More Wyoming

7/27/23

We have all decided to return to De Smet lake and spend the weekend before heading to Grand Tetons. During the trip back, we did some grocery shopping and dumped the camper’s tanks again. We could not return to the same place as last time. It’s probably clean, but I can’t erase what I saw and smelled. We found a campsite that fit both of our campers, right by the lake. It even had a covered picnic table. It was very warm, and we all swam to cool off. After dinner we had a fire, and made Smoreos. That’s smores with Oreos.

7/28/23

The campground is starting to fill up. It must be a very popular park on weekends. If we hadn’t shown up on Thursday, I don’t know if we would have gotten a spot. After dinner, we watched a big black storm head toward us from the mountains to the West. We got to witness one of the most spectacular lightning storms. There are signs all over the campground warning people to get out of the water if they hear thunder. All of the boats came in before the storm hit. After the lightning, we were hit with an absolute deluge. It rained so hard that it washed a lot of the bugs off of Lance. Margie and I were caught under the covered picnic area, and that did not stop us from getting wet. The skies cleared and we watched the storm head off to the East, leaving behinds some amazing rainbows.

7/29/23

The campground is full, and the lake has boats all over it this morning. The boats are causing wakes, and stirring up the silt along the shoreline. We drove into the town of Buffalo, for grocery shopping, and laundry. In the afternoon, we hung out at the lake. In the evening when most of the boats had docked, the water cleared, and we were all swimming again.

7/30/23

We are meeting another family that we travelled with last year, near Grand Tetons NP, so today we drove about halfway, to Pilot Butter Reservoir, where we found an amazing campsite on a bluff over the lake. The drive from Buffalo to Pilot Res., had some of the most amazing scenery. We drove through Bighorn National Forest, then dropped down into the desert, and then followed the Bighorn River through an amazing canyon. I made pizza for everyone, and after dinner we all walked down to the lake. The sunset was amazing, so I ran back up to the camper to get my camera. By the time I got back down to the lake, Margie and Kathleen were swimming. We decided to just hang out at the beach. I got some firewood and Shannon brought the smores makings. We stayed up pretty late, all gathered around the fire, watching the moon come up.

7/31/23

We drove through some more amazing scenery, as we drove into Grand Teton National Forest. Another family we travelled with last year has picked out a spot for all of us. It was a short drive today, and after entering the park we saw herds of bison, and a couple of golden eagles. Melissa, Stephen, and their two children Thomas and Lily were all waiting for us to arrive. The children were very excited to see each other. We are in dispersed camping in the middle of the forest, and we have to carry bear spray with everywhere. The bugs are pretty bad here, but we set up two screen rooms, one for the kids to play in an the other for the adults. We were hit by a thunderstorm as we had cocktails this evening.