World United States Wyoming Cheyenne

Bill and Helen's Fulltime Travels Here we go again and again

Cheyenne, Wyoming May 24, 2009

We arrived in Cheyenne, WY on Friday at lunch time.     It wasn’t very far from Longmont but what a difference in scenery.      Just before we got to the border, the mountains disappeared and the Pronghorn Antelope were everywhere.We checked into the KOA for the holiday weekend since we do not like to be on the road if we don’t have to.     We like to save that for workers that have to use the highways at this time.         The park we are in is a typical KOA park that in our opinion way overcharges for what we need.      I think they are great for campers with families and are worth the money for them because of all the activities etc. but we do not use any of the extras.    Just to give you an idea of the difference;     the beautiful State Parks we stayed at in Colorado had cement pads, beautiful views and full hook up sites including 50 amps.    The KOA we are at now has gravel sites, train tracks a short distance away that gets used a lot, swimming pool and a playground for the kids.       The State Parks charged us $22.00 a day including tax plus $4.00 for our park permit.    If we were residence of Colorado we could have purchased a season pass for next to nothing if you are a senior.KOA charges us $39.00 per day with our membership discount and adds another $3.00 per day for electric.    That makes $42.00 a day and then we have tax added on top.     Not all of them are this bad and some are worse but you can see why the KOA isn’t at the top of our list of places to stay.Wyoming has some great State Parks but they don’t have any hook-ups at all in any of them.    The fellow at the visitor’s center said that they like to keep the parks as natural as possible.     I think that about the only ones that camp in them is tenter’s and maybe pop-ups.      We can understand what they are trying to do but also disappointed since we love the parks.The last couple of days in Colorado were very cloudy.    So cloudy that we could not even see Rocky Mountain NP from our window anymore and when we got to Wyoming we had a brief hour or so of sunshine before the clouds rolled in and it started to rain.     It continued all day yesterday and today the rain has stopped but it is cold and cloudy.The day we got here we stayed home all day.     I spent the day inside cooking and cleaning while Bill putzed around with things he has wanted to get at for quite some time.       Later in the afternoon he decided to put our stained glass window that we had removed from our other Montana into the new Big Sky.     We got it almost all the way in when the glass slipped right out from my fingers and smashed on the gravel.    I wanted to cry but didn’t.     I guess we weren’t supposed to have it in our new house.      That means we will have to go back to Mexico to get a replacement and that isn’t so bad.     We were thinking about going to Yuma again for awhile anyway.  We had a nice relaxing evening at home.     Bill grilled steaks and I made the rest of the meal inside including some wonderful steamed artichokes that we dipped in garlic butter.     I couldn’t believe it when I found some huge ones at the grocery store for $1.00 each.      I am going back today to see if they have them in Wyoming too.    They were wonderful and I find that they keep for at least a week in the fridge.Yesterday we headed out to the mall area in the morning to find some wood molding to try to fix the gouges that Camping World put in our door frame.     We also had added some screws to paneling that had popped loose from the staples earlier, remember?      Well we found some good matching molding that we were able to cover the screws with and you never would know that it wasn’t there from the beginning.       While Bill was in Lowes, I got my Kohl’s fix.     It has been almost two months since I was in that store and was having withdrawals.      We haven’t found a lot of things to see in Cheyenne yet but one of the first I wanted to see was the downtown area and the Union Depot.        We drove there next and soon were parked at the Depot.     By now it was lunch time and we found a neat restaurant on one end of the depot.     We had lunch there (it was also a brewery) and then went next door to the Depot Museum.     There was a special show going on for the holiday weekend and the usual $5.00 admission was only $1.00 each this time.      It is a beautiful place and very well maintained.         From the front door of the Depot, you can see the beautiful State Capitol Building.     It is very impressive but too rainy to walk around and see it close up.It is now 10:30 AM on Sunday and I am still in my jammies.      Think I had better put some warm clothes on and we’ll go out and see what we can find to do today before it’s already over.