Final Spearfish Thoughts and a Free Campground! (Wheatland, Wy)



We left Spearfish this morning.  Lots of hugs, even more pictures, a few tears and numerous commitments to hook up with these folks in the future.  The fact is we will spend several days with Bill and Rena next week at Rocky Mountain National Park.  Later we will see them while we're in Tucson.  They live about 25 miles south of there.  From Tucson we plan to head for Southern CA (via Yuma and Quartzite) where we will spend probably two months at an RV park that fellow volunteers Belinda and Lee told us about.  Of course, they'll be there too!  Great!  We also hope to see Tim and Lynn in Tucson or Sierra Vista and Roger and Geri in Yuma.  Gloria and Ron are headed to Texas (via Michigan) so we may not cross paths this winter, but hopefully we will again before too long.  In addition to our friendships with the Hatchery volunteers, we had many pleasant conversations with the campground hosts Fred and Kathy.  They have a truck just like ours so it was helpful to have someone to "think out loud" with before we made our own purchase.  They also were kind enough to invite us to a BBQ they had over Labor Day.  We had a great time with them and their friends and ate very well!  Kathy and Fred will winter some in Florida in the years ahead so hopefully we'll at least see them there. Staying in touch and making the effort to see new friends will remain a high priority!

Another high priority before leaving was getting the group of bikers together in their biking get-ups (including do-rags) for some parting shots.  We think they turned out great!!



Lee, Tim, Duane and Bill

Oh yeah, the girls wanted a picture too.  Ummm, I guess I should have said the girls and Steve.  How'd he get so lucky??



Rena, Pat, Debbie, Steve,  Lynn and Belinda

Bye for now everyone!  We love you!

So we got on with the maiden voyage with the new truck.  We have a break in period of 500 miles when we can't tow at more then 55 mph.  The truck was in no way challenged and the pace was low key and comfortable.  It's such a luxury to not be in a hurry! The scenery of Wyoming was majestically barren.  How do you like that!? I did have one mishap.  I was of course riding in the truck with the two dogs.  Debbie was following in the car (we're considering selling it and getting down to one vehicle).  I left my glasses on the passenger seat and one of the dogs, who have a great padded area in the back seat just for them, stepped on my glasses and broke them.  OOPS!  I'll have to work that out in the near future! Tonight we're staying in Wheatland, Wy.  The bonus is that we're in a city park and it's FREE!  There's no water or sewer (we knew this and planned accordingly) but there is 30 amp service.  We'll stay two nights.

For dinner we cooked fresh Brown Trout that were caught this morning in the Spearfish Canyon Creek.  Steve, another new friend who we hope to see this winter somewhere, caught them and gave us the little critters before we left this morning.  How nice is that??

Yummy trout!

All this reminds me of Willie's little number....."On the road again"..... you know the tune!

We're grateful!

Duane