July 15 - 25, 2019 - Star Valley Ranch RV Park

We left our campground at Fort Running Bear, 23 miles outside of Mountain Home Idaho with a sense of anticipation and excitement as we were heading for Star Valley Ranch in Wyoming. From all our previous travel in the Western States, Wyoming has by far been a favorite State, as well as Jackson Hole and the Grand Teton National Park especially so. Last time we visited this area we stayed in Dubois at the Longhorn Ranch Lodge & RV Resort, which is a beautiful campground but is still about 78 miles (1hr. and 26 min. drive) away from Jackson Hole. While a beautiful campground this is nevertheless just a campground in which a stay costs about $50/night.

 

We wondered what these vast fields of yellow flowers were. Wild flowers gone wild? No! Actually, they are Cannola (where Cannola Oil comes from.)

 

Soon we were bordered by this waterway, which at first we thought was a reservoir , but then we discovered that actually it was the Snake River which has really wide banks at times. It is dammed at the Palisades Dam, but continues as the Snake River.

We stopped at several scenic view pull-outs for photo ops as well as to let Roxy walk about 'sans leash' and take care of her 'business;.

Given that even though we had a huge windshield to take photos from, said windshield was often covered in splattered bugs preventing good photography. Therefore after getting to Star Valey Ranch we returned to the portion of our trip from Mountain Home in Idaho, in the F-150 truck (Edith2) to be able to photograph all the beautiful scenery we had witnessed from the motorhome, on our trip. Those photos can be seen further down on this blog.

Anyway, so this time we made reservation in Star Valley Ranch RV Resort, because not only can we camp for about $45/night ($32.00/night if one stays for a week or more) but IF we really liked this area enough to make it our Northern Base for summer travels in the Northern West, they have RV Lots available for sale, where we can buy a lot and develop it enough for maintaining a place where we can park our motor home, and have a gazebo (or two) and a shed to store the gazebo furniture and even a golf cart (as they also include free executive golf during the summer months, until we relocate to our winter home at Arizona Legends in Benson, Arizona. Star Valley Ranch RV Park is sort of like a Sun City Center in the various states they are in, or The Villages in Florida.  Like the Robson Ranches, Sun City Center(s) and The Villages, this community has a very interesting story as to how it came to be.

Copied from their website www.starvalleyranchresort.com this is their story:

[quote] “This resort was founded  by Harold Stewart, who while on a family vacation during the summer of 1962 he and his family were enchanted by the beauty of Star Valley while staying overnight in Afton, Wyoming. The following spring Harold convinced his brothers, who were in the contracting business with him in Las Vegas, Nevada to purchase a small ranch along Crow Creek about 20 miles southwest of Afton. They built several cabins, remodeled an existing ranch house and built a nine-hole golf course, along with a beautiful 30-acre lake. Contractors, sub-contractors, engineers, architects, prospective clients, were all brought up from Las Vegas to relax, fish, hunt, ride horses, and golf. Harold and his brothers construction business boomed as a result of entertaining clients at Crow Creek Ranch and all who came to visit fell under the spell and beauty of Star Valley. Everyone who came to visit the ranch wanted buy a lot and that planted the idea in Harold Stewart’s mind to build a resort in Star Valley.

Eight years later in 1970 that opportunity materialized when 5 contiguous ranches all became available at the same time and the Stewart family purchased over 3600 acres. The property is 5 miles long and came with the original homestead water rights to all three canyons. The abundance of water allowed a resort to be built on the property and the dream of Star Valley Ranch became a reality.

Harold Stewart and his sons moved from Las Vegas to Star Valley in 1970 and began construction of Star Valley Ranch. They built the Aspen Hills golf course, clubhouse, pool, tennis courts, and built the roads and water system to serve the first lots built around those facilities. The resort was a resounding success, with many of the first buyers coming from Las Vegas business clients. As Star Valley Ranch grew more facilities were added, including Cedar Creek golf course and the Silo Clubhouse & Dance Barn. Additional lots were added and Star Valley Ranch expanded to 22 subdivision plats with over 2035 lots. In 1983 as sales of Star Valley Ranch began to wind down recreational vehicle sales were exploding and the Stewart family decided to build Star Valley Ranch Resort RV Park (SVRRVR). A whole new group of RV owners fell under the spell of Star Valley and bought RV lots. There are currently over 700 lots in the RV Resort and more lots are planned. Star Valley Ranch Resort has 5 Star recreational facilities with it’s own golf course & pro-shop, swimming pool, sauna, clubhouse, motel, rental cabin & tent-cabins, tennis courts, bumper boats, shuffleboard, horseshoes, and basketball court. While expanding the RV resort the Stewart Family developed Bridger View subdivision consisting of 53 small ranches ranging from 2-9 acres in size, which are zoned for horses. In 2005 Stewart Country Club Estates with ¼ - ½ acre lots and homes ranging from 1060-2100 square feet were developed and sold around the RV park golf course. Bridger Mountain subdivision is the newest Stewart Family development and will be available in the near future. Bridger Mountain Phase I lots, homes and condos will be around the first nine holes of a new championship 18 hole golf course that when completed will be approximately 7200 yards and will challenge even the best golfers. Bridger Mountain will have 5 phases when complete and will redefine luxury, elegance, and country club lifestyle.” [end quote]

As stipulated in their above story, Star Valley Ranch is many developments of which one is the RV Park, Others include several different subdivisions of residences and small ranches, and actually also includes a town hall (of Star Valley Ranch) including a Post Office , even though the mailing address of the RV Park is actually considered to be in Thayne, WY 83127. Therefore we include photos of the AREA which includes the area around the RV Park and Thayne WY (about 5 miles away) which has a fabulous grocery store called Valley Market, gas stations, a Dollar Store and several good restaurants and shops. There are several title companies and unfortuately the one the sellers picked is apparently a very slow one. Given that the property transferred is just a slabbed lot with no more than a shed on it and that it is a CASH transaction, it should need no more than about 10 days, yet they say that they will 'TRY' to close in 15 days, but ideally ask for 30 days. We'll see. Otherwise we'll rent the lot from the sellers until the closing.Here are photos from the area around the RV Park and Thayne, WY.

The Valley Market, a wonderful supermarket with great variety and good prices.

 The Bank of Star Valley Ranch There is a Wells Fargo across the street, though.

We both love these old barns (the older the better).

A subdivision of homes, north of Thayne.

Water is freely available everywhere, as seen here by the vast irrgation of the fields.

Front yard decorations...

 

This area is part tourism and mostly farming/ranching.

 This is typical Wyoming traffic... long roads of very little traffic.

Some subdivisions are small ranches. Here is one of Alpacas, just outside of SVRRVR

 The views are spectacular...

A farmer displaying his equipment and elevating them too.

We'd guess the large John Deere is his current one.

 

A hawk... probably a Red Tailed Hawk,

 

We are no different than the Stewarts or any of the many others who come here, fall in love with the beauty and wildlife of this area at the base of the mountains and choose to settle. Of course, our settlement is limited to the late spring, summer and early fall (at most), as we would in no way want to endure the harsh winters of Wyoming. However it works well for us that the SVRRVR is only open and available for occupancy by the lot owners between May 1 – 15 and October 1 – 15 (weather dependent) yearly. When the Park closes they turn off all water supply (to prevent bursting pipes), so no one is here at that time as snow is often 92 inches.deep, which makes even going out for groceries impossible. They can have the snow; we'll be in Arizona for that. 

Star Valley Ranch RV Park is also about a 1-1/2 hour drive from Jackson Hole and Grand Teton National Park, like the Longhorn Ranch Lodge and RV Resort in Dubois, WY, but it does give us the availability of owning a lot that we can use as a base to travel further from in our motor home or spend time at while traveling and camping locally (within 100 miles in any direction) in Edith2 (our truck and tent). So we decided to buy a summer home here.   

Our route to SVRRVR (SR 20 to SR 26 (along the Snake River and the Palisades Dam) to Highway 89) was a beautiful drive where every turn showed an even more spectacular view. Given that we were unable to take good photos from the motor home enroute, we went back to redo a part of the route in Edith2 on July 23rd. Here are some of the views we were able to enjoy and look forward to revisiting often in the future.

Large hay fields abound to feed the anomals in winter.

Walls of rocks...

The Dam Store at Palisades Dam

Roxy enjoying being off-leash next to the Snake River,

 Entering Targhee National Forest

  River raft tours on the Snake River.

 Turbines splashing at the Palisades Dam

There are many Osprey nests along the Snake River as food is abundant to these Ospreys. There is even a street called Osprey Cliifs Drive.

Old Pine Boat Club on the Snake River in Idaho, near the Wyoming border.

The water on the Snake River is incredibly clean/clear and deep

Mary enjoying the fab views.

Checking out and old dirt road leading to a fishing spot where camping is limited to a 5-day stay maximum. A popular spot.

Four ALTA Hotshot fire trucks on the way to?  These are highly specialized wildfire fire fighters who are assigned nationwide out of a Central Dispatch Center in Boise ID.  They originated in California and got the "Hotshot" designation because they re typically sent to fight the fires in the hottest part of the blaze. We're not sure where these crews might be heading, as we have not heard of any wildfires in the area, but salute these brave souls for their dedicated work and fearless atitudes. There was a movie called 'Only the Brave' made of 19 such firefighters who died fighting the Cave Creek wildfire in Arizona.

 A campground at Caribou-Targhee National Forest

 

Entering Wyoming from Idaho on US26

A wildlife Refuge

 Junction to Hwy 89 South (to Alpine - Afton and Star Valley Ranch area)

straight or to Hwy 89 North and SR26 East to Jackson Hole (about70 miles away).

We love these old barns from days gone by,

A small ranch with horses.

There are many towns along any roadway and most of them are very small. Here, Etna has a population of just 164 people. But then you have to realize that within a state of 97,818 square miles with just a total of  577,737 people (as of 2019) has to be sparse.

Bill waiting to photograph Mary

 

We purchased a lot in the newer section of SVRRVR, one lot from the end of a lot strip with magnificent views of the mountains (like at our casita in Benson AZ, but a lot closer to the mountains). We were going to close on it at the end of this year’s season, as we had already made future travel reservations through November, BUT while in the shower Mary had a brainstorm and we opted to cancel most of our future camping reservations, so as to be able to make the necessary changes to the lot (like getting new gazebos and setting up the utilities). That way we could have a place where we could set up the motor home here and further explore this area. Then we could catch up to some of our future reservations as we return to Arizona in November, while traveling through Texas and New Mexico where we have other obligations to meet. Still, since the title company would need some time to prepare the closing, we decided to go ahead to our next camping destination at Flaming Gorge Reservoir WY in the Ashley National Forest, which will be our next blog post. We will therefore close on August 9^th, or will rent the lot for the days until closing can be executed. When we move to our lot o  August 8th, we will post more photos for you to see, at that time. The purchase includes the 45' x 65' lot, which has a full sealed slab (except for a 4' sides and rear setback), plus the 10'x12' gazebo and the gazebo furniture (table and 4 rocker recliner chairs), plus the 10' x 12' shed which includes a Samsung full-sized washer and dryer and a small chest freezer, plus 100A breaker box within the shed and a 50A RV connector on the outside of the shed, plus 2 x 110v outlets ouside the gazebo, and a drip-sprinkler system for the trees and bushes. BTW, as mentioned in the story of how SVRRVR came to be, they own the water rghts of 5 canyons, so water here is FREE, as is sewer; and electricity is one of the lowest in the country at just $0.06 per KW hour, or less.

This is behind the gazebo looking at the area between it and the shed... plenty of room for another 10'x12' gazebo next to each other (one for a sitting area and one for a dining areawith a grill under cover.) People (neighbors) here are very friendly and are often at each others' gazebos sharing 'Happy Hour' together.

  

From the shed, looking back at the gazebo. Of course we will take the curtains off and put out sun-screen, at most. 

Again, where gazebo #2 will go, with the grill,

Between the shed and the RV there will be about 3 ft walkway

to be able to access the rear ladder.

The gazebo that transfers with the sale is an aluminum 'soft-top' cover.

We will change it to 2x 10'x12' or 12'x14' cedar framed with aluminum

(supported) roofs (that will hold the weight of snow). 

View of the 4 foot side setbacks where the bushes and trees

are planted and where the drip-sprinklers are located..

There are eye-bolts in the slab to hold down the RV's awnings. We may need to move these to fit our own RV's awning locations. MORE TO COME on/after August 9th when we close on it.

 

Our next post will be of our stay in Flaming Gorge at the Lucerne Campground in the Ashley National Forest. Not sure when we can get it out as it all depends on whether we have good satellite reception for Internet, but we will notify everyone whenever a new post is ready to be viewed. Until then... Happy Trails to you.