June 9th

June 9^th

I love reading the history lessons that are posted in rest stops. They are fascinating snapshots of Americana. This rest stop is 25 miles from an area of Wyoming where remnants of the Oregon Trail are visible. There are actual ruts worn into the rocks at a place called Register Cliff!  Hundreds of people traveling the Trail carved their names into the cliff, as long ago as 1829. Many left messages for those still to come. Can you imagine what it was like? It is on the banks of the North Platte River and there is a warm springs nearby. Ft. Laramie is just a few miles further east. It is a National Historic site. There is a beautiful display of pictures of both areas.

Gas is $3.48 a gallon in Casper. That’s a good thing because we are getting 10 miles to the gallon. That is quite an improvement over our last motorhome, if you can believe it!

We stopped at another rest stop about 60 miles south of Buffalo. There the history lesson was about how this area of Wyoming was settled. You might think of the west as being about cowboys and Indians but it really was conflicts between the Indians and the army and the free range ranchers (cowboys) and the homesteaders. Each group left their mark on this country and wrote their own piece of history in the fights over it.

We are stopping in Buffalo for a few days to visit with friends we met here last year. We fell in love with the area and Crazy Woman Creek when we came to a bluegrass festival here to vend.  

Jimmy and Nadine live south of Buffalo on a beautiful property at the foothills of the Big Horn Mountains. We are going jeeping up into the mountains tomorrow. Hopefully the snow pack is melted enough so we can get to their mountain cabin. 

After we got here another storm moved in but this time we were rewarded with our 1st summer rainbow. 

North to Alaska!

June 8^th

At last we are on our way. It has been an adventure getting ready to go. Mostly because we bought a new motorhome about a month ago. It was very serendipidous how it all came about. We spent Jim’s recovery time parked at our daughter Alisha’s house and we had wireless internet. So Jim spent a lot of time looking at used RV sites during his recovery. We weren’t really serious about getting one this year but we liked to see what was out there and get an idea of how much we’d have to spend. Every time he found one he liked I said it was too expensive (we’d have to win the lottery) or it did not have any closets or enough kitchen space – my two absolute requirements.  We really had given up for this year and were looking for an RV service center to get some work done. Jim just happened to click (LOL) on the “previously owned” link and there it was, our new dream home. And the web site was current, meaning they hadn’t sold that unit a month ago (as we found out several times, to our disappointment). Long story short, we now have a 2005 Winnebago. It is 32’long with 1 slide out and only 20K miles! Absolute pristine condition and I have a closet! It has so much more room. And the best part is that Alisha and Billy bought ours, so we didn’t have to hassle with the “lookie lous” trying to sell it ourselves and we could take our time moving in and customizing it.

We left town today and headed north into Wyoming. Our plan is to visit as many hot springs and wineries as we can find and fish as much as we can from here to Puget Sound.  Then we will focus on fishing and diving there and in BC.  

We are spending the night in a really nice rest area just south of Wylie, WY. The rest areas in Wyoming are fantastic! Lots of RV parking, warm water in the bathrooms and many have RV dumps, too.

The view here is amazing, looking off to west across the prairie to the mountains. Lots of canyons and mesas, really incredible. Whoever said Wyoming is flat was crazy.Right now we are watching an awesome storm blow in.  The clouds are really black and evil looking and how it can move towards us against the wind is beyond me. Off to the west the rain is coming down in a solid wall with dark streaks running through it. Lots of lightening and here comes the hail! Have you ever wondered what it would sound like inside a popcorn popper? Welcome to my world! Wow!  

I won’t be able to post this until tomorrow as we have no internet out here in the wilds of Wyoming.