Interesting People, Unusual Places

     Day 5. I could list our stops and excursions and where we had dinner and stayed overnight … but more fascinating are the interesting people we’ve met and the unusual places we’ve experienced.  

The first day out we stopped at the most unusual zoo … The Swetsville Zoo (Google it). A gentleman who couldn’t sleep spent his nights creating fanciful creatures with a welding iron from old metal found items.       

     This chap in the picture is two headed and is upset about the flood from the nearby Cache La Poudre River in Fort Collins. We were the only ones there except this lovely lady with seven children. She had tats over both arms, a number of jeweled studs in her ears and a color streaked butch haircut. Talking to her, we found out she ran a day care, taking the kids on an excursion. It looked like she was having a great time as well as the children.

     We chatted with three gentlemen in the waiting room of a tire shop in Rawlins, Wyoming. I asked if they were local or traveling through. The first one said North Dakota. The second one said North Dakota, the third one just said ‘me too’.  There were eight of them, brothers, in-laws, wives and one teen … all traveling together in a large RV to Nevada for a family wedding. Seemed like a real close family! Oh … about that tire shop, we lost a tire … had a couple bulges in it. Rawlins was also our first official boondock overnight in the parking lot shared by Tractor Supply and McDonalds … both of which allowed free overnight parking.

Thermopolis, Wyoming is a strange place, calls itself the largest mineral hot springs in the world. There were hot springs bubbling up everywhere over many acres … even a Hot Springs State Park. They had large pipes to vent all the steam all over that part of town. The pipes were covered with brick tepees that grew large and grotesque with lime deposits over the decades. The hot water bubbles up the pipe and out the top and over the structure. The one in the picture is about 60 years old. 

     We avoided anything called an interstate, so we took a number of rural roads through varied and captivating landscapes … following the original Oregon Trail until we arrived at Cody, Wyoming. Cody has a lot to offer but the most fascinating was the information we learned about it … population 9,000 but has an infrastructure to support 500,000. BIG tourist spot. William Buffalo Bill Cody actually founded this town and intended it as a tourist draw. He sure succeeded. If you travel through Cody to Yellowstone’s east gate … be sure to stop at the dam built in 1910 and still going strong.

One feature about traveling in a Roadtrek is the friends … friends we haven’t met yet. When you pass one on the road we blink our lights … as do they. When you see a RT in the parking lot, you are instant friends. A sort of trust thing happens instantly. So we’re saying “hey” again to Kris & Tom from Pennsylvania and Tom & Judy who are full-timers originally from Arizona. Kris and Tom are heading to the same RT Rally we are going to in Coeur d’Alene and Tom and Judy are going to the photography rally
in Montana.

Yellowstone for two days … we casually scouted around in the 2.2 million acres and saw lots of unusual things (as we were spending time in a volcano caldera) … lots of steam and vapor and mudpots and waterfalls.

But … we didn’t see a bear, except this one (the guy on the left). And we hiked 15,350 steps … thanks for the Fitbit from our wonderful daughters, Deb, Wendy, Katie, Jen and Polly!

We can’t finish up here without mentioning the young fella on the bicycle with the solar panels, a really great golden curly beard and the legs of Hercules. He was biking across the country from Boston. Friendly and talkative and a lot of fun. He is a special education teacher.

P.S. Spent two nights in Yellowstone campground and boondocked at Walmart one night and Cracker Barrel another.