July 3,
2013…Today we decided not to leave as early as we have been and it was good to
sleep in an extra hour. Leaving the
hostel parking lot we say three hot air balloons flying just a short piece
away. One of them was the same balloon
that I rode in yesterday. Lucky
balloonists. Heading south we soon were
saying goodbye to the Grand Tetons and looking forward to our next adventure.
Our
destination was the Flaming Gorge area and we checked into our campground in
Moran, WY. This time we opted for a large
single cabin with a kitchen and bath in the unit instead of the two separate
cabins.
Several of
us were ready for some more road time and we headed to the Flaming Gorge
area. It took a couple of hours to get
there through the most desolate landscape.
Some sage brush grows a few small juniper trees, but that’s about it. But the stark beauty of the area is
breath-taking! Huge canyons, deep
valleys, huge hills, craggy rock formations, and they have wonderful names for
some of them like Deadman’s Gulch, and things like that! Hilarious!
And I love the work gulch. That’s
a word we just don’t use in Orion very often!
Finally we
could see water! A huge lake appeared
and I learned that it is a manmade lake.
A dam was built and the water formed this huge lake. The largest trout ever was taken from this
lake. This lake is used extensively for
recreation and saw people water skiing and fishing. Tim, Gin, Sierra, and Sandy decided to swim a
bit and when they got in they were surprised at how cold it was! I stayed dry and took photos. Unfortunately, the weather was overcast and
the lighting was not great and we did not get as good of photos as we had
hoped.
We stopped
at their wonderful visitor’s center at the top of the dam and got our National
Parks Passport stamped. We sure did
gather a lot of stamps in our passport this trip. And I was able to add to my stick nail
collection that I started in Germany.
What are stick nails you may wonder?
They are medallions between the size of a quarter or half dollar and
made of metal. They have tiny holes in
each side into which you hammer tiny nails onto your hiking or walking
stick. They are a great thing to collect
because they are not too expensive and are small to transport in your
luggage.
Back home to
the campground we went and made a delicious supper of Rueben sandwiches. After supper we were sitting on the porch and
suddenly the Sweetwater County police department showed up with three units and
pulled up just beyond our site. Of
course, being the nosey folks that we are we diligently watched the action
progress. It seems that a lady in a blue
shirt with a man in an orange was accusing a lady in a red shirt who was with a
man in a green shirt of drugs and not taking care of her child. The police were there quite awhile and seemed
to think that they had things straightened out and two of them left. But no sooner than the third one was leaving
the grounds when blue shirt slapped red shirt and orange shirt was holding red
shirt still so her arms could not move and she started screaming! Loud!
And we all stared. They quieted
down and soon we all went back inside and locked the door. Many suggestions and theories of what was
going on ensued and finally we all settled in for sleep. Tomorrow we start for home.
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