Leaving the Black Hills on Saturday, July 17th, we traveled through the Thunder Basin Natural Grasslands to Caspar, Wyoming. At Caspar, we traveled on the Oregon Trail route up the North Platte River, past Independence Rock, a significant milestone on the trail, to Rawlins, WY, on Interstate 80. We spent the night at the Western Hills RV park.
On Sunday, July 18th, we traveled west on Interstate 80 to Rock Springs, WY, to the Sweetwater Events Complex where the Escapees RV Club was holding their annual rally, the 60th, https://escapade.escapees.com/. Attendance was over 1500 with more than 700 camping rigs (motorhomes, 5th wheels, trailers, etc…). The event lasted from Sunday the 18th to Friday the 23rd. We met lots of really nice people, learned a lot about the RV Community and learned a lot more about our motorhome.
The rally had 16 seminars a day for the four days on topics ranging from tires, to weight to geocaching, to trip planning and lots of other topics. There was also a marketplace where you could discover products for the RV lifestyle. We upgraded our Wifi Ranger system (internet via cell service) and our TPMS (Tire Pressure Monitoring System). After seminar hours there were social gatherings of “Birds Of a Feather” (BOF) groups that are interested in similar things. We joined the Boomers group (RVers that are Baby Boomers). In the evenings there were music performers, including an Escapees Got Talent event.
The campground was all stones and gravel and gave one a workout walking back and forth to the events. Fortunately there were golf carts whizzing by all the time offering rides. In fact, both Martha and Walt volunteered to help out by driving shifts on the carts. We probably met the most people in that capacity.
The dogs enjoyed twice daily visits to the dog park. The first visit was somewhat traumatic for Bess. There were so many other dogs barking and running that she became overwhelmed and jumped into a lady’s lap to request sanctuary. By the next couple of visits though she would run and bark with the best of them. Joon was characteristically aloof, like the disapproving aunt who just does not understand “those young people”. We did meet a couple, Bill & Suzanne Henrick, from Pennsylvania, who said that their next stop was the same as ours, Yellowstone Grizzly RV Park in West Yellowstone, Montana. When we arrived there, the Henricks were camped three spaces to the east of us.
While at Escapade, we discovered that the rubber valve stem on the driver’s side inner dually tire (rear) had broken and the tire was flat. As we left Escapade on Friday, July 23rd, we limped down the road a mile and a half to the Tire Den, where they replaced the stems on both inner dually tires with steel stems. We finally left Rock Springs at about 2:00 PM for our 230 mile drive to southern Idaho.
