Ground squirrels, marmots, and moose, oh my!

After spending the night at the Flying J Truck Stop (and getting a whopping $0.02/gal off on gas with our RV Preferred Customer card), we headed our RV towards Saratoga and Saratoga Lake Campground.  Smokey has decided that laps are great places to wait out the driving… no, she’s not spoiled…. actually, she moves quickly and stays in the passenger's lap.

Headed west on I-80, we soon found a WY Welcome Center,  focused on the Lincoln Highway.  Here is a bit of the highway.

Back in 1913, the Lincoln Highway was opened.  Carl Fisher, developer of the 1906 Indianapolis Speedway, conceived of a coast-to-coast graded road.  Henry Joy, president of Packard Motor Car Company, was elected president of the project, and the Lincoln Highway was born.  By 1919, the highway was 3250 miles long, from New York to San Francisco.  Hard to believe that less than 100 years ago there was only a dirt track, and less than 60 years later, the Interstate Highway system was started! Today, a section of I-80 is part of the old Lincoln Highway.  Here is the monument.

And a close-up of the head (a whopping 4500 pounds)

Much less impressive, but brighter, was this little brown butterfly, busy among the flowers by the monument.

The  WY interstate seems endless here, long, straight, and endless.  Snow barriers are everywhere, evidence of a much worse winter than we are accustomed to.

Slowly, the mountains of Medicine Bow National Park came into view.

Our plan for the next couple of days is to explore the park.  Our campground is near Saratoga, WY, located at Saratoga Lake Campground.  It IS on a lake, but a bit bleak.  Actually, after we explored for a while and returned, it looked better.  Guess it was the cool evening, pinkish sky, quiet lake, etc.  So, I’m happier about our spot.  Not sure I’d do it again, though…but it’s only 2 nights.

Through town, we discovered a mule deer doe, happily grazing off of a dumpster on the main road through town.

Many of the beautiful lodge pole pines in the forest are dying.  They are affected by a pine beetle, which carries a fungus deadly to the tree.  It seems to be a 70 year cycle, with the old pines being weak enough to fall prey to the beetle.  The devastation is so great that the park service is closing many of the campgrounds, etc, in the park to cut down and destroy the affected trees.  It’s a sad sight.

Beautiful streams run through the park.

The grand feature of the park is Medicine Bow Peak.

Doesn’t seem high enough?  It is!  12,000 ft high!

Small, but plentiful and busy in the park are the little ground squirrels. They look like Chipmunks, which are also everywhere, but these guys are two to three times their size and not nearly as skiddish.

This little fellow has figured out how to bring down a flower stalk to find his dinner - and reap the rewards!

THURSDAY ----

No internet, so I’ll keep this one rolling.

More ground squirrel…I’m sorry, but these little guys are just so adorable!

We also spotted our first Yellow Bellied Marmot, kind of a cross between prairie dogs and groundhogs. They are plentiful, too!

And FINALLY!!!! A moose!  Boy, are those guys big.  Really big.  This fellow was just lounging in the grass, surveying his world.  I wish he’d been standing up, but you get the idea.

We revisited a few of our favorite places from yesterday plus a few new ones.  Here is the downstream side of Lake Marie.

Lake Marie was named for Marie Bellamy.  Mrs. Bellamy, born in 1861, was the first woman elected to the WY legislature.  She lead the successful suffrage drive that resulted in the passage of the 19^th Amendment of the US Constitution! Here is Lake Marie, backed by the Snowy Range.

More beautiful spots – it just doesn’t stop.

After transiting the Snowy Range Scenic By-Pass, we reached the “friendly town” of Centennial, population 46. BUT!  I got a diet coke with ice, Luke got hand dipped ice cream, and we enjoyed exploring the little town.  Here it is…all of it…

We also visited the town of Encampment, formerly Grand Encampment. From 1903 to 1908 this was the location of the bustling Ferris-Haggarty Copper Mining Company. This copper mine and smelter operation, at its peak, could process 300 to 500 tons of copper ore per day. During that time, it had the world’s longest aerial tramway, 16 miles long, with 370 wooden tramway towers, carrying buckets of ore from the mines to the smelter. Its demise in 1908 was a combination of its third smelter fire, and being 20 miles distant from the nearest railway in Saratoga. This fascinating history is preserved by a very impressive museum for a town with a present population of 450 people www.grandencampmentmuseum.org

We’ll be somewhere else by the time you have read this, as there is no internet to be found around here.  I will post as soon as we get into range. **** In Boysen State Park, mid WY.  Howling wind, great site with a view of the water, mountains, and in the shade!  All posted using my cell phone as a hot spot.  whew...