So when was the last time I updated? I'm going to say Cheyenne. If there was something in between, it wasn't important anyway. So after we stopped to resupply at our favorite survival! gear store, we headed off to Meeteetse (Mee-tee-see) for our first night of camping Wyoming style. And by Wyoming style, I mean in somebody's back yard in the cold, but I'll get to that later.
Annabelle has taken to wishing for everything. She has even learned to hold her mouth right. Personally, I'm all for the wishing. It beats screaming any day.
We drove up through the Wind River Valley and got our first real taste of the West. We stopped at a playground that was also a mini-campground right next to the Wind River.
At this point the kids were really getting into the Western theme. At some point in the trip, Annabelle started saying, "Darn-dang-it!" when things didn't go her way. She's got that whole Southern accent going along with it, too. Darn-dang-it, Y'all!
Willa decided the cowboy hat was an okay accessory, but cowboy boots are tacky. Willa? Tacky? I had no idea that she even knew what that meant.
Meeteetse! We stayed at the Oasis Motel & RV Park in the tent camping area. The tent camping area is the back yard of the motel. So is the RV camping area. They have a little playground and the girls made friends immediately. One of our neighbors gave us some fresh local trout for dinner. None of these neighbors wanted to show us their rashes, so we really liked it here. The staff was very friendly and for $11 you get to live right next to your very own fake cowboy town! You see the dilapidated looking building in the picture above? It's just a facade, no building... just ambiance.
Yeah, that looks safe. While we were getting ready for dinner, two gigantic deer of some kind loped through our campsite. The kids chased after them only to be disappointed at how fast deer can hop away. The next morning when we got up, we had a bunny friend just outside our tent. It was like spending the night in a Disney film. Did I mention that Wyoming is cold in June? Really, really cold. Like winter time cold. I was not prepared for summer in Wyoming to be 35 degrees at night. That's just wrong. Connor said, "Somebody forgot to give Wyoming the memo about summer."
See what a great place this was? They had a really nice washer and dryer for me to wash my cell phone in. Which is exactly I did. So as an added vacation bonus, I got to go to the Verizon store in Cody and buy myself a new one. Is that a great souvenir or what?
So after we stopped and bought a new cell phone, we drove about an hour and a half and finally made it to Yellowstone! where I promptly lost all cell phone service for the next two weeks. There are literally two places in Yellowstone that you could use your cell phone and you had to put on your tinfoil hat and pray to the cell phone gods to get any kind of reception even then. I should have just waited and let my stupid phone dry out.
As we drove into Yellowstone, Belly started singing, "Country road, take me home, to the place, I beeee-long, West Virginia, mountain mama, take me home, country road." I didn't even know that she knew that song! So I asked her why she had never sung it before. She told me, "I've been saving it for a snowy mountain." If I wasn't prepared for 35 degrees at night, I certainly wasn't prepared for snow. In June. What is wrong with this place? It was really darn-dang cold. We had to drive all the way back into Cody to get another sleeping bag because we were FREEZING!
See that on the ground behind Belly? That's snow at our campground. It didn't help that it was so wet that I couldn't make a campfire to save my life. Mostly I sent smoke signals and made things smell terrible.
This is our first campsite in Canyon Village. Canyon Village has the smaller campsites, but the best showers. For all four of us to shower cost $9.75. I tried to cheap out and just do sponge baths, but it was COLD and I decided that $10 a day is a small price to pay to be warm for half an hour. What you don't see in the picture above is the huge pile of snow on the other side of my car. Of course, I got a terrible cold and lost my voice for two days. Happy vacation!
Tomorrow morning before I get back on the road, I'll try to get up highlights of Old Faithful, The Buffalo Bill Museum and The Cody Rodeo.
1 comment:
Yeah! You're back in the internets!
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