At Home

Monday we left Horseshoe Bay campground heading for Tensleep, Wyoming and higher elevations.  The USFS campgrounds we found in Tensleep Canyon must have been built in more recent years.  The sites are large, the roads are wide and easily driven with a big rig and the signage is easily understood.  There are non-reservable sites in every campground.  A clearly readable tag hangs on a post at each site stating exactly when that site is available–“open until June 28th.”  When we pulled into Boulder Park Campground on Monday afternoon intending to stay three days we had our pick of several sites.  Each site is large enough to unhook and park the ATV and truck with room to spare.  Each site has a picnic table, hanger for a lantern and a steel grill stand.  The campgrounds have garbage service and vault toilets.  The host at Boulder Park campground was amazing–pots of flowers everywhere, cute solar lights at each very clean vault toilet and she was quite knowledgeable about the area.

Geri and Larry in front of us heading through Tensleep Canyon.

We took a short ATV ride Monday afternoon and at 9000 feet elevation it was dang chilly!

Tuesday morning we headed out for another ATV ride wearing our winter clothes!  It was another chilly day!  The days would start out sunny and beautiful but clouds would build, the wind would blow and it felt like winter!  As you can see the snow hasn’t melted off those mountains yet! Even Emmi was cold–she wears a coat but needs her blanket too!

Lots of snowdrifts and puddles–winter hasn’t been gone for long in the Bighorn Mountains.  At one point during our ride we were at 10,000 feet elevation–cold!

Wednesday morning we rode to several of the other campgrounds just to see what was available.  Again we found nice campgrounds with large sites and stunning scenery.  There are also lots of boondocking spots in this region of the Bighorns.  July 4th is approaching and many of the boondocking sites were occupied.  This lake view was our lunch spot where we watched that strange, big cloud form.

Tensleep Creek A snowmobile bridge– This wide open valley with the creek flowing through it reminded the Cowboy and me of the Lamar Valley in Yellowstone National Park–without all the people.  We saw one fisherman  and one other ATV all day.

This puddle was quite large and deep.The trail up to East Tensleep Lake was tough–steep and rocky–but the view was worth every bounce.  You can see the Cowboy picking his way over to boulders to get up to the lake–Geri went too but Larry, Emmi and I stayed behind.

We enjoyed many good meals and lots of great conversation with Larry and Geri.  We are so glad they decided to meet us and ride for a few days.  We said our “see you later” today and parted company–they are heading back to Rapid City and those granddaughters.

Cool days, cold nights and stunning scenery–the Bighorns were fabulous!!