July 15 - 18, 2016 - First Campground in Wyoming

July 15 - In Wyoming our first stop after the Freightliner Center in Cheyenne, where we spent one night dry camping, was our first camping stop at Deer Haven Campground (CG) in the small country town of Saratoga, Wyoming. Of course, ALL towns are small in Wyoming. Its largest city is Cheyenne with a population of 62,845 (2014). Casper is the second largest with 59,628. For comparison, Denver CO has more population than the entire State of Wyoming, by 64,000 +/-. This was very evident in Cheyenne as "rush hour" means there are likely to be at least 30 cars within a city block (we kid you not.)  In the country roads we determined that 'rush hour' meant that there were 4 or more cars within a country mile. LOL!

This campground was a small one but it is right on the outskirts of town and on the edge of the North Platte River, where we even got a riverside campsite. Regrettably under trees we had no satellite reception, but there was plenty to do and gorgeous sunsets to watch, over a glass of wine with mule deer in the field across the river.

July 16 – On this day we went for a drive on the Snowy Mountain Scenic Byway. Like most of Wyoming it was a beautiful scenic route. Bill got to play in snow at the 10,847 foot level, above the tree line.  We also went to a town called Centennial, Wyoming and had lunch at a local restaurant there. The food prices were a bit high, but the food good.  The one mistake we made was to explore this beautiful place with an altitude of almost 11,000 feet dressed like Floridians (shorts and tee shirt) as the temperatures also dropped from the 80s down to the low 50s. There’s a photo of Bill getting a snow ball in shorts and polo in 55degrees getting ready to throw it at me.

 

July 17 – As we would be moving the next day to a campground which only has electric service but no sewer at the camp site, we decided to spend the day staying at home and preparing for the move (including doing all the laundry so we would not need any clean clothes for awhile.)