Nearing Cloud Peak

August 7, 2021

Last night for the first time in months P. and I and Gunther had the whole house to ourselves.  The rest of the time we’ve had our children and our grandchildren vacationing with us.  And us with them, when we went camping.  And for us, camping usually means going in our Hymer RV.  It’s really just a repurposed Dodge Promaster van and we can eat, sleep, shower, bicker, and play Scrabble right in our car. It’s about ideal for P. and me.

We bought the Hymer a couple years ago in Alaska. Now we’ve put on 30K miles between Minnesota, California, and Montana.  So far, we’ve replaced the coach batteries, front tires, and radiator, but otherwise the driving has been relatively trouble free.

Tuesday Todd and his family and P. and I set out from Billings to climb Cloud Peak in the Big Horns of Wyoming. 

P. and I were the support crew.  We headed south on the west side of the Big Horns.

About 8 pm we stopped at a bar in Ten Sleep to eat supper.  Todd shared his rocky mountain oysters, breaded and deep fat fried.  Some smooth eating. The bar was packed, but the patio was nearly empty. We resumed driving into the evening, headed up the pass.

On to a road that took off from Highway 16.

I followed Todd on a nasty Forest Service washboard road that chattered everything and caused our new radiator hose to fail. Well, it hadn’t been installed correctly and would have failed anyhow.

You can’t drive without coolant in the engine, so we didn’t. We figured things would work out if we chilled out that night. We had no cell service. We were on what seemed like a deserted road.

P. and I slept in the Hymer on the place on the road where the engine coolant puddled. Todd and his family camped at the East Ten Sleep Lake campgorund, only about 150 yards from our disabled vehicle.

Next day a Forest Service man named Jeff radioed to have our Hymer transported to Buffalo, WY for repair.  (Turns out a hose had been improperly installed last month and it jiggled loose on the washboard road. ) 

Todd and his family headed toward Cloud Peak Wednesday while we worked on restoring the Hymer to health. After the mechanic had reattached the hose, we spent the night at Circle Park campground.

P. and I and Gunther goofed off Wednesday, hiking to Willow Lake and back. 

Thursday we walked up the trail to Cloud Peak, as we expected Todd and his group back.  We spoke with other hikers, asking those returning if they saw a family of four: Todd, Susanna, Cyrus, Roland?  None of them had, and we admonished hikers heading out to tell a family of four that we would be waiting for them. They made the connection. However, I didn’t know the hikers would refer to us as being “an elderly couple.”

Our message was transposed and garbled by the time the four arrived back at the parking lot.  [Joyous reunion.]

Thursday, we moved the camp from East Ten Sleep Lake to another campground:  Circle Park. 

First we six went in to Buffalo to eat at a great Mexican restaurant.  Then Sus bought two bottles of merlot at Crazy Woman Liquor.  Then back at the camp we sat around and talked while Todd took a shower in the Hymer.

Yesterday we hiked up a limestone canyon a little more than a mile, to admire the amazing natural sculptures.  We ate at the same restaurant, a little place close to the Buffalo exit from the interstate highway.