Day 30, July 7, 2022, Arrive at KA campground un Douglas Wyoming

Day 30, July 7, 2022, Arrive at KA campground un Douglas Wyoming I’m I’m sitting behind the trailer as the stiff southerly breeze continues to feed a building storm system to our east. In this part of the country in mid summer, the storms are huge in size if not moisture. This one is probably 40-60 miles wide as far as I can see to the NE and south. It is gradually building, but like the one that moved over us earlier this afternoon it will not leave much moisture. Total precipitation for plains Montana and Wyoming is about 10” per annum. That means no crops are grown unless it is hay and that is a “crapshoot” as they say. Already the first cutting is in and if there is some irrigation, (and we did see some) it will bring them a second crop and that will be it. We can see in periods of high drought why eastern farmers brought emergency hay westward to help the ranchers out here. Our journey to Douglas from Buffalo was smooth with two stops for fuel and one for food.

Some of the features of the foothills enroute.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Typical view along the route to Douglas WY

Looking north from the backof our trailer site.

 

 

 We tried to catch a sub sandwich at an Admiral station (Subway/combo) and get gas at the same time, but when I pulled around the station to get to the pumps it was an impossible task, (Construction and many cars) so I crossed a main 4 lane highway when the traffic cleared, and settled for just the gas just across the street. That was a break, however, as one of the ladies (Michelle) pumping gas said that there was a “Schlotskys” off the next exit. OK! Thanks Michelle! We settled for that and after a very long entrance around all the buildings in that mall, and three sets of truck and car gas pumps, a parking spot was found. The parking lot had a curb at what would be the entry to avoid traffic coming off the freeway. We got ourselves a turkey sandwich that was big enough to split. Did you know that they (Schlotskys) have three size of any sandwich you want to purchase?

The old US 87 can be seen beside the highway

Some of the rock outcroppings .

Schlotsky's does a little advertising with horses!

 

The rest of the trip past Casper was again those up and down long hills that I mentioned before. They are one to two miles long and then up the other side.. We did see the most number of Pronghorns so far today. I think Ruth counted 23 of them. We were not so lucky with the birds seeing only 14 of them and five of them here in the KOA park in Douglas. 

Actually we are about 2 miles from town and have a really a great vista of the high plains in Wyoming. Douglas is at 4800 feet elevation. Douglas, like the towns in Johnson County, was also the in the middle of range wars, and the Native American conflicts, to name a few struggles.. Three cross country trails ran through here and the Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley Railroad put it on the map. Then after 70 years of no change, uranium deposits were found and got the town booming again until the coal, oil and gas industries saw the building of the huge power plant at Glenrock some 20 miles away. Douglas is considered one the top “small towns”in America.

Oursite looking out on the prairie

 

Today we crossed two branches of the Powder River and are just 2 mile from downtown Douglas. Tomorrow we will scope out the “Arches State Park” that has a bridge arch rock formation. Jim will probably get a haircut and some orange juice as “Lynnes” in Buffalo did not have that along wth some other empty shelves. This is shorter than usual and of the wi fi is working I will get it out tonight and if not , as usual, I will get it out in the morning. In camps where the wifi is not so powerful, overloads by campers (like me) in the evening slow it right down. (Sure I could get me own set up…but…I get up in the Am before thee others get started and it usually goes quicker.) 

I'll post those  cloud photos later