Go West! Part 5

Following our Utah stay, our next stop was Curt Gowdy State Park in Wyoming, and our first ever "rustic" (no water or electricity) camping experience.

Let's face it, I'm a proud "glamper." I like the camping experience, but I like it a whole lot more with the amenities of A/C or heat as needed, electricity, running water, kitchen amenities, and a flushing toilet. When we reserved the spot at Curt Gowdy SP, I knew I'd have battery power and propane for cooking, but I knew we wouldn't be able to run the A/C if it was a hot night! Luckily, the weather was fantastic, and we were able to sleep quite comfortably with the windows cracked open.

We chose a campsite that was a good distance from all the other sites and near the vault toilets (bleh! They were NOT as clean as the ones at Sibley Lake!)  The space around us was so lovely to have...nobody walking through our campsite, no noisy neighbors either. Nice!

See what I mean? I took a walk to see the sights while Andy rested next to the fire we had built. This pic is taken from the road in front of all the other campsites. Space, and lots of it.

We stocked up on firewood and ice from an on-site seller, who also let us fill our fresh water tank with a hose they had. This took away the worry that we might run out of water, so we really appreciated the kind people there. 

The park is truly wonderful. It has lots of walking/biking trails, gorgeous lake views, and lake access for water sports. We were only there overnight, so we didn't really take advantage of everything, but we did manage to walk on one of the trails for a bit.

Here are some sights from our walk:

If you look way in the background to the left of the rock, you'll see our camping setup!

Pretty lake!

Our cute selves with our cuter camper in the background.

We walked towards another campsite that had an R-Pod camper, hoping to meet its owners, but they weren't around. These campers are similar in shape to the T@B, but they're a bit bigger and heavier, and many include slide-outs too. We thought it would be fun to compare, but no luck.

When we got back to the campsite, we had a fellow camper come visit us! She saw our little rig when she went to the bathroom, and really wanted to see what it had. We had fun giving her a tour and watching her delight when she saw the full bathroom facilities inside. This might be one of my favorite things about owning such an adorable, well planned camper. :)

As I stated above, it turned out to be a very beautiful night. We cooked and enjoyed the fire and sunset. We even budgeted some battery life to play some music late into the evening, since we were so separated from other campers. What a lovely experience!

It was really pretty in person...the gold in the sky matched the gold of the B@R T@B!

Camping is most fun when there's a campfire to enjoy.

We packed up again in the morning (I don't think we ever even unhooked the car!) to head to Kearney, Nebraska, our final stop before returning home. Guess that will be Part 6 of our Go West! series. :)

Happy camping!

Peggy

Go West! Part 4

It was time to go our separate ways. Andy and I were headed to Utah, Kathy and Jeff to Montana. We each chose a different route to get home as we had different schedules to keep, so we said our goodbyes in Idaho, and headed out.

One of the reasons I was excited about Utah was that our campsite was about 40 minutes away from some friends in Salt Lake City area. We agreed to meet for dinner in Park City, and if we all felt like it, they'd come back to camp with us and meet the camper.

Driving into Jordanelle State Park was spectacular! I have decided I'm a sucker for mountains and lakes in the same view. Jordanelle was wonderful.

Our cute little B@R T@B nestled in its spot. Lots of space, beautiful trees and scenery, and a quick walk down to the lake. Aaaaahhhh...

Little things excite me, like getting to add a new state sticker to our camper for camping in Utah!

Having only owned this thing about 6 weeks, we felt like we were doing pretty good on state visits!

Did I mention mountain views?

Yeah, we got those!

We met up with pals Candice and Shaun and their two lovely boys, and they were so excited about meeting the camper, they came back with us to the site!

I now know our camper is kid tested and approved! They loved it. The two little guys hopped right on in with me, and looked at every nook and cranny they could find, and they were fascinated that something was stored everywhere! LOL! I think in their kid-like way they were appreciating that everything had a purpose and there was such a good use of space without making you feel cramped!

Happy bunch!

El even brought his guitar and played some songs for us. Hands down, one of my favorite nights ever.

Once again, as this was a stopover trip on our way to a destination, we only got to stay the one night. This campground is absolutely on my list to make a destination in the future. There are so many things to go do and see in the park, and we didn't even begin to touch on them. 

Happy Camping!

Peggy

Yellowstone!

This will be a relatively short post, and will mostly include pics of us in Yellowstone National Park.

These pools were beautiful. Vibrant blue, and horribly smelly. :)

Kathy and Jeff in front of the same stinky pool.

Yellowstone was rather crowded, though not as crowded as I expected. I liked how easily we could navigate to different sights we wanted to explore, but parking was pretty much a nightmare everywhere. Once we were parked though, we could easily walk on boardwalks and paths to see what we wanted, and for the two of us in the group that are less sporty, it was appreciated!

Random geyser spewing makes for a good selfie!

Our next stop was none other than Old Faithful who proved to be somewhat less than faithful... It did finally erupt in a glorious hot water fountain, but it took a good 50 minutes longer than predicted. Many people who had gathered to wait had gotten up and left, but we stuck it out. We'd come this far, right?

We knew we were in the right place at least.

THAR SHE B-- WAIT! Is that a bear?! :)

Geyser selfie!

After witnessing history, we took a break for a picnic lunch we'd brought along. (Personally, I was hoping to have lunch with Yogi Bear and BooBoo, but they didn't seem to be anywhere near by...) We found a spot near the visitor center with some rocks and trees, so we ate in nature. We enjoyed the sunshine, warmth, good food, and company. After about an hour, we were cleaning up, and lo and behold...we watched Old Faithful erupt a second time! Heh. Back on schedule!

Next, we drove toward the north entrance to see Mammoth Hot Springs. Oh wow! Was that worth the trip!

Lots of massive sulfur fields, and hot springs all throughout. This was a little more difficult to navigate. The boardwalk was fairly steep, and included many, many stairs. Andy and Kathy decided they wanted to go all the way to to the top. Jeff decided he was fine at the bottom, and I ended up on my own somewhere in between. I enjoyed the time to myself as I took in the scenery, and of course, chatted with my fellow tourists. I took pics for people, and even managed to find some fellow Iowans, from Okoboji area! That was a hoot! When I told them I was from Emmetsburg they said, "Oh! I think we met your husband and friend up there somewhere." We are a social bunch, aren't we?

We were pretty tuckered by this time, so we left and decided to go back to camp.

The next day, Andy and Kathy went hiking in the Tetons, while Jeff and I went to West Yellowstone, MT to take in the touristy side. We met back up in the evening back at camp, and watched a movie as it was too cold and windy to enjoy outside time. (FYI, you CAN get 4 people on the T@B bed!)

Our final day in camp, we all went back into West Yellowstone to shop for souvenirs. My favorite part of the day was finding a million yellow things we could put in the camper:

Seriously. A whole section of yellow Yellowstone stuff! 

My other favorite part happened to be a bench we found to wait for members of the group:

Retro campers RULE!

Finally, after all the hype about bears, I did have a close call with one. I even managed a pic:

Dudes. I'm lucky to have gotten out alive. Look how he almost grabbed me!

That's all for Yellowstone! What a fabulous experience, and so glad we were able to go with friends. In my next post, I'll take you to Jordanelle State Park in Utah, where we will definitely, DEFINITELY get back to some day...

Happy Camping!

Peggy

Go West! Part 3

On our way to Yellowstone!

Yellowstone was our ultimate goal when we first started our trip. While we were enjoying the sights along the way, it was exciting to realize that we were about to arrive at our destination, and we'd get to stay for four whole days!

We saw some cool spots and pretty scenery along the way.

I don't know why, but I'm fascinated by tunnels in mountainsides. I think they're cool. :)

We drove through Yellowstone to get to our campsite in Idaho. It was a nice way to view the park before deciding which parts we wanted to really explore more the next day.

These are the trees that had been burned out by the previous year's wildfires. There was quite a bit of damage over large sections of the park, and it made me a little sad.

This moose was wandering down the road as we drove by. Sure brought traffic to a halt!

We decided to keep driving through, to Henry's Lake Campground in Idaho. We thought it might be a good idea to get to our sites, get set up, spend the evening relaxing and planning our days in the park.

Henry's Lake did not disappoint! The only drawback was absolutely no trees for shade, and unfortunately we had an extremely windy week, but wait til you see the views!

Here was our sweet little B@R T@B and its proximity to the lake. The campground was quite empty, likely due to the extremely windy weather, but we enjoyed the space and peacefulness of a less than full campground. Our spot was next to the campground host, Charles, who was fantastic. He kept us informed of closures, wildfires, and gave us good info for activities and photo ops. He spent quite a bit of time with us as there wasn't much going on, and we enjoyed his company.

Isn't it lovely? I walked down to the lake several times during our stay because I couldn't get enough of that view! Kathy and I strolled down with some happy hour beverages and explored the campground a bit. We were pleasantly surprised by clean, modern bathroom and shower, very close to our sites, and at host Charles's suggestion, we took leftover firewood from a few sites that had left them behind. This gave us enough to last the week, so we appreciated his offer!

We did have one day that the wind died down enough that we could set up a complete campsite. Take a look:

Here's our setup! The awning is one we ordered from teardropshop.com, and is made to fit the T@B specifically. The yellow doesn't quite match the B@R T@B, which is a little bit of a bummer, but the additional shade will come in useful!

Notice Fred and Lucy, our flamingos, greeting visitors to our campsite. :)

Jeff and Kathy had quite the display too!

The little flower catches the wind and twirls! How sweet! We had these up for about 2 hours before the wind picked up again and we took it all down. At least we got them out for a little bit!

Kathy and I managed to even dress alike, so we made sure to grab a couple pics in front of each camper.

Sporting our "Happy Camper" tshirts from Life Is Good. Pretty much a wardrobe necessity. :)

Jeff even managed to get comfy and relax:

Chilly, but comfortable.

Andy was here too, honest!

I'll leave you with a final sunset pic, taken from inside the camper.

As usual, the pic doesn't do it justice. This was amazing.

In my next post, I'll show you pics from our day trip into Yellowstone!

Happy Camping!

Peggy

Go West! Part 2

If you thought we "squoze" a lot into Day 1, just wait til you see what we did Day 2!

We were rather overambitious with our Day 2 itinerary. Before we could even leave The Badlands, we took time for an early hike up one of the nearby rock formations:

I think the photos speak for themselves. It was a great start to the day, and got us a bit of exercise. From here, we drove the scenic route, which I highly recommend, over to Mount Rushmore!

Yep. Those are the guys!

State flags line the walkway to the scenic overlook.

The best selfie we managed. Don't know who the guy is behind Andy, but we hope he had fun. :)

Is that him again? Hmmm....

Photobomber replaced by my water bottle. :)

Andy and I had just visited Mount Rushmore the year before, but it was fun travelling with Jeff and Kathy and the two cute campers!

Our attempt at a photo op with the campers and the faces:

Well, we tried anyway...

No time to waste. It's off to Devil's Tower! (Cue Close Encounters soundtrack music...)

Scenic overlook before Devil's Tower. Both campers, Devil's Tower, and...Andy?...all in one pic.

Though the trip was getting long, we at least had lots of sights to look forward to seeing. We stopped briefly for a photo op and break here before continuing to the park. 

The line to get in was slow-moving, but that's ok. Like any good tourist, I took the opportunity to hop out of the car and get a pic of both the Scamp and B@R T@B heading in to the park entrance! Love the sign and the tower with the two tiny campers. :)

Parking was surprisingly easy. We were told the RV parking area was full, and to go to a drop off point to leave the two campers, unhitch one vehicle, and drive it with all four of us, up to the visitor parking. Yeah... no.

As we drove up, we noticed several (like, a dozen or more) large RVs leaving. We reasoned they left perfectly good parking spots at the top. We were correct!

It was probably easy for us as we both had tiny rigs, but here we are, parked in the RV area, with an awesome view of the tower!

We filled our water bottles, emptied our bladders, and began the easy walk around the tower.

Jeff walked part way with us, then due to stupid painful plantar fasciitis, decided to wait while the other three of us did about a 15 minute walk, only partway around the tower, before turning back. Once again, worth it! Got some great pics and even learned some stuff!

Kathy, on the rocks.

Me, in front of the rocks, still on the path, because rules. :)

Andy and Kathy "climbing."

Only the best pic ever taken by anyone, anywhere! 💖

My teaching skills these days. Take a pic of the explanation, tell readers to zoom in to read. :)

After a brief stop at the visitors' center and gift shop, we took off for Sibley Lake Campground in Wyoming.

This was what I'd call an "uphill drive." Kathy and I had selected and reserved this campground months ago, as geographically, it put us 1/2 way between Devil's Tower and our campground outside of Yellowstone, Henry's Lake. What we didn't realize at the time of booking, Sibley Lake is located at the top of a mountain! All was well, except for one little oxygen sensor that went out on our Escape. It just meant a lot of stopping so we didn't overheat as we pulled the suddenly somewhat heavier T@b up the mountain side.

Yeah...we started aaaaaaalll the way down there!

The more we climbed, the cooler it got! We watched as the outside temp continued to DROP!

The campground itself was rustic. We had an electric hookup, but no running water. Andy filled our freshwater tank with water from a spigot, and we used it for showers and cooking. As far as the bathroom goes, we were actually pretty close to what might have been the cleanest vault toilets I'd ever seen! The campground hosts told us they clean them about 3x a day. Their efforts were much appreciated.

I loved the campsite we had. Unfortunately, we weren't close to Jeff and Kathy, but we made the best of it. The sites were spectacular! Lots of mature trees and personal space!

I took these pics before it got too late in the evening to have any light, then went in the camper to change to something warmer while Kathy and Jeff set up their site, and Andy chatted with the campground hosts. When I came out of the camper to get a fire going, my neighbor reported to me that I had just missed the elk walking through the back of my campsite. BUMMER!

Since we arrived so late, we did a quick meal and had a couple of drinks around the campfire before bed. We all wished we could have spent more time here, because we didn't know ahead of time what a treasure this place was. We decided to wake up early the next morning and do a little exploring before heading to Yellowstone.

Not a bad view to wake up to, huh?

Kathy and I decided to take a walk down to the actual lake we hadn't had time to see yet. The hosts gave us good directions, and in about four minutes, we made it to the lake. The walk there was downhill, tree lined, and so pretty.

Such an easy trip!

Once I had phone service again (as it didn't work anywhere around the campground), I posted this pic to my Facebook page. My brother commented that he swears he could see a bear watching us, so I looked a little closer and found this:

OMG! A BEAR!

Heh. Now that we found this friendly fella, he would be appearing in more of our trip photos... 

Anyway, the lake was clear, calm, and wonderful! Take a look:

We were the only people there, which was a welcome surprise. We found out later that often the elk are there bathing in the morning hours, and we were bummed they weren't there with us.

Still, we walked along the boardwalk and enjoyed the scenery and solitude.

Lakeside selfie!

This is my second favorite pic from this trip. Serene.

I snuck in a little of Day 3 here, because I wanted to share the whole experience at Sibley Lake before tackling the next post...Jellystone! I mean...Yellowstone! Part 3 gets us to Yellowstone National Park, and our campsite at Henry's Lake, ID.

Happy Camping!

Peggy