This is just a quick post to report my position. The cell signal here is poor so I may not stay very long.
It was an uneventful drive of about 200 miles into Wyoming. I found a campsite in the Bridger – Teton National Forest a few miles north of Pinedale, WY. Pinedale is about 50 miles Southeast of Jackson.
I will stay here at least through the weekend and then move further north.
Generators
Kids feeding fish
The tour of the dam was fun. The guide new all her numbers and statistics for the tourists and recited them at each stop along the way. After passing through the generator room one guy asked her how long it took for the electricity to get from the generators to a nearby town. She looked puzzled for a few moments and then said, “I’m not quite sure but it would probably take 20 minutes or so.”
On the way back I pulled into a pay campground and filled up a couple of gallon jugs with drinking water. Usually if you pay to stay at a campground, the dump is included with the fee. This dump station had a sign that said there was a $6 fee on top of the camping fee.
A while later I came to a sign announcing a historic cabin down a dirt road so I pulled off to check it out. I went maybe 5 miles and still hadn’t found the cabin. The sky was beginning to look angry so I turned around and gave up any more sightseeing. I only wish they would tell you how far some of these places are from the main road.
I just made it back before the rain came down in buckets. I probably was going a little too fast up the forest road to get here, but there is nothing worse than getting soaked minutes from home.
The weekend has brought many people out to the forest even though the weather has not been great. The camp on my left has a dog that barks constantly. I thought the animal was in distress after listening to him bark and howl for three hours, so I walked through the woods to see if he was hurt or something. Apparently, the owners had just tied him to a tree and left.
Rambo and his friends are camped to my right. It sounded like machine-gun fire for a while this afternoon. Even as it rained the gunfire went on and on. Usually there is a rule about shooting in a camping area but I don’t think many rules are enforced up here.
How many do I need?
Here’s my dilemma: When it’s rainy or cold I spend more time inside watching tv, and that means I use more electricity than my solar can recover. I can run the generator to charge but it’s not free like the sun, so I decided to construct a way to use my small tv when I want to conserve batteries , and make it portable so that I can take it out of the way when I have lots of juice. I could set it on the table but I don’t like to turn my head.
Yesterday I rode into Vernal to check that the post office would accept some mail for me. I gathered a couple more items while in town and then headed back up the mountain to my camp. The road out of town has a 60 mph limit and I was going 65. Some idiot behind me had to go faster than that and passed me in an unsafe manner. Once he reached the curves up the mountain I caught up and stayed right on his ass until he finally pulled off and let me go by. I know I was being childish, and excuse my language, but I can’t help it.
Minnie and I are in the Ashley National Forest, a stones throw from Flaming Gorge National Rec Area and the border of Wyoming. We only traveled about 150 mile today. I was pretty lazy this morning and didn’t get on the road until 10:30. It seem like the longer I stay in a place the longer it takes to put away all the stuff I got out.
I stopped at the Walmart in Vernal, UT to buy some groceries, and then filled with gas and propane at a Pilot nearby. The road up into the mountains was very steep and Minnie struggled to pull us to the top. Several sharp curves made us slow to 20 mph, causing a slow recovery for the next stretch. If I go back into town, I think Honda will do a lot better job than Minnie.
Home Sweet Home
This is a really nice site but several tall Aspen trees will make it challenging to get a good solar charge. I plan to spend a few days here while I explore the area.