Days 84 and 85 - killing time and getting a new car

Days 83 and 84 - Sunday and Monday - Killing Time

Although our new air conditioner has arrived at the dealer they don't work on Sundays and the person who's familiar with our rig won't be there on Monday, so we now have 2 days to ourselves.  Sunday is the day we're having the RV weighed - I already gave you the results - and Vicky suggests that after the weighing we drive the 25 miles to Moorcroft where there's a Texas Trail Museum.  A cunning plan, but it turns out they're only open Monday through Friday!

We spend the afternoon in the RV - Vicky working on an online class and me preparing mine.  We picked up a brochure from the Chamber of Commerce at the convention describing two "Wildlife Loop" tours.  The brochure describes various animals you might see, and where to find them.  The only difference between the East and West tours is that the East features coal mines and the West, elk.  So we opt for the West tour, and set off in late afternoon in our loaner car since twilight is usually prime viewing time.

The loop is 90 miles and takes 3 hours.  We see mule deer, red hawk and no elk.  But the big excitement ispronghorn.  It's the fastest animal in North America (and second fastest in the world) and the brochure tells us that Wyoming has more wild pronghorns than any other state, with Campbell County (now you know where the name Cam-Plex came from) having the most.  We're not disappointed.  The Phoenix zoo has a small herd and in our travels so far we've met lots of small groups, but we weren't prepared for this!

Mile after mile we see groups (I coined the collective noun "run" of pronghorns) of female pronghorns with their young, and males, who are usually alone.  The animals find us as interesting as we find them, and several times we find ourselves in a staring match.  They are safe in their fields, but generally they decide discretion is the best of valor and walk off.  As I tell Vicky, we're causing pronghorn migrations!

The turnaround point on the loop is the town of Arvada, and as we cross the town limit, the pavement in the road runs out.  The town, despite being on the railroad, is almost a ghost town, although we do discover a bar with a thriving - and friendly - clientele.  They point us in the direction of the rest of the loop, which we hadn't been able to figure out.  You go past the bar for 2.5-3.5 miles depending on which local you listen to.  This brings you to Echita Road, which is on our loop map.  That's where the elk are supposed to be.

It's about 40 miles back to Gillette and all on unpaved roads.  Vicky persuades me it would be more prudent to turn around, and that's what we do.  Many of the pronghorn runs are now probably discussing why the people in the red car stopped and looked at them, went away for a while and then came back in the opposite direction and didn't stop to look!

It was exciting to see all these cool animals, and we decide to celebrate with dinner at the Railyard in town.  This has one thing in common with the Texas Trail Museum - it is closed on Sundays - so we dine at Applebees.  They are out of half the things on the menu including, unbelievably, salad!  But we do find something to eat.

Monday we hear from Casey at the Ford dealer that our new car has arrived, and agree to drive down to take delivery.  Casey has kindly agreed to take both cars down to Rapid City where the tow package will be transferred to the new Fiesta, and provide us with a loaner.  He's also willing to go back to Rapid City to pick up the Focus and the loaner when everything is done.  We after lunch we drive down to Spearfish, complete the negotiation, then savor another healthy roasted beet salad followed by Leone's probably-not-so-healthy ice cream for lunch.  Red raspberry flavor is a no-brainer for me and it certainly doesn't disappoint. 

We drive back to Gillette in a black Ford Focus, pack up most of the furniture in the RV and settle down for our last night at Cam-Plex.  As usual in this area, there's another severe storm but the cover up job on the broken air conditioner works and we have no leaks.  We have to be at the RV dealer at 8am tomorrow to get the new a/c unit installed, and are planning on spending tomorrow night at Camping World in Rapid City where they will be adding a valve stem extender to the new inside tire we had installed back in Arizona.