Busy day

August 27, 2012
Douglas, WY
Fairgrounds

Boy was this a hot, hot day.  Too hot to dry camp so we stayed at the Fairgrounds, as long as we had power for the A/C we didn't care where we stayed.  It was about 98' when we arrived at 2:30 pm, all we did was hook up the electric, turn on the A/C and the floor fan and take a nap.  We are just not use to this heat.  This was the 3rd day of a 3 day of a pro-rodeo, horse trailers everywhere.  The campground had three sections of about 50 sites per section.  Later in the evening we walked over to the grandstands to watch the last of the rodeo.  The barrel racing was the best.

Our next day was going to be only about 150 miles so in the morning we headed out to Ayres Natural Bridge with a small county park and about 10 camping spaces with a few that could take up to about a 30 foot trailer, but no electric, which would be ok if it wasn't so darn hot.  A beautiful oasis, big trees, creek going under the natural bridge.  The bridge is one of only three natural bridges in the world with a trout stream running  underneath.  Wagoneers traveling west often rested in this spot which sits only a mile or so from the Oregon Trail..

On approach to park

The Bridge

I had to climb up the trail going to the top of the bridge, it's a good thing I had my hiking stick, this was very steep and rocky.  I wasn't sure just how I was going to get back down.

I made it to the top. 

 The white rock is the top and the reddish is another outcropping of rock

Looking down you can barely see the truck where Joe and Buddy are taking a rest.

Douglas is also known as the founder of the great mysterious " Jackalope".

 In fact you can to go to www.jackalope.org for information on the city.

At the visitor center is a museum of old trains. 

 I don't know what it is about old trains but I seem to be drawn to them.

The dinning room car.

  I would have loved to travel "back in the day" on this train.

The sleeper car

It's sort of hard to focus on this picture, it's looking down the isle of the sleeper car.

 I didn't see any rooms that were like the bunk bed style that was in

 "Some Like It Hot" (one of my favorite movies)

Visitor center of Douglas Wyoming. 

 A charming small town with many interesting things to see and do when it's not too hot. 

 There was a cute little lady in the center about 5 feet tall, she said she was born and raised here and in her 82 years she has never seen it this hot. 

 She said it might get hot for a few days in July, but never all summer and never in August.

Since we only had about 150 miles to go we didn't leave until about 11:30 am.  We were headed to Scottsbluff, well actually to Gering, Nebraska about 3 miles south of the actual Scottsbluff.

Well you know us and BLOW OUTS.  Yep, it happened again.  A reminder, these tires are from Discount Tires, luckily we bought the flat tire insurance policy on these tires. There is no Discount tire around here, but when I called they said to replace the tire and then take in the receipt to the next Discount tire center and they will pay us for the new tire.  

This time we went to a Good Year tire center in Scottsbluff and got a Japanese tire instead of the Marathon.

The 150 miles took us about six hours to complete, luckily we were able to pull into the drive of a farm house with a really really nice lady and her high school age son.  He changed the tire for us and we were on our way.  We gave him $20.00 for his efforts, I hope that was enough,  probably 25 or 30 would have been more appropriate.  He was a lifesaver, otherwise we would have had to wait for AAA for about an 1 1/2 hours or more.  We were in the middle of ?????

We eventually settled in at Ribidoux RV Park, a City Park.  Very nice place, big spots.  Did I mention that it was 103' when we got there?

Safe travels to you and may you have a blessed day

Thanks for stopping by

Nancy