Day 8 – Saturday : Bighorn National Forest to Dubois (423 km) I start the morning by climbing onto the roof to clean the solar panels, since we are pretty reliant upon them. The roof feels a bit crunchy under foot in places, a sign that it is time for this rebuild.
We carry on along US-16 and down Ten Sleep Canyon.
We stop briefly in Ten Sleep itself and buy Sally a T-shirt from the Dirty Sally General Store. If we had more time I’d let her go into the Crazy Woman Café too, but that would probably involve yet more T-shirt purchases. I like the way the stabling for the rodeo ground here is marked as a “Horse Hotel”.
We will be spending more time in the mountains from now on, and the cold of last night has given us a warning. At Worland we pull into Shopko and find a comforter marked down to $18 in the sale – that will help. In our own camper we let it get cool overnight and rely on a thick duvet on the bed to keep us warm, although in the cold and wet months we pay for campgrounds with hook-up so we can run the dehumidifier overnight, which also heats the camper.
While in their car park I power up my computer and 4G mobile cell hotspot, and have internet for the first time since TN. It is useful to be able to catch up with friends to confirm travel arrangements for the rest of the journey. We are not generally city people. When travelling we consuming sandwiches in the hills rather than a restaurant and eat our evening meal where we are camped, which is also away from cities. Hence getting internet connection is a real challenge, since we never stop for any length of time where there is a cell signal, or at least where there is a cell signal my mobile hotspot has a roaming deal with.
I notice the solar charge controller shows only 2.5 amps in the midday sun, despite the battery not being full. I finally resort to reading the manual for the controller and realise there is nothing wrong with the system, it is just looking after the batteries.
We turn onto US-20 and head south to Thermopolis Hot Springs State Park for lunch and to look at the strange coloured algae.
The river is high and flooding some of the nicely set-out lawns and picnic benches.
The road going under the railroad in town doesn’t have much clearance – just 12 ft. I get Sally to stand in the road and watch as I drive under very slowly. The aircon unit gets pretty close to the bridge. We will find another road when leaving – one that goes over the railroad instead of under it.
We carry on south down Wind River Canyon. I start to look out for state parks and campgrounds. There is a campground by Boysen Reservoir, near the dam, but it looks really hot – anyway, it is still too early in the day to stop.
The plan is to turn NW onto US-26, and we take a short-cut along WY-134 cutting the corner. However, when on arriving at the junction of US-26 we find it closed due to flooding and have to take a big detour via Ethete and Fort Washakle almost to Lander, and then back up US-287 before re-joining the Wind River.
Now it is time to start looking for camping. Looking at the road map I can see National Forest to the north east. Approaching Dubois I spot a gravel road to the right showing camping some miles along. The road is clearly a dead-end, so as it heads miles away from US-26 I just hope we find some suitable camping. About 9 miles along we find a corralled area set out for hunters to camp in, with a long drop toilet. No fee and no other campers – this is perfect.
Time to go for a walk. The weather is looking ominous in the mountains to the west; heading in the direction of Jackson.
I’m slightly worried about the amount of water emptying down the creeks in this valley. The water level in them is very high and I don’t want to wake up with them having broken their banks and flooding the only road out. To add to my concerns, the weather we could see earlier arrives in the night bringing with it a lot of heavy rain.
At about 3 AM the fridge alarm sounds. The propane should have switched over to the other cylinder but that clearly wasn’t working. With a flashlight in my mouth I venture out in the wind and rain to investigate. It turns out the valve to the second cylinder is closed. Once I open it and recycle the fridge power all was well again. The low propane pressure may explain why the platcat heater didn’t start up.
