Fall Travels

 I've been way too busy during our time in Wenatchee with visiting family and friends, and getting repairs on the 5th wheel and the car, too busy to do a blog post. So here is my attempt to share some of the beauty we've been seeing. It's an unusually colorful autumn here in the Wenatchee Valley and points west. Some years an early frost turns all the leaves brown and they fall off. Other years, the frost delays and we get to see incredible yellows, golds, reds, and oranges everywhere. This photo shows the brilliance of some of the trees in the Wenatchee River County Park, where we stayed for close to 2 weeks. That's our rig, nestled amidst the beauty.

 A walk by the Wenatchee River on a warm fall day yields a treasure.

 I've always loved this valley, west of Cashmere and heading towards Peshastin. This year even the apple and pear orchards are seeped in color, as the fruit is harvested and the leaves have turned.

 Our time in Wenatchee is over. Today we headed up Blewett Pass and were thrilled with the gorgeous colors, every bit as lovely as the scenes we saw in the Colorado Rockies last October. I know I shouldn't be taking pictures while driving behind the 5th wheel, but I couldn't resist!

 Here is another view, near the Blewett Pass summit.

Coming down safely from Blewett Pass we then started up Snoqualmie Pass. There is snow on them thar hills! The highway was dry, though, and we passed through quite a bit of construction near the summit, and, as always, lots of traffic. It was a beautiful drive, though bumpy in many places. We arrived at our final destination, the Lost Lake RV Resort near Lacey WA, safe and sound. I'll have photos of the resort and its pretty lake very soon.

I Meant To Do It!

 Yes, I meant to write a blog post every day of our trip from Cheyenne to Wenatchee, but I didn't quite make it. I did post about Casper WY and about Custer's Last Stand, but I hardly even took any photos after that. We spent 6 days out and traveled just over 1200 miles. After Hardin MT our next stop was in Bozeman MT. We were particularly excited about this stay because we have a job here at the KOA for next summer. We met the managers and paid special attention to the facilities and the beauty of this park. We will love it here! The downtown is beautiful and picturesque and the surrounding mountains are awesome!

 One of our favorite parks is the KOA at Missoula MT. We worked here for 2 summers in 2009-2010. The park itself is big and beautiful, but an added perk to being here is that we still know and stay in touch with some of the folks who work here. It was a joy to see them and to go out to dinner at Applebee's with some of them.

Our 5th night out was spent at the Spokane KOA. I failed to take a photo of our rig in this very nice park. We met an interesting couple here when they brought their little boy over to see our kitties outside in their kitty tent. It turns out the man is a writer and a pastor, and they are living simply in their RV while he writes another book. We bought his latest published book and are enjoying it very much. It is "Keys to Your Future" by Dan Hayne.

 Sometimes when we come across Washington we stay a night in Ephrata so we can visit my sister and bro-in-law. This time we left our rig in the church parking lot next door to their apartment building and spent a couple of hours with them, including lunch. My sister is a health food aficionado. She put together this gorgeous salad with flowers and other more unusual greens from her garden. Yum! We really did enjoy this meal!

 Home at last! After we set up we grabbed a granddaughter and took her out to our park for a few hours. Here is Natalie by the Wenatchee River. We had not seen the kids and grandkids for 14 months, so they were sights for sore eyes.

 Love!

We've stayed in many, many RV parks in our 8 years as workampers, but we can truthfully say the Wenatchee River County Park is the most beautiful. Of course, it always helps that we seem to be here in September or October when we get to see the gorgeous poplars, locusts and other trees in full autumn glory, with the Wenatchee River flowing serenely by. The layout of this park is unique, too. The RV spaces are in a circle going out like spokes in a wheel. It makes each space seem farther away from the next one while still getting maximum use of the available ground. We love it here!

Well, we have a few more days to visit and share our love with our family and friends. We're also getting some much needed RV repairs, then when that's completed we're off again. We'll be crossing the Cascade Mountains over Snoqualmie Pass and journeying on to Lost Lake RV Resort near Olympia WA for our winter work. I'll post again soon!

Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument

We traveled 228 miles on Monday between Casper WY and Hardin MT. I like the colorful red roads in Wyoming.

We found an adequate RV park in Hardin, with the intention of touring the site of Custer's Last Stand. Though we've been there at least a couple of times in past years, we wanted to go again. We were pleased to discover that they now have a memorial to the Indians, Lakota and Cheyenne, who died in this battle, as well as the Cavalry soldiers. This is one headstone, dedicated to a Cheyenne Indian named Limber Bones.

The memorial is a a large circle of stones with artwork, dedications and names on plaques inside the ring. We loved this metal sculpture looking out over the plains. One quote from Crazy Horse, a Lakota, said, 

"We did not ask you white men to come here. The Great Spirit gave us this country as a home. You had yours...We did not interfere with you...We do not want your civilization!"

Another new display, a tombstone for the faithful horses who were killed and buried at the site of the battle. So appropriate!

This is the memorial itself, with the names of all the 7th Cavalry soldiers who died here. A nearby plaque reads:

 "The remains of about 220 soldiers, scouts, and civilians are buried around the base of this memorial. The white marble headstones scattered over the battlefield denote where the slain troopers were found and originally buried. In 1881 they were reinterred in a single grave on this site. The officers' remains were removed in 1877 to various cemeteries throughout the country. General Custer was buried at West Point.

Gravestones are scattered throughout the area. This is where Custer fought, renamed Last Stand Hill, and it's just below the memorial in the photo above. Some of the other gravestones are at the site of the Reno-Benteen skirmishes, 5 miles away, with many others along the way. We watched a video inside the Visitor Center which showed the military strategies and what actually happened.

The area where all these battles took place is very beautiful at this time of year. The sun was right on the horizon to the west so I was surprised that some of my photos turned out fairly well. We are on the ridge looking down on the Little Bighorn River where all the Indian tribes were camped. We couldn't see the river from here because all the trees in the photo are along the banks of the winding river, hiding it from view from this angle. At the time of the Battle, June 25-26, 1876, the hills and prairie were green.

Here we are looking in the opposite direction, to the east. More gravesites are seen here, and all along the battle route. We are saddened by the bloodshed, but more saddened about how the Native Americans were treated by the "white man" who thought he had a right to take possession of the lands. Enough said!

 

After our tour, we ate some delicious Indian Fry Bread at the Custer Battlefield Trading Post, an excellent restaurant and store run by the Indians, probably the Crow, since the whole historical site is on the Crow Reservation. Our waiter told us he was part Crow, Cheyenne, Scottish and French! We ate at this restaurant about 12 years ago, and found it was just as wonderful now as then.

Cheyenne to Casper WY

 It's a mixed bag of sadness and excitement to be leaving the Cheyenne KOA. Sadness, because we enjoyed working here; excitement, because we love getting out on the road heading for a new place! We love the journey between jobs. It's our vacation!

 Our KOA employers, owners Dave and Mary Jo, and Jim, our manager. Rhonda, Jim's wife, is missing because she just had some surgery and was sleeping when we left. We will never forget these wonderful people!

 I know, I know! I shouldn't take pictures while I'm driving! Here we are headed up I-25 towards Casper. It's a short drive, 190 miles. Remember, it's our vacation!

  The Casper KOA is really in the town of Bar Nunn, on the outskirts of Casper. We happened to be here on the last day the park is open for this year. We had a nice, big spot with plenty of room for our rig, truck and car, plus a spot to put up our kitty tent. The cats were happy to get out of the car, and after their snack to be put outside in their tent to enjoy the new smells.

 We tried to visit the National Historic Trails Interpretive Center but found it closed on a Sunday. Since the building is up on a hill we got this pretty view of the city of Casper. It is green and full of trees, in contrast to the prairie around it. The mountains in the distance are the northernmost stretch of the Medicine Bows. The Platte River runs through the town. Casper is noted in Oregon Trail history as the place where the trails split into three, the Oregon Trail, The Mormon Trail and the California Trail. The names of the Trails are self-explanatory. The Oregon Trail ended in Fort Vancouver WA and Oregon City OR; the Mormon Trail ended in Utah, and the California Trail split into several different destinations in California.

 We next tried the Fort Casper Museum and were happy to find that it was open. The Fort is a reconstruction, but that happened in 1936, so the log buildings are looking quite old. The original Fort was built in 1859. The one fact that stands out in my mind is that the Fort was named in honor of Lt. Caspar Collins who was killed in an Indian battle. They wanted to name it Fort Collins, but there was already a Fort named for Caspar's father in Colorado! So they settled for the Lt.'s first name.

 This is a reconstruction of a small section of the toll bridge that crossed the Platte River at Casper. The trading post there served as a stage stop, a Pony Express relay station, and a telegraph office. After the Sand Creek masacre in 1864 the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapahoe gathered at this bridge and fought the battle in which Lt. Caspar Collins was killed. The entire Fort was later dismantled and moved to Fort Fetterman near what later became Douglas WY. By the way, I found it interesting that even though Caspar Collin's name is spelled with an 'a' in the second syllable, the town founders changed the spelling to a 'e'.

In 1847 Brigham Young built and operated a ferry across the North Platte River near the site of present-day Fort Caspar Museum. It's difficult to believe that this little raft carried wagon after wagon across the river! However, it couldn't have been too risky. We have found that in all the places we've seen the Platte River it has been very placid, smooth, and not very deep. It's the principle river the Oregon Trail pioneers followed across the prairie. Well, tomorrow will bring us to Hardin MT where we'll once again tour the site of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, where Custer lost his life. I'll be posting about that!

Good-bye Cheyenne

After a hard day's work getting ready to go, condensing our possessions, securing the rig, putting stuff away, preparing to hook up BigTruk to our 5th wheel, this is what we saw over the campground tonight. It looks like an angel up there holding out his arms to the city and to the KOA!

Our time here has passed quickly. Mostly it was taken up with doctor and hospital visits, since Mr. Keith was diagnosed with multiple myeloma right after we arrived. He's had several rounds of chemo, lots of pills, some infusions, and all around great care from the doctor and the many nurses who have touched his life. We will have a leisurely trip home in our 5th wheel, visiting Casper, Hardin, Bozeman, Missoula, Spokane, and, finally, Wenatchee. After a couple of weeks to visit family and friends we'll go on to our new workamping job at Lost Lake RV Resort near Olympia, and Keith will have his stem cell transplant in Seattle.

We've had a great summer of work and play at the Cheyenne KOA, working with great people and meeting tons of happy campers. 

The highlights of our time here were that we got to see Oregon Trail history at Guernsey and at Fort Laramie, to the north. We enjoyed time in the city of Laramie to the west where we met up with my childhood friend and classmate. We took many drives around the Cheyenne area, and we toured the Capitol and some other historical places in town. And, of course, we sampled several of the local restaurants with co-workers and with friends. It was a wonderful place to spend our summer.

So... Cheyenne, it's been good. You've treated us well and given us delightful memories. We will never forget you and your people.

 May God bless you, Cheyenne!

A Capitol Day!

Something we've been wanting to do since we've been in Cheyenne is to visit the inside of the State Capitol. We had a chance to do that on Monday in between work and Keith's doctor visit. The blue ribbon on the outside of the building is for prostate cancer, I discovered.

This is looking straight up to the gold plated dome. The Wyoming State Capitol was constructed in 1886, in the style of the National Capitol Building in Washington D.C.

The Wyoming State Mammal is the American Bison. This beautiful specimen stands in the lobby. In life, he weighed 3000 pounds and is the third largest bison on record.

The House of Representatives. I love the carpet and wall colors.

When we stepped outside the back entrance to the Capitol we saw the modern government building with this reflection of the stately dome in the windows. 

The well-known symbol of Wyoming, the Cowboy State, is this bucking bronco sculpture, named the "Spirit of Wyoming", proudly displayed on the Capitol grounds. The light wasn't good for this photo, but you can get an idea how it looks.

Still with time to kill, and a bag of old bread in the trunk, we decided to go up to Lion's Park to feed the ducks. This is the park that includes the rodeo grounds where Frontier Days is held each year. We expected to feed the Canada Geese but there weren't any there, only a lone white goose amidst the mallard ducks.

The Botanical Gardens are right next to the little lake, and it is incredibly beautiful there. The first time we visited, in early May, nothing was planted. At this time of year, September, the displays are just a little past their prime, but still lovely.

The bridge passes over a small lagoon filled with pond lilies.

Gorgeous!

Bye-bye!

 One of the most wonderful things about workamping is that we get to meet and work with tremendous people. One of the saddest things about workamping is that we have to invariably say good-bye to them when the season is over. This was one of those sad days. We looked over and saw that John and Sue already had their 5th wheel slides in and were about to hook up the truck, so we high-tailed it over there to say one last good-bye.

 We had the privilege of working with John and Sue at two different KOAs, the Denver East/Strasburg KOA and the Cheyenne KOA. They are headed back to their home state, Florida, for a couple of weeks, and then they'll take up their fall job working for Amazon in Kentucky.

 To John and Sue:

An Old Irish Blessing

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Bye-bye! We'll miss you!