Duboyz

Falls National Forest Campground near Dubois, Wyoming – July 11 through July 16, 2013

We’ve left Casper and we’re not really sure where our next camp will be. We stop in Riverton, Wy to see the Wind River Indian Casino. When we arrive it’s pushing 100 degrees. After parking the RV and walking across the parking lot it feels like the inside of an oven. So we decide real quick that this is not the place to stay over night even though they offer free camping with no hookups.

However, we do go inside and register at the casino and get 20 dollars in funny money. It takes EJ close to an hour but she manages to turn that into 20 dollars of real money and we decide it’s time to leave while we’re ahead.

The hills are getting colorful and the mountains more jagged.

As we’re rolling down the highway, Mocha is soaking up all the loving she can get. And EJ is soaking up her daily dose of caffeine.

No other campgrounds look promising and we stop in Dubois to get some information at the visitor center and buy some fuel. We wonder at the name of the town and how it should be pronounced. Duboze? Dubwah? Hmm, another mystery to be solved.

We head on west on US20 getting higher into the mountains and looking for likely boondocking spots. We read about one in Days End. It’s a parking lot for snowmobiles so it shouldn’t be busy in the summer. We find it and there’s a locked gate across the access road. That’s not nice. Well, our next bet is a National Forest campground about 21.2 miles west of Dubois.

We pull in and find out one of the two loops has electric hookups. Yay! Not that we need them, but the difference between  electric and no electric is $2.50 a day extra for us geezers. We’re taking the electric.

Once we’re in and set up, Taz gets a little me time in front of the open window. (And yes, the window screen is closed).

Our Latte or Macchiato habit is still running amok and the fact that Dubois has an excellent little sandwich/coffee shop named Kathy’s Koffee doesn’t help a bit. It had a lounge upstairs where you could hang out and use their Wi-Fi connection (we have no wifi or phone at the campground). The coffee shop closes at 2PM and one day they almost had to run us out. But the owner said if we needed to hang out longer, she would just ask us to lock up when we left. Are Wyoming small towns great or what?

Elk horns are a big deal up here and it seems almost every small town has elk horn statues or arches and Dubois is no exception.

One day we were downtown browsing through the stores and EJ asked about how the towns name was pronounced. The clerk said it was spelled and named for a Frenchman Dubois(Dubwah), but the local cowboys wanted none of that Frenchie stuff so they pronounce it Duboyz. Another trivia question answered.

We thought we would have dinner at Cowboys Café after we were done.  We  had heard the food was very good. But the fates we against us. The place had a fire and wasn’t going to reopen anytime soon.

 

After the whole volunteer fire department showed up, we were blocked in and couldn’t move the Element, so we repaired to the Outlaw Bar to wait until the fire department was satisfied with their efforts. The Outlaw Bar was definitely a hangout for the locals, and we were quickly reminded that smoking indoors is not against the law in this part of the country. But the beer was freezing cold and only $2 a bottle so we manned up and tuffed it out.

The fire department finally cleared out and the Element was free to move once more. On the way out of town EJ spied a dirt road that went to a City maintained overlook. As seems the norm in these parts, you get one sign and then no matter how many turn offs, twists and turns, the rest is up to you. If you’re lucky there may be a sign telling you that you have arrived at your destination. Maybe! So we finally figured out our way to the top and found some amazing views. While we were up there we also spotted another pronghorn antelope. And to make Frank feel better, we even spotted another car wandering around trying to figure out where the overlook was. Hah! Frank and EJ weren’t the only clueless ones.

Since Cowboy’s was closed due to fire, we decided to cook out. Frank is very particular about how the BBQ fare is cooked and carefully times the cooking process. However, EJ didn’t capture the effort that goes into cooking the meat to tender deliciousness. No, she takes the picture while I’m timing the next stage of the cooking process (and exercising my brain with a game of solitaire).

On Saturday we went back into Dubois for coffee and to use the internet and make some phone calls. A close friend, Tom Powell, had passed away on July 10 and today is the service for him meaning we wanted to get in touch with folks and convey our condolences and our sorrow at having to miss the service.

The town has a nice museum named the Wind River History Museum with many old buildings and local fauna displays.  We also checked out the National Big Horn Sheep Interpretive Center. This  is an excellent source of information and highly recommended by us.

Before we left town, we just had to stop and check out the “World’s Largest Stuffed Jackalope”. These Wyomians take their Jackalopes  seriously. Be sure and look closely at the detail at the rear of the statue.

On the way back to camp we decided to go see another NF campground at Brooks lake, which is fairly close to our camp. Once again there was a sign at the highway pointing towards the camp, then after that we were on our own. We got lucky and made a few correct guesses and found the sign that said we were there. This is where EJ had her second Grizzly encounter. The first one was in town and not nearly so active.

And just so you can get a flavor for how rough it is out here in the woods, here is a picture of a Pit Toilet at the Brooks Lake National Forest Campground. The camp hosts here want you to feel at home.

One map Frank had looked at showed a simple loop up to Brooks Lake and back. Boy did that map over simplify reality. After we 'saw a sign that said “Only 4-Wheel Drive Vehicles Beyond This Point” the gravel road turned into dirt and became single lane going up the mountain. But the Element was up to the task. And this time the cliff was on Frank’s side so EJ didn’t mind at all.

Sunday was a stay in camp day. We did finally take a hike to see the attraction the campground is named for. As you can tell it is a little on the cool side, just the way we like it.

This is the first pay campground we’ve been in where the camp hosts were practically invisible. The only time you saw them was at 7pm every evening when they would inventory the filled camp sites. Usually camp hosts are chatty and friendly, but here it seemed like they didn’t want to have to deal with people. Oh well, for them it’s still a free camp spot for the season.

On Monday the 15th it was time to drive over to the Grand Teton National Park. It was going be a quick overview, just to check it out and see where we wanted to park the RV for a few days. This is our first view of the park.

The Element had about a half tank of gas, but we thought we would wait until we got to Moran junction to fill up. Along the way we saw regular gas for $4.09 and thought this isn’t looking good. When we got to Moran there was no town, no filling station, just a crossroads. So we decided to head north to see that end of the park, particularly Colter Bay.

The first thing we run into is a traffic jam. Actually it was a construction zone but Frank is apprehensive about crowds and this only adds fuel to the fire. But we persevere and drive on. (His opinion is, the bigger the crowd, the the greater the potential for more idiots you have to deal with. And he doesn’t handle idiots real well.)

We make it to Colter Bay unscathed and check out the visitor center and lake. We FB a friend that she needs to bring her boat up here and she let’s us know that is just so wrong! What are boats even doing in Wyoming?

EJ also got her National Park passport stamped. Having accomplished that we took off for the next visitor center at Jenny Lake. Whoa another big traffic jam. The parking lot was full as was the entrance road to the parking lot. Cars were parked on both sides of the road leading to the parking lot. The Jenny Lake site is the most visited site in the park. This is because it is the gateway to the most popular hiking trails in the park. Also note worthy is the fact that the Jenny Lake visitor center is the smallest in the park. Hmmm! Most popular, smallest facilities.  Sounds like an opportunity to me.

EJ and I want to do a hike, and find a trail off the beaten path. It leads over a stream and eventually ends up at Jenny Lake and we found a little spot and had it all to ourselves. Luck strikes again!

Next on the agenda was Moose Junction and the visitor center there. The building was very modern looking.

We’d done a circular tour of the park and now it was time to find a place for Big Guy to stay. Grand Teton National Park, being as popular as it is, is light on available camping sites. All of the campgrounds but two were full and tended to stay that way. Of the two, one was further north than we wanted to be which left Gros Ventre Campground. (It’s pronounced Grow Vaunt) So we looked it over and discovered it had 300 plus sites, shade, a sanitary dump,  and a fresh water supply. There are no hook-ups, but you can run the generator from 8am to 8pm. This will be Big Guy’s home while we explore GTNP.

Leaving the campground we spy a small heard of Bison grazing in a field not to far away.

It’s getting late in the day and we haven’t had lunch yet, so we start looking for a shady spot (shoulda grabbed an empty site in the campground.) We found an access point that leads to the Snake River. It had plenty of shade and entertainment as we got to watch several rafts get launched to began their float trip down the river. We were interested but noticed most of the rafts held 10 or more passengers, most of them kids. Maybe we can find a company that has smaller rafts and less passengers. We’ll see. We set up our table and chairs under the trees and have a late lunch and watch the activities.

It’s been a full day, and now it’s time for the hour long drive back to the Falls campground.

Tuesday the 16th was cool, overcast and drizzly so it was a good day to stay inside and get caught up on computer work. Good thing we did as there was a serious rain storm that afternoon. Note our homemade “special” coffee.

Later in the day, we took a walk back over to the Falls to see how it had been affected by the rain. As you can see, it’s now brown with all the runoff and the flow has picked up a bit also.

We had planned to have a campfire tonight, but with the drizzles coming and going, we think we’ll wait until we get to Gros Ventre. Weather forecast is for much hotter temps in the valley. We’ll miss our mountain cool.

And for those of you that had been wondering, Gros Ventre is  French for “Big Belly”. In fact, the Gros Ventre are an Indian Tribe. They would rub both hands across their bellies to indicate they were big eaters, and the French thought they were referring to the size of their stomachs.

More coming as we explore GTNP.