KayCee Hates the Vaccum!

At this writing, DH is running the hand held vaccum, Thank you honey! I have all of our throw rugs drying after a trip to the laundry mat, a really nice place I might add. It ranks right up there with some of the best I've been to so far. I've seen good and I've seen really really bad! KayCee should be invisible in this picture. I don't understand it, I bought her a camoflauge shirt!lol. She's up there with some "model" dogs now! We had a very nice lunch at a small Italian Bistro here. Dino's is a fairly new place, opened just this year on the same street as Hardee's, Taco John's, McDonalds,Pizza Hut and several other independently owned restaurants. Inside service is on white linen and the smell of the homemade breads, doughs and baked goods, is wonderful! We had Toasted Italian Sandwiches, served with home made Italian Chips on the side. Stopped at the veterinary clinic down the street and stocked up of flea and tick medicine. We also had to wash the car because they were spraying water on the overpass when we came home and splattered the whole car from above. I will share with you a little bit of meaningless Word Play from the laundry mat!

1. Coffee (n) The person upon whom one coughs.
2. Flabbergasted (adj.) Appalled over how much weight you have gained.
3. Esplanade (v) to attempt an explanation while drunk.
4. Gargoyle (n) olive-flavored mouthwash.
5. Flatulence (n) emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a
steamroller.

Have a great day!~

Wyoming Info

I have no new pictures to share with you today. I did some shopping and finally got an SD memory card for my new camera that will work. We are busy this week wrapping up details of our visit and getting business taken care of that we won't have to worry about on the road for a few weeks. Yesterday it rained and was very cool most of the day. We spent most of the day in Sheridan. We had dinner at the Bozeman Trail Steakhouse last night and the food was good. Today it has been very comfortable and all out another beautiful day without the help of Air Conditioning. I will share a few details about Wyoming that we have learned while here.

The name "Wyoming" comes from a Delaware Indian word meaning "at the big plains."

Population: 2004 estimate, 544,270....the least populated state of all states.

Area: 97,809 square miles or about 62.6 million acres. Ninth largest state in the union.

Overall Climate of Wyoming is classified as Semi-Arid, but rainfall can very from as little as five inches to as much as 45 inches. Average precipitation statewide is 14.8 inches per year.
Some days I am able to do more reading than others. Today being one of those.
I ran across a very interesting quote that seems very fitting, considering I have received word of the passing of several folks....

"Being someone's first love may be great, but to be their last is beyond perfect."

The end of Another Holiday

All is going back to normal. We just got back from a 45 minute walk around and around the park. In the rain sprinkles. 65 degrees. It's pretty nice here today. I've resorted to spending more time on Face Book,Twitter, buying and reading Smarter Computing magazines and Woman's World. Everybody must be really busy or really bored because there's not very many bloggers that are blogging right now! My Internet speed is better but still not great. Hope it's not the end for some that have become bored with it and not continuing. Lots of reruns on tv. The 4th Celebration shows were pretty good but just doesn't do the fireworks justice. I want to see one of the big shows one of these days in person. Boston or New York would be good, however right now they are having a heat wave that I don't want any part of. DH took the pistols and went target shooting today. He has golf date for Wednesday and we are going to Sheridan tomorrow. Our time here at Deer Park is coming to an end. It's been wonderful and
relaxing. We have finished touring the area and I'm now starting to get hitch itch. These cars showed up at the Wagon Box Inn in Shelby Saturday afternoon when we were there for lunch.
They were on a Vintage Hot Rod Run and I couldn't resist the chance to get these pictures. Pretty awesome paint jobs.

Celebrate Freedom

Today, to celebrate the freedom of our country we are going to go and visit a local Military Fort. It was only in existence for two years, built at the forks of the Big and Little Piney Creeks in 1866.
One of three Bozeman Trail Forts, it was a stockade fortification and it enclosed 17 acres. It was the largest of three area outposts and was the site of some of the most violent battles of the Indian Wars between the U.S. Army and Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes. Battles led by famous Indians including Chief Red Cloud and a young brave named Crazy Horse.
We will tour the museum and interpretive center and walk the grounds, including the walking tour of the cemetary and Officer's Cabin and noncommissioned officer's quarters. This evening we will travel 18 miles up to UCross and visit their new Western Art museum in a restored Barn and view fireworks there. Stay tuned to pictures that I will put up when we get back.
Have a great Saturday! P.S. In keeping with safety for all my fellow RVers, it's another reminder to check your tires! A deadly accident reported in Nebraska this week cost the lives of two people from the fire that ensued after a front passenger side blow out. Now this morning in an article in RV Travel newsletter, Goodyear is the loser in a lawsuit from marketing dangerous tires. The very tires that I recently replaced this year! G159s. Here's the link to that story.
http://rvnewsservice.com/?p=426
you may have to paste it in your browser.

Happy 4th of July Weekend!

This deer is part of the herd that roams around here. This particular one likes to hang out here in my yard!
Suddenly, this morning my internet conectivity speed is next to zero! Most of the day I don't have enough connection to download pictures or much of anything! The program shows that I have 5 bars of service, so I have good reception but the speeds is next to zero! I won't be blogging very much for a while. I am taking this to the Verizon store early next week and see what's up with this, up until now it's worked fairly well. We still have several things in this area to see, and will be attending the celebration for the 4th here in Buffalo. Our part of this campground is still nice and quiet, which I hope continues. Since we are in the long term 55+ part of the park I think we'll have a nice weekend. Today is in the low 90s, pretty breezy, then a front is supposed to arrive and cool our temps down to 60s for daytime highs the rest of the weekend. Every afternoon a storm blows up bringing showers, thunder and lightening. Yesterday one blew up about 5 and then blew away just as fast and we never got a drop. Who knows what we're really in for. Hope everyone has a good holiday weekend and gets to remember our country's liberation and celebrate's our freedom. P.S. I hooked up to the free WiFi here in the park, and will download my pics that way, but not much of anything else. I had forgotten that I could use it...just won't use it for my personal stuff. Temp supposed to start dropping like a rock and wind to kick up later to 40... I may have to look up a coat if it stays cold all weekend!

Crazy Woman Canyon and the Big Horns

We had a big day yesterday! I managed to make it through the Crazy Woman Canyon without being sucked in, and we had the rest of the day sightseeing around the area and Cruising the Scenic Byways of the Big Horn Mountains.
We had 5 sightings of Moose today, several deer and antelope but no other wildlife, as we didn't get an early enough start.
The Crazy Woman Canyon is about 10 miles south of Buffalo and back west into the hills. It starts as a two lane gravel road and winds up as a very narrow, steep rock covered one lane road, a little tricky to manuveur a big vehicle in and around the big rocks of the canyon walls.



A few times it was white knuckle driving for me!The beauty of that peaceful setting was well worth the time.
A stream follows it and there were lots of flowers in bloom.
Quite a few people camping up towards the top, roughing it with tents and fires going. Braver than I am, as the hills and forest are filled with critters that will eat ya and they don't care if you're wrapped in a nylon tent!
At the top, you travel deep into the Big Horn National Forest and highway 14 continues on West to Ten Sleep, and West again to Worland. We then turned north and went on into Grey Bull, and stopped for lunch at the A&W. We stopped in there a couple of years ago when we were staying at Yellowstone Valley, so we knew it was good.
After a nice lunch and quite a wait for some road construction on the bridge, we picked up Highway 14A and continued up and over the Big Horns again.
Stopped several times to photograph animals and look for some Big Horn Sheep. We stopped at the Native American Medicine Wheel site and up at the top of the very steep road in the forest.
The views of Cloud Peak,Bomber and Bald Mountains were fantastic, and with the elevations above 10,000 ft. there's still quite a bit of unmelted snow at the top! We wound around and down, making a great big loop ending up back on I 90 north of Sheridan. We headed south and after a quick Wally World stop in Sheridan came the rest of the 33 miles home, having put in over 300 miles!
Just as we pulled into town off the Interstate Ramp, I noticed my brakes making a scraping noise! At least they held up in all the downhill mountain driving today. I did use my lower gears and tried to stay off of them, I guess it's just time. I was wondering what to do for the rest of this week leading up to the 4th of July and now I know! Spend more money on the Suburban's brakes! Yee Haw...it never ends!

Dreams N Drivin'

Any Native American that believes in their heritage and faith will tell you that truth lies within the dream. This fact was brought to me Friday....twice! Thursday night I had a dream that I was driving on an Interstate highway and a deer ran in front of my car and I had to screech the breaks to miss him...which I did. We left the park about 9:30 Friday morning and headed east on Interstate 90 towards Gillette. I don't think we had gone 20 miles and I caught a deer with my periphial vision and....yep...sure enough, across the highway she came. First across the west bound lane, through the median and without the slightest hesitation, ran right across in front of our car! Fortunately, I had enough warning, and the instinct from the dream to start slowing as to not have to screech the brakes! I did however came to almost a complete stop to miss her. The whole time, this deer was looking at me like I was nuts!!!!!
Gillette is a bustling place! A coal mining town and the area is heavy with Natural Gas wells. After completing our shopping and lunch we took State Route 14/16 north out of town, up past a huge mining operation.
I stopped along the highway to watch the HUGE dump trucks working hauling dirt from the huge pit.
The truck crossing under the highway honked at us as we watched.
The route that we took was quite a long way home, and very relaxing. As we made our way up the valley, the clear creek winds back and forth, the highway crosses it several times. It's running bank full. Everything is so green right now. There was very little traffic, but a few miles up the road, another deer came up out of the ditch and crossed the highway in front of me from right to left. What's up with that? 2:20 in the afternoon! As I sit here now, seven full grown turkeys marched in to the yard and paid us a visit, grazing along, before retreating back to their to their roosts. Just another day on the range.