If we run out we'll just pull over and get more from inside THE POD.
TRAVELING NORTH ACROSS CENTRAL WYOMING
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Do any of our Florida friends or family know what those tall wooden fenceson the west (left) side of the road are used for?
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It seems the trees ony grow in the cracks of the rocks around here?
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There's some more of those wooden fences and again on the west side of the road?
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Still in Wyoming, with a whole lot of nothing ahead of us.
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These wooden fences just don't make sense!They don't keep animals in like the shorter fence in the front does.
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OK! This photo has a clue about the wooden fences.
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Soon we were traveling through red rock mountains.
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It kind of reminds me of the Sedona, AZ landscapes.
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Notice how he's keeping to the outside of the roadway with that wide load.
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Next time I see a sign warning about falling rocks I'm going to take it a little more seriously.
I'm sure we looked like a couple of "rookies" to the people watching and waiting for us to back THE POD into our campsite today.
With the single-wide 1-lane roadway in front of our campsite it required some tight maneuvering.
Once the road passes our campsite it makes a long right hand turn. So imagine me 60' passed our campsite driveway looking in my mirrors and seeing nothing but the high shrubs on both sides of the street. Thank goodness we at least have a backup camera on THE POD.
By the time I've got THE POD where I need it, ROVER is beginning to tear down shrubbery on the right hand side of the street. Meanwhile I've got three trucks backed up and waiting because this is the only way into the campground. To make matters worse, we are on Site #1, so all the other campsites are beyond us down this road.
After what was probably only 10-minutes, it sure felt a lot longer, I had THE POD in the site, but nowhere near where it should be. We unhitched and I drove ROVER around the entire campground loop so that traffic could finally get passed our site.
Unhitching like that had another benefit and that was I could now position ROVER however I needed him. Once we did that, it was relatively easy enough to place THE POD all the way into the campsite. It still wasn't perfect, but it was good enough for 2-nights.
Now came the chore of leveling THE POD left to right on this extremely tilted driveway. I knew we were in trouble when our Level-Mate Pro app informed us we needed to raise the passenger side of THE POD at least 6.75" to achieve level.
Watch out for that third step when exiting THE POD, it's a doozy.
Our normal leveling ramp will only compensate for a maximum of 4" out of level, so we needed to get "creative". We also carry a "tire changing ramp" that will lift a tire 6" so that the tire next to it is off the ground. Even with a 6" lift we weren't going to be level, so we placed 2-layers of 1' tall "lego blocks" under the ramp. We also placed a rubber mat between the plastic pieces to help keep them from slipping.
Now that we're level left to right it's time to chock the tires on both sides and disconneect ROVER from THE POD. Once again checking our Level-Mate Pro app I knew we were going to have to put the front jack of THE POD way down about 8" below ROVER's bumper ball mount. For that reason we didn't use our 8" tall bucket and instead just maxed out the jack to separate the two. Only problem was it was about an inch short of raising the hitch above the ball, so we had to do it all over again, this time with the bucket in place. Minimizing the jack height left us still about 2" too high, so for the next 2-nights we'll sleeping at an angle.
The Visitor Center about 1-mile down the road is where we're going to start.
Just like in Florida there is a phenomenon where a river disappears underground, only to resurface less than a mile away. In Florida this occurs at Oleno River State Park and downriver at River Rise Preserve State Park. This all occurs on the Santa Fe River north of High Springs in north central Florida.
Here in Wyoming it all happens in the same state park, along the Popo Agie River in the Sinks Canyon State Park.
After chatting with the Park Rangers for a few minutes we walked out the door and found a short walkway up to a small observation deck to view "The Sinks". Then we'll walk 1/8-mile down a trail that follows the road to where the river resurfaces at "The Rise".
POPO AGIE RIVER
SINKS AND RISES
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This is the Popo Agie River as it comes streaming down through the Sinks Canyon State Park.
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Here is where the river enters The Sinks cavern and begins it's underground travel.
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If we want to see where the river comes back to the surface we'll have to walk down this trail.
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Along the trail we spotted many different butterflies, but we liked this one the best.
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Oh look! There's a parking lot at our destination, we could have driven here.
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Hurry up honey! I don't want to cross the road without holding your hand.
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Where the river rises creates a natural trout pond. You can even feed them for a quarter.
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Look at all that trout! No fishing is allowed on this side of the roadway.
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This year the sandbar is low enough that the trout can swim across it.
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The trout can't go any further upstream, so they have adapted to going downstream to spawn.
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Up above the trout pond is this sheer cliff face.
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When returning to the Visitor Center this bridge marks the halfway point of the trail.
it creates an alternate "overflow" river that meets up downstream.
Now that we've got our hike done for the day, let's drive through the rest of the park, check out some campgrounds and be back in THE POD in time for lunch.
The first campground we checked out was the Sawmill Campground here in the State Park. It only has 5 campsites, 3 of them are tent only walk-in sites and 2 campsites are basically just parallel parking on the campground road, but they do offer views of the river as it rushes by.
The campground we're in has 24-sites, but only two of them are large enough for THE POD. Site #1, the one I picked, and Site #4, which backs up to a river view down below. Boy did I miss the boat on that selection! I guess I can't always pick a winner.
Just outside the back entrance of the State Park is the beginning of the Shoshone National Forest. There is one forest campground just outside of the state park gate, but it was better suited to tent campers, Class B vans and possibly small (less than 20') trailers.
so there is a pedestrian bridge to access the other side of the river.
The next forest service campground we're going to check out is the Worthen Meadow Reservoir Campground, only 11-miles from here, but it took us nearly an hour to get there. Half that distance, 5.5-miles, was spent traveling up the swithbacks at 20MPH to an elevation of 8800', a full 2000' above where we are camped now.
if you want to use the dock. There must have been a heavy snowmelt this year.
How about our State by State Bucket Lists or Visited Campgrounds List?
If so, click on the sign below to be taken to our other website.
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