We
headed east through Burns, Ontario & Boise and ended up near Hagerman at a
marginal RV park that was Passport America and inexpensive which was good since
we ended up there in time for dinner.
They were proud of their shade trees but we selected a site that let us
put up the satellite dish and avoid the trees!
I had to turn off the fan pulling air into the bedroom part way through
the night as it was pulling in a lot of feed lot odor. An uneventful travel day.
Aug 8th – Thurs – to
Pocatello
We
got a reasonably early start and continued east towards Pocatello. Shortly after a detour onto the westbound
lanes to allow for road resurfacing, a car pulled up beside us with the
passenger window rolled down and told us we had a tire going bad on the 5th
wheel. They pulled ahead of us, pulled
onto the shoulder and we followed. The
guy worked for a Les Shwab and had noticed a bulge inside the rear left tire. We contemplated changing the tire on the
highway and the guy offered to help – how nice!
But we said we would drive slowly and see if there was an exit that
would be safer. We were so pleased to
see a rest area about 2 miles further.
We put on the spare and I got on the GPS & phone trying to find a
new tire with no luck. A shop in
Pocatello said they could get one tomorrow so we headed there. Unfortunately, the employee who told us that
had not checked far enough and they could not get the tire for several days.
It
was mid-afternoon by now so we continued on to a casino just north of Pocatello
which was our original destination. We
pulled into a spot in the RV park, checked the service desk and found out
everything was reserved. So, back to the
RV park, go to the service station next door for DEF, put in one jug, park in
non-overnight RV parking and head back into the casino.
The
time in the casino followed the rest of our day! We headed back towards Pocatello where I had
found a city park just past the city to stay for the night. The sky was ugly and a sudden HUGE gust of
wind hit us. We saw a sign right after
for an RV park at the next exit which is where we went. Their business is obviously people passing
through as the after-hours instructions showed 20 sites or more for overnight
stays. It was a nice place with little
freeway noise. We got a spot, set up,
paid and crashed.
Aug 9th – Fri – to Wyoming
Another
“reasonably” early start (8:30) heading east to Wyoming. We were tossing around ideas for tires when
we saw a tire shop right along the highway in Soda Springs and pulled in. We had talked about just getting a same size,
non-matching tire for the spare and have the matching tire on the spare mounted
on the “fancy” rim. That is what we
ended up doing here. The people in the
shop were very nice and got the new tire swapped & mounted in short order.
Now
we were feeling better since we had a spare tire and started looking for a
place to eat breakfast. We were not
exactly in a highly populated area of Idaho/Wyoming and ended up finding a
place in Cokeville WY. It was almost
noon so we had to settle for lunch.
In
Green River WY we stopped at an information center for Flaming Gorge. We decided to stay overnight at the first RV
area in the park and headed south. We
actually ended up at a private RV park rather than the federal RV park just
down the road.
We
set up and then headed out in the truck to see the sites. We were happy that we didn’t go further to
find an RV site as there are some very steep hills – both up & down. We drove for many miles before we saw scenery
that was worth the drive and then it was really worth the drive as the gorge
starts to appear. The colors on the
hills were wonderful and as we climbed switchbacks the views were amazing. We went to the Red Canyon visitor center, saw
the most incredible views out their windows and discovered that the battery on
the camera was dead. We went back to the
truck to get a phone or tablet for pictures and found that we had our portable
battery pack with us which worked just fine on the camera. We walked to a couple of viewpoints which
were slightly scary as they were right on the edge of the canyon but had superb
views. We had to put up with
intermittent rain but it was all worth it.
I
felt sorry for Terry having to drive from Idaho and then drive through the park
but we made plans to visit friends in Cheyenne so don’t have too much time to
lollygag. I made dinner when we got back
and we relaxed.
Aug 10th – Sat – to Casper WY
It
was hot & sunny when we left and headed north out of the Flaming Gorge area
and then north to Riverton for a casino fix.
We are at the high elevations common to most of Wyoming and it was
strange to see a continental divide sign on a flat area. The roads were great with little
traffic. We saw in the atlas that
Wyoming is the 9th state in
land area and 50th in population which was supported by the few
towns & houses along our route.
We
got coupons at the Flaming Gorge visitor center for the casino so we both had
$15 free play on our cards and $5 towards lunch which was the first thing we
did and it was very good. I won some
money on the first machine I played so we gambled until 5:30 without spending
too much.
We
now headed east to Casper. Again, good
roads and few vehicles so we made good time.
There was a cross wind most of the way which we really noticed when a
big truck passed us. We got one of the
last sites at Fort Casper Campground. It
was a nice big pull-through so didn’t take long to set up.
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