Almost to Nebraska

 Mr. Keith had a hankerin' for a short drive today, so we packed up the camera, the iPad and various other necessities and headed east towards the Nebraska border. The sign said it was 35 miles to Pine Bluffs, almost on the border of Wyoming and Nebraska. I'm always intrigued by water towers so when we saw this one about 2 miles off the I-80 freeway we decided to see what was in the town of Burns. Wow! Did we get a surprise!

 This little prairie town boasts 301 people. The whole town was pristine, so neat and clean, no shabby buildings or junk lying around anywhere. We toured the whole town just to see if there was a breach in the perfection. There wasn't! It was unreal! This beautiful park is right between both sides of Main Street, which is only as long as what you see in the photo. There was no sign of litter or disrepair.

 This classic church, a Lutheran, was one of several churches in town. We wondered where the cars were, since it was close to 11:00 on a Sunday morning. Maybe they met earlier. None of the churches had cars in front. Hmm!

 Proceeding on our journey, always on a back road if possible, we saw this stucco house made to look like Indian teepees.

 Finally, we saw the town of Pine Bluffs coming up. It's easy to see where the name came from. A long line of pine tree covered bluffs rise up from the prairie right there. We found not much of interest in town except this old gas station that seemed to be a museum for old gas pumps. No room for Pete to give service there!

 The outside of this restaurant is nothing special to look at, but here's where we had lunch. It's along the freeway at an old truck stop with nothing much else there. What drew us was the sign, "Indian Restaurant, American Restaurant". We were hoping it meant native American type food, but it was India Indian food. We thought that was kind of odd, way out on the prairie. There were several Indians there having lunch. We had plain ol' American food, though the other looked really good.

Another water tower — this one at a truck stop just up the road east from the KOA. 

Sapp Bros. boasts one of the best steak restaurants in the area, T-Joe's. We've eaten there once and will again. We recommend it to any of our campers who ask where they can get a good meal. We had a great, 3 hour, 80 mile trip today. Looking forward to more!

Beauty All Around.

 I haven't blogged for awhile. We've been preoccupied with Mr. Keith's diagnosis of multiple myeloma, a cancer of the bone marrow, blood and bones. The treatment we've undertaken is aggressive and should produce good results. He spent 5 days in hospital and this was his view! The Wyoming State Capitol. The gold leaf on the dome really shines out. The platform in the forefront of the photo is where the helicopters land. Keith was lucky enough to be able to see one land while he was there, right outside his window!

 Traveling around, sight-seeing, has been a little delayed, but we did take a short ride yesterday on the outskirts of Cheyenne. This is a reservoir on the Wyoming Hereford Ranch. I think that is some kind of white egret or heron in the center. I didn't get a close enough view to be sure. Maybe one of my bird watching blogging buddies can help me out! Click to enlarge.

 And here is a fairly common sight around Cheyenne, horses. The little colt is having a drink from mom. Everything on the prairie is greening up and it is quite beautiful.

Hmmm! An interesting sight in the downtown! This is a recycling plant. There are many sights to see in the city. We saw an old brick house with beautiful flowers and bushes and trees in the front yard, as well as a white-haired lady bending over pulling weeds. We stopped, rolled down our window, and complimented her on her work. She was pleased, and told us to come back next week when she had it all done. Gotta appreciate beauty where you can find it!

Friends & Fun

 One of the happiest aspects of workamping is that we get to meet wonderful people! While we were working at the Denver East/Strasburg KOA we had the privilege of encouraging Tom and Leah to become workampers, and they began their journey at the Strasburg kampground. Two weeks into our new job at the Cheyenne KOA they came up for a 2 day visit. Our first stop in showing them around Cheyenne was the historic Depot, several times slated to be torn down and as many times rescued from destruction. It now houses a tourist center, a gift shop, a museum, and a restaurant. Cheyenne has these beautifully decorated cowboy boots all over town, several at the Depot. Here are Tom and Leah posing for us. This boot was displaying the names and dates of all the former governors of the state, artistically arranged.

 

 Once again we drove by the majestic Wyoming State Capitol without going inside. We'll do that eventually! I loved the view of the dome through the blooming tree. The Capitol is right downtown, easily seen from many viewpoints.

 "Oh! There's a billboard advertising a Sanford's Grub & Pub! I thought the only one was in Rapid City. Let's try it!" We did, and, sure enough, it was just like the one in Rapid City, which we frequented while working at Bear Country. This restaurant is jam packed with junk all over the walls. Junk of all kinds, old car parts, license plates, old pictures, tin cans, bicycles, you name it, it is on the walls. Our table was right beside this sign, "Garth Brooks Rd". The menu is huge and all the items have unusual names. I knew I should have copied some of them down, because as soon as we left I couldn't remember any of them. This darn "oldtimers" disease! Leah and Tom are from Mississippi and were delighted to find that sweet tea was on the menu. They said they hadn't had any good tea since they left MS, and it was very good here. We all had it except Mr. Keith who loves his Pepsi.They also had deep fried pickles, which is a southern delicacy. I had mine with peanut butter. That's a memorable taste!

 When Tom's dish came, a chicken fried steak, he was astonished, as we all were, at the size of the plate! It could have fed a family of 4! He doesn't know where to begin!

Well, dig in, Tom! He did, and he loved it. Needless to say, he took home over half of it. We all loved our meal. Mr. Keith had a big plate of deep fried mushrooms, and took home most of it. We had a great time with our friends, and were happy they took the time to come visit us. We're hoping for more visitors from our former home down in Strasburg Colorado, not far to come!

Day One in Cheyenne

 This is the setting for the Cheyenne KOA. We looked back as we set out to tour the town and could see our 'house'. It's the one just in the center with the fir tree sticking out above it. We decided to have a quick drive-through in downtown Cheyenne so we might see places to investigate in detail during our summer here.

We chanced upon the park where the Frontier Days Rodeo is held yearly, and found the Botanical Gardens there as well. The grounds were not yet blooming, or even planted, but inside the greenhouse I was intrigued with this jade tree, a bonsai. I've had jades most of my life, and never saw such a healthy one with practically no room for roots! How do they do that?

A Bird of Paradise! How beautiful!

This is the majestic Wyoming State Capitol building. We photographed it from different angles and got pictures of some sculptures and statues outside. We will save an inside tour for another day. Can't wait!

In my advance reading about the town of Cheyenne I discovered that there are many sculptured cowboy boots in the downtown area. Here is one outside the old Railroad Depot. It's about 6 or 8 feet tall and there were several in the courtyard at the Depot. It looks like the Depot is used now mostly for a museum, gift shop, restaurant, etc. I'm not sure if it's still used for train business. There is a huge complex of tracks right below the street and I'm thinking there may be a newer building for passengers down there. We'll see! This is the first place we want to really visit and tour. Get ready for photos!

Right across the freeway from the KOA we found the Wyoming Hereford Ranch. I've read it's the oldest working cattle ranch in the U.S. We'll find out more about that later. We did see a herd of Herefords, red cattle with white faces. This is the lane leading up to the beautiful ranch house. This place is definitely on our list to tour later. I want to see this lane when all the trees are leafed out!

Bittersweet Good-byes!

 I say 'Bittersweet' because even though we are very excited about starting work and seeing new places in Cheyenne, we are so sad to be leaving our wonderful friends in Strasburg. Noel, who makes yummy pizzas at the KOA, wanted to take us to dinner. Her choice was Mt. Fuji, a Japanese hibachi restaurant in Aurora. Do you think she ate all that rice? No, she took most of it home! Noel is dear to our hearts and we will miss her. We held back tears, (mostly unsuccessfully) when we hugged and said good-bye to Toni, Leah and Tom, Lucky, Audrey, Jennah, Jean and Karen, Kathleen and Mary. So many unforgettable people!

 More amazing friends, Tracie and Geoff with Keith. Tracie made us, as a parting gift,  a lovely bed cover, red and black, with ladybugs, a favorite collectible of mine. Tracie is a school bus driver and works part-time at the KOA. Geoff is an electrician. What a great couple. Wish we could take them with us!

 No one ever worked for better folks than Jeff and Tracy! Yes, they have the same names as the couple in the above photo, just spelled differently. Here they are with their daughter. We love them, and will highly recommend the Denver East/Strasburg KOA to anyone, to camp or to work. Five stars to Jeff and Tracy!

12

 We're pulling out of the campground, just going across the street to a truck and auto repair shop to have our tires checked. I always pray before we set out, that God will be with all 16 of our wheels, 6 on the trailer, 6 on BigTruk, and 4 on the Focus. Oh, yes, the two wheels we have our hands on, too!

Our prayer was literally answered immediately! When the man at Hank's checked the truck he discovered that an inner dually was flat! The valve stem needed replacing. We wouldn't have known that or been able to fix it had we tried to put air in the tires ourselves. All the tires were low after sitting for 8 months. He did a great job fixing the problem and in the process he bragged on BigTruk and said we'd better never move up to a newer truck because we had the very best already. Good to know!

 We took back roads north, thanks to Tracie who had drawn us a map with all the turns and road names. We were able to completely avoid the freeways till we got to I-80 at Cheyenne. I liked the look of the sky here. I think it's near Greeley Colorado. Rain's a-brewing!

We were greeted with "Welcome Home" by our new employers at the Cheyenne KOA. They made us feel very happy to be there. Here we had another answered prayer. The weather had been good till just outside Cheyenne, then it began to pour what looked like sleet. That lasted for about 4 miles. I said, "Please let it stop so we can get set up without getting soaked," About 1/2 mile from the KOA the skies closed up and we did indeed have great weather for getting completely set up in our new spot (for the next 6 months), Space 11. We are on the outer edge of the park, with the tallest tree, and our front door opens to an empty prairie field where we will be able to have a clear view of the sunrises every day. What could be better? We will be taking lots of trips to the local and not so local attractions, giving me fodder for blogging!

Rescue!

As I sat calmly at my computer in the KOA store I heard a ferocious yelling outside. Running to the door I spied my co-worker reaching under the pizza truck and grabbing something while at the same time trying to chase off a campground kitty. Her arms were full of campground supplies and...a baby bunny, which she put in my hands, rescued from the jaws of a hunter! Bunny was immobile from shock, and a little injured. We found a towel to wrap the little critter in. Minutes later the camp owner came in, saying the cat had just caught a bunny, the second one. That cat didn't waste any time! Other co-workers came in and admired and petted the baby. We all deplored the very natural instincts of our campground cats, our sympathies totally with the bunny, even though the owner said the cats do a service in keeping the rabbit population down. Part of our job description here is to pick up and dispose of the half-eaten carcasses, left at the office door, before the campers catch a glimpse of the small bodies.

In this photo we see one of our young campers, about 4 years old, thrilled to see and pet the bunny. Toni, the rescuer, a fervent animal lover, is keeping the bunny till it is big enough to escape the hunters. And, wonder of wonders, the owner asked another of our workampers to build Toni a little rabbit hutch so she could safely care for her charge. It was an exciting and hilarious morning! Never a dull moment at our campground!

A Few Last Shots

The KOA in Strasburg is turning green! We're beginning to see some grass, and some budding trees, mostly elms and cottonwoods.

  I love this beautiful tree, right outside the store. Not sure what it is. Crabapple? Flowering plum? It has a wonderful fragrance!

Friends and parents, all helping little John with his Easter eggs on the KOA playground.

And here's another shot of the prairie turning green, a relief from the winter browns. That may be a wheat field coming up, with last summer's crop for contrast.