<\/a>Hit the low 40s last night, my heat actually came on! I’ll bet that’s quite a bit colder than many of my hundreds of neighbors here at Gros Ventre<\/strong> were prepared for in mid-July. It’s gloomy and spitting occasional rain showers this morning. The neighbors I can see out the window look kind of bedraggled.<\/p>\n Grumble… That was a half hour time investment for ten minutes of Visitor’s Center. It’s a such a long walk from the huge parking lot and the person in front of me leaving went into some kind of fugue state at the “T”, neither left nor right, just sitting … forever … Like I way, not user-friendly.<\/p>\n The drive out of Tetons on US xx is very pretty. Tetons on your left for awhile, then the road heads east and they’re gone. There is a stretch along a beautiful high meadow meadow complete with river. Eventually the vegetation starts thinning out and you are making your way to\u00a0Togutee Pass<\/strong>, elev 9660′, The area wide storm front is\u00a0snow flurries up here!\u00a0 38\u00b0 sez the van thermometer\u00a0– a few more degrees and I could be in some real weather drama!<\/p>\n Down to the flatlands at 6000′, where the valley widened out into beautiful red rock buttes, then prosperous farming country.<\/p>\n Dubois<\/strong>, where all the good places were closed on Monday, leaving me at an un-good place, whose food is not sitting well at all afterwards.<\/p>\n WHUFU page for: Lower Wind River Campground<\/a><\/b><\/p> \n Boysen State Park takes up much of the land around Boysen Reservoir and the river creating it. There are many campgrounds spaced far apart. This is the second or third on the river instead of the lake, and the last one heading towards Thermopolis, right on the edge of the Indian Reservation, where the fishing rules change. \r<\/p>\n \r<\/p>\n Nice shady cottonwoods to hang out under. US 20 is too close and tonight there are way too many bugs.<\/p>\n<\/p> <\/p>tonight<\/b>: \n Boysen State Park takes up much of the land around Boysen Reservoir and the river creating it. There are many campgrounds spaced far apart. This is the second or third on the river instead of the lake, and the last one heading towards Thermopolis, right on the edge of the Indian Reservation, where the fishing rules change. \r<\/p>\n \r<\/p>\n Nice shady cottonwoods to hang out under. US 20 is too close and tonight there are way too many bugs.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div> I’ve picked my spot, but since there choices I am doing\u00a0the usual second guessing – would a spot at Upper Wind River Campground<\/strong>\u00a0have been cooler than my spot at Lower Wind River<\/strong>?<\/p>\n it\u00a0is pretty sweet here actualy. I talked to a nice couple as I was exploring the edge of the river, and turns out they were locals that had camped up at Togutee Pass last night, and the snow and wind and general unpleasantness had driven them down here.<\/p>\n Bugs, bugs, bugs everywhere! They are not mosquitoes, so they are not totally driving me inside. It’s those little stupid mothy creatures that fly around\u00a0lights and sit in the lee of the wind\u00a0and all mill around\u00a0at once when you invade their space. A whole battalion of those little fucks set up housekeeping\u00a0in the van last evening when I left the door open while I sat at the picnic table and blogged. They aren’t mosquitoes, so what could go wrong? Like the plague of flies I got back in 2013 in Idaho. Anyway … the heat of the sun woke me up, but when I finally opened the door, under the cottonwood trees, facing the Bighorn River, it was super-pleasantly cool again … with all my little moth friends inside now able to co-mingle their colleagues\u00a0outside.<\/p>\n The Wind River\u00a0Canyon<\/strong>\u00a0is just awesome.But it’s steep and narrow and there aren’t enough pull offs to enjoy it well, and besides you’re sharing it with\u00a0a busy federal highway blasting up the middle of it. It does not good to pull over and let a line of trucks pass you because there’s another line behind you on a couple of minutes.<\/p>\n Thermopolis<\/strong> was just fucking awesome. A forty minute drive from last night’s home. For the second time on this trip my phone went into a zone where it said “No Service” in the middle of a town, where I had to reboot the whole damn iOS to make it notice it has reception.<\/p>\n WHUFU page for: Tepee Springs<\/a><\/b><\/p> \n Wonderful private facility inside Hot Springs State Park. See also Thermopolis Hot Springs, for the free facility a few yards away.\r<\/p>\n \r<\/p>\n This had pretty much everything - an indoor water slide, an outdoor water slide, big pools in and out, basketball hoops in and out, very hot tubs, medium hot tubs, and my most favorite things, hot waterfalls. \r<\/p>\n \r<\/p>\n The one inside was done up scenically as their centerpiece decoration but you could still get under it. The one outside didn't try to be fancy, it was just PCV pipe dropping a stream mineral water from 8' up. Just perfect.<\/p>\n<\/p> <\/p>tonight<\/b>: \n Wonderful private facility inside Hot Springs State Park. See also Thermopolis Hot Springs, for the free facility a few yards away.\r<\/p>\n \r<\/p>\n This had pretty much everything - an indoor water slide, an outdoor water slide, big pools in and out, basketball hoops in and out, very hot tubs, medium hot tubs, and my most favorite things, hot waterfalls. \r<\/p>\n \r<\/p>\n The one inside was done up scenically as their centerpiece decoration but you could still get under it. The one outside didn't try to be fancy, it was just PCV pipe dropping a stream mineral water from 8' up. Just perfect.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n WHUFU page for: Thermopolis Hot Springs<\/a><\/b><\/p> \n Funny little place. It is mandated to be free by some old treaty or contract.\r<\/p>\n \r<\/p>\n There is an inside pool and an outside pool, and you can go to one or the other, and supposedly you have a 20 minute limit, but nobody was checking.\r<\/p>\n \r<\/p>\n I chose the outside pool,and it was really pleasant. Nice shade structure. It's very close to Tepee, so I didn't dry or change, I just soaked for a while, thanked to nice lady and flip-flopped 60 yards back to Tepee.<\/p>\n<\/p> <\/p>tonight<\/b>: \n Funny little place. It is mandated to be free by some old treaty or contract.\r<\/p>\n \r<\/p>\n There is an inside pool and an outside pool, and you can go to one or the other, and supposedly you have a 20 minute limit, but nobody was checking.\r<\/p>\n \r<\/p>\n I chose the outside pool,and it was really pleasant. Nice shade structure. It's very close to Tepee, so I didn't dry or change, I just soaked for a while, thanked to nice lady and flip-flopped 60 yards back to Tepee.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div> After all that hard core relaxing I was so ready to find my spot and get the party started. Even as I was daydreaming about cracking that first beer (I think pulled a Celebration Ale out of the archives :) I parked at\u00a0the Worland<\/strong> McD’s and got myself\u00a0a fish sando and a Big Mac to go. My desitination campground is so close that they should still be warm when I get there – yum! :)<\/p>\n WHUFU page for: Leigh Creek Campground<\/a><\/b><\/p> \n I got lucky, snagged the last site on a Tuesday in high season. Bustling little Ten Sleep Creek is 30' sideways and 14' down from my picnic table. It's very noisy, which is so great after living with the sound of semi-trailer trucks on the lonesome highway so many nights.<\/p>\n<\/p> <\/p>tonight<\/b>: \n I got lucky, snagged the last site on a Tuesday in high season. Bustling little Ten Sleep Creek is 30' sideways and 14' down from my picnic table. It's very noisy, which is so great after living with the sound of semi-trailer trucks on the lonesome highway so many nights.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div> Leigh Creek<\/strong> was the first campground and my karma roll continued, as I snagged the last open spot. Oddly, I saw almost no people either that evening or in the morning. After sunset in a bunch, cars for all the sites beyond me piled into the campground. Kids with their headlamps milled around for awhile and trooped back and forth to the bathroom … and they were all gone again in the morning. Working? Rock climbing somewhere? \u00a0Who knows.<\/p>\n Did a bit of a moonlight hike up the road … wish I went farther.<\/p>\n Lovely morning, the creek busy outside. On the way out I drove a bit up the road I walked last night, and right around the bend was a very cool looking Wyoming State Fish Hatchery. Old wooden buildings, trees and grass, not like the ginat factoris I’ve seen in California. I wish I’d pressed on another quarter mile to see it in the moonlight last night.<\/p>\n Today’s civilization is Buffalo WY<\/strong>. As civilization goes it was a mixed bag. \u00a0The coffee place looked nice enough, but I got a very\u00a0cranky barrista. Not sure what her problem was, but I’m sure it ain’t good for business. My wifi needs weren’t fulfilled, so onward to the\u00a0Public Library for a very pleasant hour or so. Finally sandwich shop for dinner to go. Then get the heck out of here. The sandwich was unusually good it turns out! So the scorecard for Buffalo WY is two\u00a0out of three experiences rated\u00a0satisfactory!<\/p>\n A little more than 100 miles of as deserted and featureless an interstate as you could hope to find. There are worse things, for instance deserted is waaay better than crowded.<\/p>\n WHUFU page for: Arch Rock Campground<\/a><\/b><\/p> \n Keyhole State Park covers quite an extensive corner of the Keyhole Reservoir, and there are 6-ish separate campgrounds. \r<\/p>\n \r<\/p>\n The main road is paved, but the campground roads are gravel, leading me to deduce that the bigger the loop, the more gravel dust will cover you as the diesel trucks go round and round. So I am at Arch Rock Campground, the first loop and one of the smallest. Also, no boat ramp means fewer trucks.<\/p>\n<\/p> <\/p>tonight<\/b>: \n Keyhole State Park covers quite an extensive corner of the Keyhole Reservoir, and there are 6-ish separate campgrounds. \r<\/p>\n \r<\/p>\n The main road is paved, but the campground roads are gravel, leading me to deduce that the bigger the loop, the more gravel dust will cover you as the diesel trucks go round and round. So I am at Arch Rock Campground, the first loop and one of the smallest. Also, no boat ramp means fewer trucks.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div> Back to trying to comprehend the rules of the various state park systems. It’s pretty late in the day, so the state employes aren’t manning the gate, so the idea is that I am going to drop $17 down the “iron ranger” (lovely term) without seeing the campground. Nuts to that! I cruise three different campgrounds an end up back at one of the first places I drove past. It’s away from people, has an open feeling, and most importantly has less of the awful dust of the place, endless diesel pickups cruise endless around the dusty, dry gravel roads of the campground loops. \u00a0Even so, when I picked my laptop up it had a thin layer of new dust on it.<\/p>\n I picked well, not much traffic, and anyway I was gone from sunset to an hour afterwards doing an excellent moonlight hike along the roads and bikepaths of the park.<\/p>\n As described last night, I did not pay at the gate when I entered this park. Nor did I drive the two miles back last night just to pay after I had found my spot. I wrote the check for $17, filled out the required\u00a0State of Wyoming paperwork and stuck it on my windshield in case they came by. They didn’t.<\/p>\n So now it’s time to go, and I have an ethical dilemma. As I pass gatehouse, now manned during business hours, I drive slowly and look at them to see if they want to check\u00a0my receipt. That’s certainly how I would run the place. But they don’t, they are perfectly uninterested, so ,,,\u00a0I fail the ethics test! \u00a0I just keep driving. My weak rationalization is that I paid $17 at Boysen Reservior, and really $17 to simply park two nights is pretty good. I am pretty sure I didn’t even use the bathroom at either park.<\/p>\n I retrace my path back down to\u00a0I-90 and make my way into South Dakota<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The\u00a0Black Hills<\/strong> are overrated in my book. The roads are slow and crowded and the scenery is not near as spectacular as many places places I’ve been within the last week. Why did it seem like a good idea to come through here?<\/p>\n It does\u00a0feel eastern as opposed to western – small mountains, lots of grass and trees. \u00a0I know the Badlands are ahead of me and they definitely feel western, but what I’m doing right now feels like driving through Vermont on a busy weekend. I am pressing on to a particular campground I thought would be available, but I was able to muster the good sense to slow the f— down and see if this place had sites:<\/p>\n WHUFU page for: Sheridan Lake Campground<\/a><\/b><\/p> \n I am in Thumper Loop! \r<\/p>\n \r<\/p>\n A lovely, very well maintained large campground. The area is thick grass, but a wide area is mowed around each campsite. Very pleasant place to be out of the madness of Black Hills traffic.<\/p>\n<\/p> <\/p>tonight<\/b>: \n I am in Thumper Loop! \r<\/p>\n \r<\/p>\n A lovely, very well maintained large campground. The area is thick grass, but a wide area is mowed around each campsite. Very pleasant place to be out of the madness of Black Hills traffic.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n I’ve been on a run of nice evenings in nice places, but no\u00a0place was quite perfect – too windy, neighbors too close, too cramped, too dusty, too many bugs, too boring. Until this evening. Once I got past\u00a0the nicotine-reeking check-in dude I I fins myself\u00a0parked in a perfectly level spot. How often does THAT happen? A twenty\u00a0foot radius from\u00a0my picnic table is mowed, then there is thick, green meadow with young Ponderosa (?) pines all the way to my little glimpse of Sheridan Lake<\/strong>. Nearest campers are\u00a050 yards away and not home\u00a0anyway. As I mentioned above, NO wind – I spread all my maps and they just sit there! \u00a0I’ve been visited by maybe two gnats – no mosquitoes, no hordes of mothy things to pop up for days when I turn n the van lights. Low 70’s, high 60’s. I mean really, what else is there? Well phone bars would be nice, but then I would be distracted from all this wonderfulness. Great 3-ish mile moonlight hike. I was carrying two things – the map of the campground, and a beanie, and I managed to lose them BOTH. I also backtracked and found them both! The map was pretty easy, maybe 80′ of searching, but the beanie (my beige Carhartt beanie, a personal favorite) was all the way back up the highest hill I climbed, maybe 1\/3 mile and 300′ of backtracking. Two ways of looking at this: a monumental pain on the ass, OR … even more healthy exercise and a happy ending!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hit the low 40s last night, my heat actually came on! I’ll bet that’s quite a bit colder than many of my hundreds of neighbors here at Gros Ventre were prepared for in mid-July. It’s gloomy and spitting occasional rain … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-july-2016-nostalgia-tour"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpwhu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpwhu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpwhu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpwhu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpwhu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpwhu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpwhu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpwhu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpwhu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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