Southwestern Wyoming

---

We’re settling into a nice comfortable routine now after working out all the usual bugs when first starting out. This is the third time renting a camper truck, so we’ve pretty much got this routine down to a science, with only a few hiccups. We’ve even added a few more nice-to-haves this time that will seem like must-haves for future trips: extension cord for the laptop and charging things inside, telescoping car washing brush, microfiber dish washing and drying cloths (forget cotton, these things rock; wet cloths can be squeezed almost completely dry and are completely dry within an hour), a whole roll of the sticky shelf liner for the table and counter tops so that things don’t slip and slide while on the road.

After breezing through Grand Teton Park, and deciding we could see mountains any time (the joys of living in BC), and still on a high from Yellowstone, we continued on south and stayed at the Hoback Junction KOA south of Jackson, Wyoming. We didn’t realize it at the time, but Jackson (aka Jackson Hole) is a very hoity toity ski resort and Vancouver real estate prices pale against what we saw in the local paper there.

There has obviously been frost in most of western Wyoming because we saw some incredible colours dotting the otherwise dry sage-covered hillsides. We’ve had frost for the last four nights. However, we are still experiencing very warm up to 27 degree C (85 F) days, so that makes up for the very chilly mornings.

On further south and a bit east to visit Fossil Bute National Monument and the interesting displays at the information centre. A Wyoming lake, 50 million years ago, is now a fossil bed and has produced whole communities - plants, fish, birds, mammals, reptiles and insects all fossilized at the same time and recovered in a 50 cm section of limestone. Then further south east to Manila, Utah near the southern end of Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area on the Green River, where we stayed for a very quiet night at the local KOA, with plans to explore the area tomorrow.

---