July 20 - Wild Horse Loop and Pilot Butte

July 20 - We drove over to look for the wild mustangs roaming free at the Wild Horse Loop (now a sanctuary) at the base of Pilot Butte. At least we dressed for the day and environment. There are supposed to be a population of about 1500 head, which has roamed free in these pastures since the 1800s, brought here by explorers and then settlers. So, we were expecting to hear the sound of thundering hooves in the wide open unimproved landscape, but were silenced by the calm grazing of barely six horses at a distance of over a 1000 yards. 

Still, our drive took us to Pilot Butte where we 'dismounted' Edith and hiked almost to the very top of Pilot Butte, which elevation is 7,949 feet at its highest point. The top seems unable to be scaled by amateurs like us, as it is surrounded by a high wall of rock. You can see by the photos, we hike almost to the top of the trail (rock wall) and you can see how far down Edith was. Pilot Butte is located directly on top of White Mountain, and was named by early travelers in the region as a sign that they were close to Green River. It is the second highest point in the immediate region (the first being Aspen Mountain to the south). The drive is about a 24-mile drive through the Wild Horse Loop with Pilot Butte being more or less the midpoint.

 

July 12 - 15, 2016 - We finally broke free from Texas

NOTE:  We apologize that we have been incommunicado (no blog posts or texts, for the most part) in a few weeks. Both of our cell phone and My-Fi signals have been infrequent at best, and mostly only available in pockets along our drives or hikes. In the future, should this be the case again, we may again be silent for awhile, but will get back to you and our blog as soon as we are able to. However, we don’t anticipate any other ‘dead-zones’ except possibly in Nevada and parts of New Mexico.

July 12 - We finally broke out of Texas on July 12th and headed (almost) non-stop to Wyoming, stopping only to sleep at 3 Rest Areas along I-35 northbound and I-80 westbound. We left Texas with still a few issues, the worst of which seemed to be malfunctioning wipers (again, as we also had wiper trouble with the Challenger), but we were determined to not let Texas keep us there any longer as we have been there for 9 weeks already between one issue and the next.

We had just been to Temple Freightliner in Texas to fix 2 holes in an airbag and there discovered that there was actually a Service Letter calling for the replacement of both rear airbags, which they repaired quite quickly with an Overnight Service from Freightliner Parts. However, little did we know (or suspect) that the wiper (which had been working previously) would also have needed checking. Yet on our trip up I-35 we noticed that they now seemed to work properly only on and off and as this is a crucial piece of equipment (especially if it rains) we tried to get serviced by another Freightliner Service facility... the one at the Nebraska Truck Center in North Platte, NE, but they were not concerned with our safety and refused to address our issue. So, we called Freightliner Warranty directly and they arranged for Floyd’s Truck Center (a member of the Freightliner Elite Group) which not only welcomed the opportunity to address our issues but went the extra mile to have us stay at their location overnight make sure we were satisfied with the outcome. As it seems the only thing wrong with the wipers was that some wiring had been loosened when the Brake Buddy Stealth remote was installed into the Discovery at Lone Star RV Center in Harker Heights, Texas. Since then the wipers have worked as they are supposed to. So we flew right through Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska and therefore cannot comment on these States. We were originally scheduled to do the Southern route via New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada on our way to California but due to all the extra time we were delayed in Texas, we opted to take the northern route instead, as by that time the temperatures in the Southwest were ungodly (in the 100s+), whereas in Wyoming it’s in the 80s and lower 90s. Wyoming is abundant in its wind and the State takes maximum advantage of that by the number of wind turbines, which makes it the 2^nd largest producer of energy from wind power.

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.)

July 18 - 24, 2016 - Moved to Buckboard Crossing Campground on the Flaming Gorge Reservoir.

July 18 - Today we changed campground moving to the Buckboard Crossing CG and Marina in the Flaming Gorge area (Reservoir) near Green River in Wyoming. Here we had made reservations for two nights but enjoyed the place so much that we stayed for a total of six nights, as our next reservation was not until then, at Lucerne Campground near Manila in Utah. So, while at Buckboard Crossing we took several day trips to the Wild Horse Loop and Pilot Butte, to the Seeksadee Wildlife Refuge and to the Red Canyon Lodge and area. The prettiest was the latter, which was actually the first. We wanted to go back to this one as we had only covered about one half of the area, but since we would be nearer to it when at Lucerne CG we decided to see other things nearby and return to it later from Lucerne CG. The beauty of Wyoming is characterized by its immense contrasts. It is like going to the Louvre and studying a great work of art. You can see the same landscape twenty times and each time you see it differently, picking up different highlights. The landscape transforms from dry desert-like conditions and then changes suddenly to deep green scenes of pine trees and abundant grass, as well as from horizontal expanses of dry undulating savannahs of sage and scrub brush to vertical expanses of high mountains and deep crevices with distant but huge waterways far below. The Flaming Gorge Dam (completed in 1964), named for the Flaming Gorge Canyon just upstream, created a 96-mile long reservoir on the Green River. The dam was built as part of the Bureau of Reclamation’s Colorado River Storage Project. The dam itself is in Utah but most of the reservoir is in Wyoming and supplies both hydropower and tourism to the town of Green River, WY as well as helping to equalize river flows, storing water in wet seasons or years for release during dry periods. The first inhabitants of this area are said to be the people of the Fremont culture, who were displaced around 1000 AD by the Comanche, Shoshone and Ute Indian tribes. The first white men to arrive to this area were probably fur trappers beginning in the early 1800s, which included William Ashley and his party who explored the Green and Colorado rivers by boat and trapped beaver there for several years in the 1820s. The area includes vast species of wildlife including moose, big horn sheep, antelope, elk, bears, mountain lions, marmot and many others, many of which we have been lucky enough to see and photograph.

 

July 19 – Having met a very nice couple from Lodi, Ca. (a Fire Captain and his wife) who were camped near us, we were referred to Red Canyon by the photos they had just taken there. So on this day we opted to go to Red Canyon, which was the site of some of our best photos (as you will see). Bill, who is not afraid of heights walked right up to the edge of the canyon wall with a drop off of about 1300 feet straight down. He even clowned around with jumping over the crevasses, which Mary was able to snap a photo of.

The Red Canyon was formed some 60 million years ago during the uplift of the Wind River Range to the west. As the sedimentary rocks tilted, the more easily erodible rocks were removed by the action of the water, creating the canyon as it is seen today. The long grass-covered slopes on the west-side of the canyon are part of the Permian Phosphoria formation, a marine deposit composed of limestone, sandstone, dolomite, siltstone, bedded chert and phosphorite. The less-resistant rocks above the chert were eroded. The bottom of the canyon and the lower 300 feet of the east side are eroded into the Triassic Chugwater formation. This consists of brick red sandstone, shale and siltstone, which being less resistant to erosion was removed from the underlying Phosphoria chert. The bright red color of the Chugwater is due to a great amount of oxidized iron between and on the grains of the rock. Besides its interesting geologic history, the canyon also provides important wildlife habitat for elk, mule deer, pronghorn antelope, big horn sheep, and many other small mammals and vast species of birds. Hunting, fishing (lots of trout and salmon) and viewing scenery are popular recreational uses of the canyon. There are many RV’ers in Wyoming, though 5^th wheels and travel trailers (as well as tent camping) seems the norm in this part of the country. So far, the Red Canyon has been the (positive) highlight of our trip, and it may be due for a re-visit another year.