We slept in this morning - it was almost 8:00 when we got up. The rain was over and we had blue skies with a temp of 43° and a great view of the Casper Mountains.
We did have a little rain and we were worried that we would have to get ready to leave in the rain, but it only lasted a few minutes. We left Fort Caspar Campground a few minutes before 10:00 and got back on to I-25 north. We saw this family of Canadian geese just as we were leaving the campground.
The skies were clear, but we had a strong cross wind about 30 - 40 mph. We secure a large beach towel over the windshield of the Vue to keep rocks from damaging it and we had to stop twice to fix it. The first time the towel came loose, we secured it again to the car. But it was only a few miles later that the towel came loose again and we took it off and placed it in the car.
We traveled through open range land and saw a few ranches, some antelope and horse ranches.
We stopped for lunch at a rest area at Kaycee, WY at 11:40 and then continued north on I-25.
Most of I-25 traveled east of the Bighorn Mountains which still had snow on them.
We ran into rain again just north of Buffalo, WY where we left I-25 and went north on I-90. We started out with a temp of 50°, but it dropped to the low 40's when we ran into the rain.
We stopped at an Exxon station in Sheridan to get gas in the RV. We got 49.25 gallons at $3.619 a gallon which came to $178.25 - yea, under $200!
Northern Wyoming and then into Montana changed from open range land with few trees to rolling grass lands and wooded areas.
We crossed into Montana at 2:20 and crossed the Little Bighorn River.
We got off I-90 at exit 514 and took Frontage Road back south to 7th Ranch RV Camp. We arrived here at 3:15. We will be here for 2 nights and are getting a 15% discount with our Escapees membership, so it's costing us $70 for both nights.
We are in site A-26 and it is reasonably level. We have full hook-ups (50 amp) and free Wi-fi. I'm using our Verizon service since the campground's Wi-fi signal is low. We tried using our rooftop satellite dish but the wind was blowing too much, so Mike set up our portable dish.
Tomorrow is supposed to be partly cloudy and no rain which is terrific since we're going to visit the Little Bighorn Battlefield.
It was foggy and 43° with a light misting rain when we got up this morning at 7:30. By the time we left Terry Bison Ranch it was still 43°, foggy and still misting rain. I was able to get a couple more photos of the entrance to Terry Bison Ranch this morning that I couldn't get yesterday.
We got back on to I-25 and headed north driving through a misting rain. We also saw electronic highway warning signs saying because of wet roads to turn off your cruise control - that was something we hadn't seen before.
We stopped at the Flying J on the southside of Cheyenne to get gas. I went in to get some coffee and they had chocolate chip cookies 2 for $2, so I got a couple of cookies. When I got back to the RV, Mike said in order to get gas, he had to enter our zip code but the buttons on the gas pump weren't working. We drove to the Valero station across I-25 to get gas. We got 27.48 gallons for $100.00 ($3.639 gal). The advertised price for regular was $3.539 a gallon, but that is for 85 octane and the RV takes 87 octane.
Once we left Cheyenne we drove through miles of prairie with only the occasional ranch and herd of cattle. We saw a lot of really tall snow fences as we drove along I-25.
This truck has 2 dog sleds on top and had several sled dogs.
We stopped at a rest area for lunch at 11:45 about 127 miles north of Cheyenne. Just as we pulled off the interstate, I saw a herd of llamas near the rest area and was able to get a couple of photos while we stopped for lunch.
We had a light rain all morning and the temperature stayed around 42° until about 12:45 when we reached Douglas, WY. Just before reaching Douglas, we saw this sculpture high above I-25 of a Jackalope.
The Oregon Trail, California Trail, Pony Express Trail and Mormon Pioneer Trail (Pioneer Trails Route) all passed through this area of Wyoming. There are so many historic sites in this area of Wyoming and we don't have time this trip to stop and visit them.
Mike decided to stop at the Flying J on the east side of Casper to top off the gas tank before heading to the campground. We followed the sign showing the RV entrance to Flying J, but there weren't any gas lanes we could pull in and out of. We got back on to I-25 and got off on exit 188B & followed the directions to the Fort Caspar Campground.
The campground is located behind the Fort Caspar Museum and I got a some photos of the reconstructed fort.
We arrived at the Fort Caspar Campground a little before 2:00. Mike went to the office to register (we already had a reservation) and the office was closed. He rang the bell by the door and in a few minutes a young lady came to the office to check us in.
We are in site F-80 which is a pull-through and with full hook-ups (50 amp). We also have cable TV, but the number of channels is limited. We will be here just for tonight and with our Passport America membership the site is costing us $20.25.
Not too long after we pulled into our site, a Bounder motorhome towing a trailer pulled into the site next to us. They are here in Casper for the Oil Capitol Auto Club 11th Annual “Memorial Weekend Cruisin’ With The Oldies” and Mike was able to get some photos of their '32 Ford 3-window Coupe.
We were up a little after 7 a.m. and it was 48° again this morning. There are still a few empty campsites here, but I'm sure they won't be this afternoon. We left Cherry Creek at 10:15 and headed north on E. Parker to I-225 north to I-70 West then north on I-276 to I-25 North. We were able to see the Denver skyline when we were on I-70 and I-276, but every time I had a clear view of the skyline the road was rough. I did manage to get a photo of the skyline, but it isn't as good as I had hoped to get.
When we were about 40 miles north of Denver, we saw a sign for a Starbuck's and decided to stop there to get some coffee. There was a large vacant parking lot across from Starbuck's and I went into get coffee while Mike turned the RV around in the parking lot. By now my breakfast had worn off and I got a couple of their Old Fashioned Glazed Doughnuts to go with our coffee. When I got back in the RV and checked the time, I realized it was 11:30 - almost lunch time. Mike called Terry Bison Ranch to confirm our reservation there for tonight.
We stopped for lunch at 12:15 at a rest area at Ft. Collins, CO. We saw this sign stating that they allowed parking there for 12 hours.
We saw a motorhome there that was obviously taking advantage of the 12 hour stay - their slides were out and their tow car was disconnected.
We were back on the road at 12:40 and passed by the Budweiser Brewery at Ft. Collins.
About 15 minutes later we noticed a plane towing a glider above the interstate and then it released the glider. I was able to get a couple of photos of this.
The terrain in northern Colorado is very different than that around Aurora & Denver where there were a lot of trees. Here it is open plain for miles.
We did see an unusual sign for an interstate warning of bicycles being on the right shoulder.
We crossed into Wyoming a little after 1 p.m. and took Exit 2 off I-14 and went back south on the I-25 service road for about 2 miles to arrive at Terry Bison Ranch. Terry Bison Ranch is a Passport America member, so our campsite for tonight costs $17.58. We are in site #77 with full hook-ups (50 amp). The site is mostly grass and some gravel and we were surprised to find out that the RV is almost level. We drove 108 miles today and once we were settled in, Mike and I both took a nap this afternoon.
Terry Bison Ranch started out as a ranch for raising bison and has over the years developed into quite an attraction. There is a restaurant, gift shop, horseback riding, and train rides to view the bison herd. In addition to the campground there are cabins for rent.
The farther north we drove today the cooler the temperature became. By the time we got to Terry Bison Ranch it had gone from 65° to 50°. Then about 7 p.m. tonight it started to rain. Right now it is 49° with occasional rain.
We were up at 7:00 this morning and the temp was 48°. This is our last day here at Cherry Creek State Park. Yesterday the laundry machines were being installed at the new laundry and bathrooms/showers here at the campground.
By 8:00 I was driving over to the laundromat to get our laundry done before we leave tomorrow. There are 3 washers ($1.75 a load/$2.00 for hot water) and 3 dryers ($1.50 a load for 60 minutes). Judging by the number of people who came by this morning, the new facilities are welcome news here.
I met Kay and eventually her husband, Wayne, there at the laundry. They are from Warner Robins, GA which is about 150 miles from Dothan. They were here to visit their son who lives in the area and then are going on to Utah and to Bryce Canyon, Mesa Verde and Arches National Park - all places we still want to visit.
Mike had cataract surgery on both eyes in March when we were in Dothan and the doctors found out that he had a macular wrinkle in the retina in the right eye. The macula is supposed to have a "dimple" and Mike's didn't - it was more of a "bulge", which can cause blurred vision. A retinal surgeon removed the scar tissue in April and Mike had a follow-up appointment before we left Dothan. But the doctor wanted Mike to have a second follow-up visit. Mike explained to the doctor that we would be traveling then and would be in the Aurora, CO area. The doctor's office in Dothan called a retinal surgeon in Denver, Dr. Douglas Holmes, and made an appointment for Mike. We had planned on spending a night here, but extended our stay because of the doctor's appointment.
This afternoon after lunch we drove up to the doctor's office which was about 15 miles from the state park. The doctor's assistant had Mike read the eye chart and she checked the pressure in both of his eyes. The retinal doctor examined Mike's eyes and said they were just fine. Mike's vision was much improved after the cataract surgery and retinal surgery, but things were just a bit "out of focus" and he had new glasses made before we left Dothan. Dr. Holmes said that as Mike's vision continues to improve he may find that he will need to have new glasses made later on this year.
We were back at the campground by a little after 4:00 and there was a line of vehicles at the entrance to the state park. There was a sign at the gate entrance that the campground was already full. As it got later in the afternoon we saw more RVs coming into the campground for the weekend.
Check-in and check-out are both at noon here. Tomorrow we are heading north to Cheyenne, WY which is a little over 100 miles from here - a short driving day.
Tinker is still adjusting to Mountain Time - he wanted us to get up at 6:00 this morning - not happening! We did get up a little after 7:00 and it was 46°. We even ran the heat a little last night and had our electric blanket on.
This morning I called Dish Network this morning to have our location changed so our programs come on in the correct time zone and spent 50 minutes on the phone. Apparently because we are in the Denver area, we are supposed to receive local networks even though we get network channels through All American Direct. So the customer service rep had to check with someone and found out we didn't have to get the Denver stations. Our account is listed as a residential account and it needs to be changed to a RV account. I was also told that we need to fax in our vehicle registration for the RV every year to maintain our status as a RV account. Long story short - our programs are now showing in Mountain Time and we have 30 days to fax in our RV registration to Dish Network. I can hardly wait until I have to call them again to change our location so our shows come on in the same time zone as the one we're in!
By the time I finished my call to Dish Network, it was time to take Tinker to a Petsmart near the state park this morning for his 10:00 appointment for a bath. Afterwards we stopped by Wal-Mart Supercenter to get a few groceries before heading back to the RV. While we were at Wal-Mart I took this photo of Mt. Evans. It is about 45 miles from Aurora and is 14,264 feet high.
Then I took this photo of Mt. Evans at the state park on the way back to the RV. Just beautiful!
I had just started to fix lunch when Petsmart called to say that Tinker was ready to be picked up. We ate lunch before leaving to get Tinker and stopped at the Home Depot near Petsmart to get a couple of items before we got Tinker at Petsmart.
We stopped by the new laundromat here in the campground to see when it would be ready and they were waiting on the gas to be connected for the dryers this afternoon. Guess what I'm doing in the morning? They have 3 washers & 3 dryers and I have more than 3 loads, so I'll be there a while.
I spent the rest of the day updating our expenses in Quicken, paying a few bills and catching up on some stuff.
Mike replaced the elevation sensor for our rooftop satellite. He had ordered a refurbished elevation sensor kit and it was in the mail we picked up yesterday. He went up on the roof and replaced the elevation sensor and then installed the LED readout plate. We cranked the satellite dish up and tuned in our satellite and it worked fine. But we switched back to the portable dish, because the wind was blowing enough to make the rooftop dish wobble and lose the signal.
Mike did take photos of the campground this afternoon. There are more people coming into the campground and I'm sure it will be full by this weekend.
I forgot one thing in yesterday's post. When I was fixing lunch yesterday I noticed when I opened a bottle of mustard that pressure had built up in the bottle. I had forgotten that we were climbing higher as we traveled west and that unless I released the pressure building up in the bottles and jars we would have a mess on our hands. So every time we stopped I would open any bottle or jar that had already been used and release the pressure building up in it. I did this in the refrigerator, pantry and bathroom. I did forget a bottle of Tinker's shampoo in the bathroom cabinet and ran down inside the cabinet when the pressure built up in the bottle.
We did forget about the Sleep Number bed and the rise in elevation. We forgot to reduce the air in the mattress. Our numbers are 40-45 and this evening it registered 100 - we were lucky it didn't damage the bed.
Sometime during the night the rain finally quit and when we got up this morning the temp was 47°. We even used the electric blanket last night and heat this morning! Since it was raining when we got here yesterday, Mike just hooked up to the electric box and we used the water in the fresh water tank. Mike take photos this morning of the campground.
We left Shady Grove this morning at 9:20 and stopped at a Flying J on I-70 at Limon, CO and paid $3.789 a gallon. Another motorhome was in the lane next to us getting propane and filling up with gas and I noticed they had Florida tags. It turns out they were from Marianna, FL - small world! They were going to Grand Junction, CO for the NJCAA National Baseball Tournament to watch the Chipola College Baseball team compete.
After leaving the Flying J we decided to take the scenic route on SR-86 instead of staying on I-70.
We traveled through the small towns of Kiowa,
and Elizabeth.
We turned north on SR-83 to Aurora and Cherry Creek State Park. We arrived here at Cherry Creek at 12:30.
We had already made reservations for the campground, but had to pay $9 a day for a park pass for the motorhome at the state park entrance. The campsite is $26 a day plus a reservation fee of $10. We will be here for 3 days. We had originally made the reservation for 2 days and then added a 3rd day, so that was another $10 reservation fee.
We checked in at the campground office and received a map of the campground. There is a new laundry here and it is supposed to be open tomorrow - guess what I'm doing when it opens!
We are in site #136 and it is really nice - the whole park is great. We have full hookups (50 amp), a concrete pad which is mostly level and a nice patio area. We'll have to take photos tomorrow.
After lunch and setting up the RV, we called the main post office in Aurora and found out that our mail was there at General Delivery. We drove up to the post office, stopped at a car wash and washed the Vue, went shopping for dog food at a Petsmart near the state park. We passed a Mexican restaurant, Casa Vallarta, and since it was 5 p.m. stopped there for dinner. Mike had the Burrito Manadera and I had the Burrito & Chili Relleno along with a couple of Negro Modelo beers. We even received a couple of complimentary sopapillas for dessert.
We made an appointment for Tinker to get bathed at Petsmart tomorrow morning - he's kind of gray instead of white. He is having a hard time adjusting to the difference in the time zones - he thinks we should be getting up at 6 a.m. because his body is still on Eastern time and it feels like 8 a.m. to him.
Last night we set our alarm clock for 6:30 so we could get an early start this morning. We wanted to get in to the campground tonight about the middle of this afternoon instead of 5 p.m. like we've done the last couple of days. As things turned out today, it was a wise idea. After getting gas in the RV at the Shell station at Four Seasons RV Acres ($3.759 a gal), we headed west on I-70 at 8:30.
There was more thunderstorms moving in and we ran into them a little west of the campground. The rain only lasted about 45 minutes and the windshield wipers worked really well. So well, in fact, that they wouldn't turn off! Mike pulled over about 10 miles west of Salina and had to pull out the fuse for the wipers. About 20 minutes later we pulled into a rest area so Mike could clean the windshield. At the rest area there was a historical marker telling about the settlers in the area.
Apparently trees were scarce on the plains and the inventive settlers made fence posts from the limestone strata. There were signs along the way marking this as "Post Rock Country" and the limestone fence posts could still be seen in the fields.
At noon we stopped at a rest area near Ogallah for a 40 minute lunch break before continuting west on I-70. I called Shady Grove Campground in Seibert, CO while we were stopped for lunch and made a reservation for tonight. As we drove farther west the skies in the distance were getting darker.
We stopped at a rest area just west of Colby, KS and Mike put the fuse for the windshield wipers back in and they were fine - they started and stopped like they were supposed to. A little while later (35 miles east of the Colorado state line) we crossed from the Central Time Zone into the Mountain Time Zone and gained an hour. Then we saw this highway information sign --
We tuned our Sirius radio to the NOAA weather station and found out that we were heading into some really bad weather - heavy rain, high winds, quarter-size hail. We were about 8 miles west of the Colorado state line when we ran into the storm - heavy rain, wind and pea-size hail. After only driving in this storm for a few minutes, Mike pulled us over on to the shoulder and put on the hazard flashers.
It wasn't too long before cars were pulling off the highway and then we were joined by semi trucks. The temperature outside before the storm started was about 65° and dropped almost 30° within several minutes. By now the hail was coming down so heavy the interstate and the ground looked as though it was covered with snow! We sat there for 20 minutes being pounded with heavy rain, winds and hail that changed from pea-size to marble-size. I used our digital camera to film the hail storm. Go to our Colorado Web Album to see the video. Turn your volume up and you can hear the hail storm sounded like inside our RV.
Once the hail quit and the worst of the storm had passed on, Mike slowly pulled back out onto the interstate. The hail was 2-3" thick on the road and Mike drove about 45 miles an hour for awhile until the hail had melted.
We arrived here at Shady Grove Campground at 3:45 (Mountain Time). We paid $13.60 for the campsite & $3 for 50 amp service with our Passport America membership. It is 49° with a wind chill of 40° and 35 mph winds.
We'll get some photos of our campsite here tomorrow before we leave. We are about 130 miles east of Denver.
We were up at 7 a.m. this morning and quickly checked the weather on TV. We found out that there was more severe weather heading this way. We also learned more about the damage and deaths in Joplin, MO from last night's tornado - now 116 people are dead. Springfield is 70 miles east of Joplin and people here were finding items from Joplin that had been carried here by the storm. It's just heartbreaking to see the devastation there - our thoughts and prayers are for everyone who have been touched by this tragedy.
We left the campground at 8:30 and the storm clouds were getting closer to Springfield. We took US-60 west to SR-13 North and quickly found a Phillips 66 station we could get in and out of easily since we were down to 1/4 of a tank of gas in the RV. We paid $3.679 a gallon there.
As we were leaving the gas station, it started to rain and kept raining for most of this morning. By 11:30 we saw a Wal-Mart Supercenter at Clinton and decided to stop there to fix an early lunch. We quickly changed our minds about fixing lunch when we saw the Hardee's across the parking lot from Wal-Mart. I had their Swiss & Mushroom burger with curly fries and Mike had the original burger with fries. Afterwards I walked over to Wal-Mart to get a few things we didn't find at the last Wal-Mart and then we headed north on SR-71 to I-435 at Kansas City.
From I-435 we took SR-10 west through Lawrence, KS; we saw some nice older homes there, but I couldn't get any photos of them. We decided to take US-40 west instead of taking I-70 which is toll road between Lawrence & Topeka. We connected with I-70 just east of Topeka and drove just north of the city.
Parts of I-70 follow the original paths of the Oregon Trail and California Trail and were marked by road signs.
By this afternoon the rain clouds were gone and we saw blue skies and sunshine. We had always thought of Kansas as being flat and seeing miles & miles of plains. But we were traveling through beautiful rolling green hills known as the Flint Hills.
We passed by Marshall Airfield on Fort Riley and got a photo of the water tower there.
We arrived here at Four Seasons RV Acres just west of Abilene a little before 5 p.m. We drove 312 miles today. I had called this morning and made a reservation for tonight. After checking in at the Shell gas station (which is next to the campground), we were guided to our campsite. On the way we saw a duck crossing sign, the ducks waited for the golf cart leading us to pass and then walked across the road in front of the RV.
We are in site #23, a pull-through, with full hook-ups (50 amp). There is cable TV at the site, but the reception was poor and the channels were limited. Mike set out our portable satellite dish for tonight. We are paying $14 for tonight (Enjoy America rates) which is half of their regular rate.
