Aug 28 - Laramie Overlook/back to Cheyenne

We spent a wonderful weekend at Laramie overlook, our favorite spot on blm land. Our favorite 'Landerites' met us up there with their 5th wheel, and a good time was had by all! They have 3 little chihuahuas, Chalupa, Ya Quiero, and Pebbles. SO cute!

Friday night Chris made us terrific mexican lasagne...oh my, so good! We sat around and chatted for a while, until the chill run us in.

Saturday we had a great time, started out with biscuits with sausage gravy by yours truly, we walked a bit, but mostly sat and chatted! Denny sees full timing in their future, Chris has her doubts - ut we believe they will make it a priority in the future. We went to Laramie for lunch, 'Grand Avenue Pizza', then visited Wal Mart of course. We showed them where the Territorial Prison is with the dump station and potable water :) We enjoyed some great weather, it was 97 in Cheyenne and only 81 on the mountain.

Saturday night Chris and Denny treated us to a delightful mail of grilled steak, asparagus, and coleslaw! We grilled the steak on their birthday present to David, a lovely gas grill. Thanks you two!

We spent several hours watching the fabulous sunset, enjoying good friends and talking about old times and future times. We've decided that we are going to try to meet in Thermopolis in October sometime...our schedule is pretty full for Oct, but we'll fit it in somehow!

Sunday morning I cooked eggs benedict for a special treat. It wasn't long until it was time for them to head back to Lander, a 5 hour drive.

After they left, we decided that we were heading to JAX in Ft Collins across 287 to buy the stove we've been researching. It is made by Camp Chef, and after we measured (several times) we decided it is just what we wanted!

Monday I drove to town to work, and back to the mountain Monday night. We had a lovely dinner of leftovers, and hit the sack early.

This morning as I was headed back to work, on I-80, I had a flat tire. It was good that I have AAA, however I sat on the side of the road for 1.5 hours :( Not what I had in mind for my morning. The rest of the day was usual for work. We got new tires on the car to the tune of $360+ dollars. Oh well, shouldn't have any problems with them for a while!

Unfortunately David didn't have the card in the camera, so until he figures out how to get them on a card, I have no pics of the weekend :( (Edit, yep, got 'em off!)

Chris and Denny...thanks for the memories!

August 18th - Moose Club David's Birthday

I got home tonight and we cleaned out the garden shed - a friend came over and took all the half empty bags of fertilizer, grass seeds, pieces and parts of fencing, and assorted hoes, shovels, rakes, and planters. Oh yes, she is also my hairdresser and gave me a haircut!

I realized that we will be going to the Moose Club for family night tomorrow night, and since David's birthday is on Thursday, and the tradition is that whomever is having a birthday brings dessert for the table (usually 8 people). So, I baked two fresh pumpkin pies - the very first pies in my convection oven! They look yummy, don't ya think?

I'll take the camera tomorrow night and take some pictures of us indulging :) I'll also take some whipped cream, plates and forks. We have some really good friends that we meet at the club every Wed night. We usually have cheeseburgers n fries.

That's all for tonight - have a great day tomorrow.

August 14 - 16 Mountain Park campout

Friday afternoon we arrived at Mountain park campground in the Roosevelt National forest. It was a beautiful afternoon/evening, with temps in low 70's. We had 13 units there and that made for a terrific group of friends and fellowship. That evening, there was a beautifl sky. We had a lovely evening sitting around the fire place and chatting. One of our members brought a laptop that he had a program on that he built, randam songs would play and the words would be hilighted - we sang for about an hour, old favorites like Puff the Magic Dragon, Moon River, America the Beautiful and many, many more!





















Saturday morning dawned with rain showers - but they didn't last long! We were all scheduled to be at the pavillion at 9:30 to load up the milk can with veggies/sausage. We layered it, potatoes, carrots, corn on the cob, cabbage, onions, sausage...and put it on to cook for 2.5 hours (very high altitude, normally 1.5 - 2 hours does it!).

Yum yum yum!

A wonderful meal was had by all! We decided we would do a 'drag out' hot dog roast at 6:30 pm and until then it was everyone for themselves...so we decided to sit and chat :)































The dragout was yummy, as was the pastry baked goods Sunday morning. Lots of games were played, garbage, mah jong, poker, etc., and lots of fun was had by all. We also played ladder golf, washers and some folks just strolled and hiked with their pets!

All too soon the weekend came to an end, and we headed home about 2 pm. Now we are on our home pad, hoping to head out again in a week.

Longmont Drifters...thanks for the memories!!!

August 12, Wednesday

Nothing much going on - I go to work every day, waiting to go camping :)

Tomorrow will be a pack it up day - we don't have much to do, but I do need to get some things from the freezer in the house. We are having a cream can dinner on Saturday, I'll be sure to get some pics of that, and each unit is to bring a 'ring' of sausage, plus a side or dessert. I'm taking 20 lbs of potatoes to put in the cans, along with the sausage, carrots, cabbage, onion, corn on the cob...yum!

Sunday morning we are to each bring a pastry...and whatever we want to drink. So I have butter braids in the freezer that I can defrost, let rise and bake. They are very good!

We also need to do some weeding tomorrow - can't wait til the house is sold and I don't have to do this anymore!

All for now - I'll post after the weekend with pictures!

August 9 Ft Laramie

Sunday morning once again beautiful blue skies and cool temps greeted us. We had our club meeting outside, sipping our coffee - then we continued to chat outside for hours. People would break off, go have a bite to eat, come back and take up with whatever conversation was going on. We finally left Fort Laramie about 3:15. We pull our 'toad' behind the MH, and as we were going south on I-25, David asked, "Are we going home...or do you want to stop in Wheatland?"

It only took me about two minutes to say, yes, let's stop in Wheatland! They have a lovely place called Lewis Park, with good 30 amp electric, good potable water available and a dump station. The park is wonderful, and we love the little town. We spent the evening just relaxing, getting ready for another work week (for me) and chores for David.

And so, another wonderful camping weekend...can't wait until we are truly on the road :)

Thanks Jackalopes...for the memories.

August 8, Ft Laramie

The morning brought beautiful sunny skies, and we sat outside with some great friends! We had a total of 10 rigs and we had two 'drive ins' that came to spend the day and enjoy the potluck - mostly for the fellowship and friendship.

David and I went to the FLAG restaurant, actully the Fort Laramie American Grill. If you go, don't miss it. Terrific place - only 8 tables but all the food is made on the premises (the coconut cream pie was simply to die for). After a delightful lunch, we went back and for some reason we needed a nap :) My dish for the pot luck was a rigatoni casserole, and there were so many wonderful dishes there, including just picked corn on the cob...heaven! Of course the skies opened up, so we all filled our plates and ran to our rigs. Of course about 45 minutes later it was clear again. To finish off the night we had homemade ice cream by Pam & Gary, served with a warm pan of brownies (our contribution). What a great way to end a terrific day!

August 7, 2009 - Ft Laramie Camp out

David drove the MH up to the town of Ft Laramie WY on Friday. He got all set up and my oh my, it was hot up there! Thankfully when I got up there it started clouding up to rain. We decided to go for a drive and see what was around.

We drove to the little burg of Lingle, WY, because we heard that there was a good restaurant there. The name of it is Lira's, and oh yes, it is good! There was a rehearsal dinner there with all kinds of young folks in their finery - notice I italicized the young! We enjoyed a good dinner, and it was pouring rain while we were in there. By the time we were ready to go, it was just sprinkling, but the temp dropped about 10 degrees. We got back to the park where an additional 8 rigs pulled in and was sitting outside chatting, about 8:30 when a COLD front moved through - a little hail, more rain and lots of wind. Wow, the temp dropped another 15 degrees! It was in the 50's and felt wonderful!

We went to bed enjoying having the windows open - this park is NOT for people that don't like trains - they went every 30 minutes, blowing their horn at least 7 times each. We don't mind the trains, but some of our group certainly did!

August 4, 2009

Last day on the overlook, David was able to get some pictures of wildflowers. Here are a couple of them:

Gorgeous daisy's :)

This pretty star flower is so pretty, only problem is that it won't grow down here on the flatlands!

This is some kind of white flower that looks like little clusters of circles - very nice!

August 3 – Back to work Monday

Yes, as the heading states, it was back to work. However, as I was getting in the car (it is really, really dark up there) I heard a ‘snort’…my butt was in the car and the door shut very fast! I started the car and just turned the corner, and there was a yearling ELK! Holy cow, I hit the brakes so hard it is the wonder that the airbags did not deploy! He was very curious, and kept walking around in a circle in front of the car. I got David on the phone and said look out the window….he did and was witness to the next 10 minutes, of that elk walking closer and closer to my car! He stuck his nose on the passenger side window! I had my windows up but I said Oh baby, don’t hurt my car! Finally I had to leave for work, and when I started away, he came to the driver’s side window and trotted alongside for a couple hundred yards! That simply set my day off to the best start!

David meanwhile decided to watch and take pictures…here are some that he took, none of them are terrific because we don’t have a big zoom on the camera, but you can see them.

August 2 – Sunday on Laramie Overlook

Of course, this morning we were primed with the camera ready and everything, and no elk L That’s the way it goes sometimes.

We had a lovely day – went to the Epperson Center in Laramie, It is the Senior center and they served a fantastic Sunday brunch from 9 – 12. It was $5 for me and only $3.50 for David…he’s over 60 ya know! It was quite a bargain, and if you’re ever in Laramie on a Sunday, I highly recommend it! Yep, it IS a senior center, but very nice, and they had bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, some type of egg casserole, hash browns, French toast, pancakes, biscuits & sausage gravy, fruit, milk, 2 kinds of juice, cereal, toast and coffee. It was all you could eat and was quite lovely.

After consuming all that food, we went to Undine Park, where there were vendors, musicians, lots of kids and crafts. It was very interesting, and after walking around we sat down and enjoyed some pretty decent music. The price was right – free!

We headed back up on the mountain when it started to get too hot in Laramie. It is always 10 – 15 degrees higher up there and was so pleasant! We finished the day with a great dinner of steak on the grill, garlic bread, fresh tomatoes, cukes and corn on the cob. We finished out the day with Butter Pecan ice cream and a great sunset!

August 1 – Morning surprise

We had talked last night about being able to ‘sleep in’ this morning, and that was the full intention…but David got up about 5:30ish and was planning to come back to bed. Suddenly he yelled for me to get up, come see this. I stumbled out of the back and looked- oh my, a beautiful pair of elk walking through the field…followed by two more pairs…then about 5 minutes later came a huge bull. The others were bull elk too, but he was the biggest one, large rack and they were all sleek and well fed. This is the first time we have seen any real wildlife here, except for prairie dogs, hawks, marmots and the occasional chipmunk. We knew there had to be some, but were never able to spot any!

Got a call from Dawn, our daughter that her flight from Atlanta to Tokyo was at least 4 hours delayed and she was going to miss her connection to get home. There is far too much of this happening in the airline industry – it is a crying shame that they charge so much and can’t seem to provide any service.

July 31 – Laramie Overlook

David took the MH to the Laramie Overlook this morning and got set up. I drove up after work, picked him up and we went into Laramie to the farmer’s market. My goodness, the produce is very expensive this year! I got some fresh corn, cukes, tomatoes, then we went to a new place for dinner, (new to us) Grand Avenue Pizza – OMG it was terrific. We both had calzones on whole wheat crust, it was hand made and thin, the insides were yummy, (I had meatball, David had pepperoni, peppers, onions, etc.) Boy, that place will be on our list in the future!

While we were in the restaurant it poured down rain. When we left we stopped at WalMart, and made our donation there as well. We also ran into our son in law, Rick’s mom Debby and her husband Carlos. They are camping at Curt Gowdy State Park this weekend, and since it was raining they drove into Laramie to get some movies. It was nice chatting with them.

On our way back home, we stopped and watched a buck in velvet and a lovely doe for a few minutes until they meandered out of site. We came back home and pulled out the catalytic heater – it would be down in the low 40’s at night…brrr!