We've been busy, a big surprise, a nice visit, and one of the most disappointing campgrounds ever!

On our way to Casper after leaving Grand Lake, only a few miles out from the campground, we noticed a crew weed whacking on the left side of the divided highway, didn't give it much thought, but obviously were throwing some rocks onto the highway and when we were passed by a pickup truck, bang!  We caught a rock and dinged our windshield, yeah again.  

The campground we stayed at in Casper was the River's Edge, and other than poor directions to our site turned out very nice, large sites, and friendly folks.  We contacted our insurance company to get the windshield repaired, and realized we weren't going to be in too many big places for several weeks.  After a bit of back and forth, the morning we were leaving, only one night here, I found a company that said they could repair it that morning!  So we delayed our departure a bit, got the windshield repaired and were on our way to Sheridan soon after 1pm.  Nice easy drive there and pulled into Peter D's RV Park.  I am going to describe the park and our experience a little later in this post.  I will warn you and if you choose, you will be able to skip it:-)

The next day Jan and I went into town to look around, have lunch, and grocery shop before Jan's sister Karen and Tom were to arrive.  So on the way back, coming up the street we see a big motorhome on the end site, get closer and we both say, "It's a Newell!", and then OMG, it's Dave and Lingky, friends we met on the road a few years ago.  Now we share itineraries, and we knew they weren't supposed to be there...  We drove up, said hello, and we were both surprised to be at the same place at the same time!  

An unplanned reunion!

We had a nice visit with them and got a tour of their beautiful new coach, and then went to meet Karen and Tom who had just pulled in.  The next day we all went our separate ways.  Karen and Tom went to Custer's Battlefield and we headed west up the mountain on Rte 14.  There is a serious climb anywhere westbound from the Sheridan Buffalo area to get up on the mesa, about 4000'.  The drive was gorgeous and it also made us decide to that when we were headed westward with the motorhome to Cody, we would go farther south to Buffalo and then go on Rte 16 instead.

Part of the climb

We continued and completed a big loop on dirt, and were surprised to find we had been on the road before.  It goes up and over what looks like tundra and grass and it must be good for sheep because we came upon a huge herd being cared for by at least 5-8 dogs, and a sheepherder on horseback.

There were hundreds and hundreds of sheep!

Even out on the snow

This was one of the maybe 4-6 herding dogs

And this guy blocking the road was one of the 2-4 guard dogs
The sheepherder on horseback

We worked our way back and went out to dinner with Karen and Tom.  The next day we met for lunch, unfortunately Dave and Lingky were off hiking, and after lunch we each took off again.  This time I tried to go up an incredibly steep rough dirt road, FR 26 up the mountain, but chickened out, but we still got high enough for a great view.

The road
We even passed a couple of trucks pulling trailers down this same road!

View from where I turned around

Karen made dinner and we spent the next evening at their rig, and decided to get together for breakfast the next morning before we each went our own way in our coaches.  Dave and Lingky had already left, short but sweet visit.  So after a nice breakfast, Karen and Tom headed east to the Badlands, and we headed west to Cody.

Now I am going to talk about Peter D's campground, so if you're not interested skip to the next paragraph.  Jan and I have been doing this for over 25 years, and been full-timing now for 15, and of course we have experienced good and bad campgrounds, but we are very careful in our selection and usually do very well.  And perhaps we could just let this one go except for the fact that both Dave and Lingky, and Karen and Tom had bad experiences as well.  First of all we arrived and pulled in.  It is always tough to figure out exactly how far to pull into a campground, so you are still able to get to your site, some have signs, but not this one.  So I am sitting in the coach with the engine running, looking in the rear view mirror to be sure I am not blocking any one or keeping some one from coming in while Jan checks us in.  Now all of a sudden I see an old pickup come screaming around my right side so close I am sure he's going to hit me, then cut in across my nose, park and jump out and start wildly gesticulating and yelling to move up, move up!  So I do.  Jan comes out and we have already noticed that the sites are closer together than we have ever seen them, you can literally reach out and touch your neighbor, forget about awnings.  So we pull up the hill to get in our site, notice our neighbor come out and pull in his awning so we don't hit it, and we decide it is so tight we will unhook before we pull in.  So way on the left side of a two lane wide road we unhook, and shoehorn our way into our site.  Our truck is out of the way, but our first order of business is to get the electric plugged in as it is 95df outside.  While doing this the same pickup comes to a screaming halt behind us, he jumps out says oh no you have to pull forward, we say no, our electric cord won't reach if we're full forward, we'll just park our truck in front.  With that he says well then you better get it moved right now!  And oh by the way, I'm Peter D.  Well I am about to tell Peter D we are moving on, but then I consider with Karen and Tom coming this will really cause a mess, so I bite my tongue.  Flash forward, when we see Dave and Lingky, they are in a site which would have been far better than we have, but find out that only last minute arrivals get those sites.  They told us later about their experience which was even worse than ours.  Dave said when he plugged in and turned on his electric breaker he could feel it was very soft.  I should explain something here, in campgrounds breakers are turned on and off all the time, you plug in your cord with the breaker off, then flip it on, and before you unplug, you turn it back off.  Now most breakers are really not designed to do this, so over time they get "soft", they don't click firmly on.  Now all three of our coaches are big, 45', and consume a lot of power especially when the temps are in the 90's, so sure enough their breaker pops off, and won't reset.  It needs to cool down.  So Dave tells Peter D, he needs a new breaker installed, also a very common repair, and is told immediately that that breaker has worked flawlessly for 18 years, and there is something wrong with his coach!  Now I should inject their Newell is brand new, one of the very best coaches available today, hands down, and there is nothing wrong with their coach!  Peter says there is no way he's going to get an electrician in for $100 to replace a perfectly good breaker.  So Dave says, go buy the breaker and I'll put it in.  He says no way and gives Dave three choices, one stay on the site you're on and DO NOT touch the breaker, move to another site, or just LEAVE.   Then for Karen and Tom's experience, they were upset already as their site was even narrower than ours, you had to turn sideways to go between the picnic table and their coach, on either side, the neighbor had to do the same.  This is a case where Peter D was so greedy, he put in as many sites as he could possibly squeeze in to make another dollar.  So anyway, Karen has parked her truck behind her motorhome so that is okay, see that is another unwritten rule, you have to park behind.  So she goes to the grocery store, comes back, and backs her truck in behind her coach so as to unload the groceries on the same side, when all of a sudden Peter shows up, slaps her hood and opens her door to tell her what?  That she has to pull forward into her site, she can't back in!  Turn the truck around!  Can you believe this crap?  Okay, so I had to get this off my chest, especially since all three of us were treated rudely in a very below par campground.  I HIGHLY suggest not ever staying at this park.  Okay, enough, back to the blog.

So now we are in Cody, actually 15 miles west at Yellowstone Valley Inn, a pretty nice place, large sites, incredible views, but a bit pricey.  We're only here for 3 nights, and we want to do the Beartooth Pass and loop back around the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway.  Charles Kuralt named the Beartooth Highway, "the most beautiful drive in America", and we sure agree, if there is a more magnificent highway with better views please let us know.  It is amazing, it goes over Beartooth Pass at 10,947' and combined with Chief Joseph is a 165 mile loop, for us from Cody, a 215 mile round trip.  Absolutely worth it.  We highly recommend it, if you've never done this loop, put it on your list.  From here we headed north to Red Lodge, bought our Montana fishing licenses, and then stopped for a picnic by a gorgeous stream before we started climbing.

Our picnic view

So hold on, next are a bunch of photos trying to do justice to this drive.

Our Ram commercial:-)

Jan and I having a great time

Alpine lakes

A storm moving in at the pass

We even came across some mountain goats, still shedding their winter coats

This guy is all done, looking sleek

Beautiful lake almost at the end of the Beartooth part of the drive

Then we turned and came back the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway.

Found a great spot for coffee

The winding road

Dramatic scenery

It was an awesome day.  Had our happy hour when we got back and even got this reward.

Our view at the campground

So today is our last day here, and we decided to go up into Yellowstone National Park for a hike and a picnic.  This is the east entrance, one we have driven out of several times, but in all our probably 20 times visiting the park, we have never driven in the east entrance.  It is also very scenic and takes you to Yellowstone Lake.  We had done a nice 2.5 mile hike there many years ago and wanted to do it again.

Jan, a happy hiker

Along the lake

A resident marmot

After a delightful hike we went by the river for lunch.

Our lunch spot

So we bid farewell to YNP, and will tomorrow morning move into Montana where we will be for the next month or so.

Back on schedule!

After our very hectic time in Buena Vista and Taos, we made our way north through Leadville to Grand Lake, CO to the Winding River Resort.  It was a nice drive through beautiful scenery.  We had a few preconceived notions about Winding River, as we had called ahead to confirm they would accept mail or packages, we do that as a courtesy, and have never had a campground turn us down until now!  With that in mind, Jan checked us in, and we proceeded to our site.  Now I should say this is a huge resort/campground, horseback riding, rental cabins, ATV rentals, sites where you bring your own horse, and packed to the gills.  They embrace the rustic look, let me interpret that for you, there is no grass cutting, no definite delineation of sites in the tall weeds, er wildflowers, stumps everywhere, in fact they had a horrific beetle kill in this area, and just in the campground alone, they removed over 8000 trees!  The mountainsides are devastated.  Enough about that, oh yeah, we also had to move sites halfway through our stay. 

Otherwise, it is dark, quiet at night, and the views are spectacular, and the Colorado River runs right by the property as does the boundary of Rocky Mountain National Park.

First we wanted to drive into the park and scope things out.  We had been here a couple other times, and I had chickened out before reaching the top.  Well, this time too.  Once you pop out of the trees above the treeline, that is it for me.

This is the valley on the west side of the park where the Colorado River runs

I managed to get to here, but that was it for Billy-boy

We turned around and went to the Holzwarth Historic Ranch, founded in 1917 and hiked a nice short 1 1/2 miles to the old ranch and checked out the river on the way.  

The mighty Colorado near its headwaters

It's a gorgeous piece of water

One of the buildings at the original ranch 

And an outhouse you probably wouldn't want to use right now:-)

After we got back I convinced Jan to go by herself into the park the next day, it would be the only way she could see it all and get a bunch of pictures.  She reluctantly agreed and off she went the next morning.  Meanwhile I was able to switch sites and do a couple small projects to keep me out of trouble.

One of her first views

We didn't know baby elk had spots

Views from places I couldn't go

Awesome!

She made it all the way over to Estes Park and then turned around.

The highest point on the Trail Ridge road is over 11,000'.  

She even got to see a bunch of Big Horn sheep

And a cute chippy

She ended up having a great time, even without me if you can believe that.

We decided we needed to get some groceries, and the nearest place to do that is Granby about 15 miles away.  Of course we went out to lunch as well to the Maverick's Grill, supposedly famous for their green chili stew.  You have to remember out here everyone has the best green chili stew, like in New Mexico everyone has the best green chili cheeseburgers.  We weren't particularly hopeful but had to give it a try.  It was absolutely delicious!  Just the right spice, nice and thick and full of tender chunks of pork.  It was so good we need up buying 2 quarts of it to freeze.

It was awesome!

We chilled all Sunday morning and then decided to hike up along the Colorado River from the campground.  It was beautiful, peaceful, and quiet and we ended up doing about 3 1/2 miles, but the sky was threatening with thunder so we turned around.

What a view

Just gorgeous

Even shared the path with this deer

We then went back in the park the next day and hiked into Coyote Valley, also along the Colorado about 2 miles or so, this time really scoping out the river for fishing.  

Along the Coyote Valley path

It looked ideal, easy to wade, deep holes here and there, it really looked fishy.  So we decided on our last day, we would go fishing.  As we were getting ready to go in, we were met by a couple rangers, very nice, but wanted to see our licenses, and we chatted with them for awhile about the fishing.  They did not make us feel very confident.  They said that back when the ranch was there the guests would pull out a hundred trout a day!  But the overfishing and mismanagement by the park service really decimated the trout population in the upper Colorado.  They felt that it was slowly improving now that they were leaving it alone.  With that glowing report Jan and I hit the river.  It was absolutely beautiful wading along with the perfect scenery, casting our lines, and at least in our opinions, there are NO fish in the upper Colorado, no wonder we didn't see throngs of fishermen in this gorgeous water.  Oh well we still had a great time.

We have now just arrived in Casper, WY for an overnight on our way to Sheridan, WY tomorrow, and just got a nice surprise, Karen and Tom are meeting us there for the weekend!