramamine!  Maggie was dosed with Valium so she didn't care!

No photos again today :-(   I really like using them, but we saw nothing to take a picture of.  It's so disappointing.  Although the scenery was greener than the yesterday's leg, it was just rolling hills for as far as you could see.  Some ranches, lots of cattle and horses, but yet again, no wild life.  

I have news for our fellow "Longmire" fans - there is no Absaroka County in Wyoming.  Nor, is there a Durant.  But, there is an Absaroka Wilderness area at the border of Montana and Wyoming and there is a town called Absarokee which is on the Crow reservation.  

We are in Cheyenne for two nights.  Tomorrow we are going to go into town, have some lunch, and do some sightseeing.  From the brochures it looks like it has potential for some fun.   I hope to have something to write about tomorrow as well as some photos.   

Does Casper WY Sit In Some Sort of Electronic Force Field?

Today has been a very strange day with our electronic devices. Batteries all of a sudden gone down to zero, my MacBook is doing funky things, and the electronic awning has decided to be stuck in the closed position (thank goodness it's not the extended position).  I did a diagnostic on the computer and it says my hard drive has corrupted files - this after it took 8 minutes to boot up and told me it was a "safe boot."  I've never seen that before.  Roger's phone works, then it doesn't, then it does again.  The only thing that seems to be normal is my iPhone and I don't want to jinx that by saying anything about it too loudly!  Maybe we are too close to Devil's Tower where the aliens landed in the movie "Close Encounters."  Maybe it wasn't fiction.  

Regarding the awning:  For those of you who aren't familiar with an RV and are thinking they must have bought a piece of junk since Roger is always fixing something.  Well, remember, as we go down the highway, the jostling and jiggling of the rig over the potholes, cattle guards, train tracks, and other assorted bumps in the road, is like a thousand little earthquakes happening each mile. Things get rattled loose.  Actually it's amazing that there aren't more issues to deal with each night than what we are seeing on this new rig.

Had lunch out then we restocked the fridge and pantry after finding the grocery store way the heck on the other side of town. This afternoon we did some more laundry while we relaxed. There was a couple in the laundry room from Reno. She was wearing her WolfPack shirt!!   Cloudy and windy today in the low-80s. 

I am now testing a theory on the dog's actions when we leave her alone in the RV.  It seems that if we go out on the same day as we drive (such as to get fuel) she has major separation anxiety. and misbehaves.  When we leave her like we did today  after being her one night, she is happy to see us when we get home, goes a bit crazy with her greeting,  but nothing is destroyed in the rig.  I'm going to start paying more attention to that.  If that's the case Roger is going to have to go get fuel all by himself :-)

Tomorrow we go south on I-25 to Cheyenne, WY.  We have two nights there and I really hope to do some sightseeing.  From what I can tell there are touristy things to do there.  So far we really aren't too impressed with central Wyoming, but maybe since it's the capital there will be fun things to do.

We Saw An Antelope Today!

Yes, you read that title right!  An antelope.  One.  Uno.  This despite the signs along the highway that clearly warned you about antelope.  In past trips through Wyoming we have always seen herds of pronghorns along the highway, so we are surprised and curious about why we aren't seeing any.  Oh, well. One is better than none.

We started late today as we had a short distance of 110 miles to go and couldn't get there before noon.  It was a short, but long boring drive up and down through central Wyoming grasslands with only the mountains to see which were in the distance and some mesas with some funky shaped stone outcroppings closer to the highway. The sage greens and browns became monochromatic as the trip progressed, but along the highway shoulder Black-eyed Susans abounded giving the only color to the landscape. They were very welcome!  We traveled under cloudy skies and the wind kept changing from a tail wind to a side wind and, then as we approached Casper, a head wind. There was little to no traffic on I-25 which was nice.  No truck traffic which is not normal and I imagine we will pick it up once we hit Cheyenne on Monday because it connects to I-80.  So, I have no photos today, which I always like to include in case the prose is boring maybe the photos won't be :-) 

Casper, WY.  As far as I can tell there isn't a whole lot to do here but historically it is important.  It sits on the Platte River and is on what was the California-Oregon Trail as well as the Pony Express route and the Mormon migration route.  If you are a hunter, fisher person, or major outdoors person (hiking, mountain climbing, etc.) Montana and Wyoming are the place to be.  For us old folk that don't do any of that it leaves only historical sites to visit and most have to do with exploration and the battles with the Native Americans (notably the Crow, Cheyenne and Blackfeet nations.) 

We are in another KOA (not many choices) tonight and it is on an open, flat plain north of Casper.  Sparse trees and gravel sites and near hurricane force winds which are, apparently, fairly common in this area.  OK, we can take this place off our list of places to live!! 

Tomorrow is restock day for the fridge with produce and rest for Roger.  Then we continue south to Cheyenne where we will spend two nights.  Maybe we will find something fun to do there. 

Glad we aren't at home!

We've been watching the news about the fires and smoke and glad we aren't there.  We did experience some smoke in Missoula from the Lolo Fire there.  Hope everyone at home is staying inside and isn't getting sick from the smoke.  

Cactus Spines Smart!!!

Our route today was from Big Timber, MT along I-90, south to Buffalo, WY.  We followed the Yellowstone River for a while then we came to the Big Horn River.  Most of the day we were in Crow Country (as the signs stated).  We had the Big Horn Mountains to the west of us as we drove up and down over the hills of southern Montana and northern Wyoming.  We passed the Little Big Horn Battlefield but didn't stop - we've been there before.  It was on a Memorial Day and it was quite sad, so we have no desire to return.  Wheat fields turned to cornfields, we saw petroleum refineries, lots and lots of ranches with horses and cattle.  We did see two eagles perched on a nest atop some power poles.  White heads on them made us think maybe they were bald eagles.  The only other four-legged wild creature we saw was a road kill deer :-(

At our lunch time rest stop I took Maggie out to the "pet area" which is scrub grass, stickers, etc.  Well, she managed to get through it fine, but I came out with a hunk of cactus about the size of a small plum stuck to the inside of my right leg above the ankle and below my pant leg.  Ouch!  Roger had to get his leather work gloves to be able to grab it and pull it out.  I then had to take the tweezers and pull out a couple spines that got stuck.  The rest of the day I REALLY watched where I was walking!

The last few days have been cooler - low 80s - but as we drove south today the temperatures rose!  Low 90s here in Buffalo when we arrived.  It's much cooler now as a massive thunderstorm just passed through and cooled us off.  

Last night we stayed in a private campground with no real amenities - although we did have a good wifi signal.  It was dark and quiet and we slept pretty well.  Tonight we are in a KOA where we have good cell signal but lousy wifi. What a difference in atmosphere, too.  Thank goodness for the sudden storm - it sent the group of cowboys and cowgirls that were partying next to us inside! The space between the RVs is small enough that they were sitting up next to our rig to keep out of the sun.  We did have the air conditioner running which fortunately drowned out the voices.   

Last Night's Campsite

Last Night's River 

Tonight's Campsite

Tonight's Creek

Tomorrow we have a short drive south to Casper, WY on I-25 where we will sit for two nights and hopefully have a day to explore the area and rest from the driving. 

Maggs did good today - a little glassy eyed, though!