J C Stage Stop - Aladdin, Wyoming

 

There should be some sort of regulation on which places can refer to themselves as a resort. When I hear the word "resort", I conjure up images of poolside cabanas, lying on the beach in a pillowed lounge chair while some young brown man brings me drinks with pretty umbrellas. 

I had this experience at a resort in San Juan, Puerto Rico many years ago. The lounge chair even had a little flag on the arm. You raise the flag and staff would come running to see what you wanted.

 

A resort should have a certain level of amenities - a pool, a gym, a spa with massage therapists and nail technicians. Using the word resort raises all sorts of expectations which are bound to disappoint me when there is no pool or cabana boy around.

JC Stage Stop has none of these amenities, but it remains a popular stop for equestrians heading South into Custer or  heading West into Yellowstone.

Of course, for our horses, the accommodations here are close to resort levels. They have shade and cover as well as a good sized run - 12' by 20' spaces. 

The only thing they would like better would be a large pasture with lots of grass and a shelter.

You are not allowed to tack up at your campsite, but sheds are provided where you can store your tack. We are stowing hay and grain in one of the stalls next to our horses.

We have full hook-up and the WIFI is excellent.

There are also cabins available to rent, public toilets and showers, and a laundry room with one washer and one dryer.

There are an abundance of hitching posts and the hitching posts all have collapsible saddle racks on each end, which is a nice feature.

We only did one trail ride as this is a short layover. The flies were out in hordes and bugging the horses. It was not a pleasant ride as our horses were distracted by the biting insects. We should have put their belly guards on them. These are meshed pieces which protect the horses from flies and other biting insects that you can wrap over their bellies while you ride.

We drove into nearby Spearfish, SD - about 30 minutes away. Spearfish is a decent-sized town with lots of shopping and things to do.

This place has just been sold and will be under new ownership soon. It will continue on as a horse campground.

Sundance Horse Camp - Sundance, Wyoming

 

Bonnie said good-bye, gifting us a jar of home-made preserves and a bag of fresh cucumbers from her garden. I would love to be able to make bread and butter pickles, but my LQ kitchen wouldn't support that sort of project. I will have to be satisfied with a fresh summer cucumber salad.

On the way to our next campground, we drove by this butte on Hwy 585. Just stunning!

There is a rest area called the Sundance Rest Area that has a FREE RV dump. We took the opportunity to empty both our tanks.

Horses are on one end of the campground, so once again our water tank goes into the back of the truck to be filled up, so we can get water to the horses.

We are the only campers in the entire campground, so we put each horse into their own large corral.

No shade, but they get a nice manger for their food.

No hook-ups at the Sundance Horse Camp, but it's only $14/night.

Best spot is campsite #8 - it's level and next to the only water source.

We are in campsite #7.

We rode early as temps are going over 100 degrees F today. We rode the Sundance Trail. There is a good section that is narrow with a few spots that are eroded. My horse slipped a couple of times in the eroded sections.

The views are fabulous.

Sundance, Wyoming - population a little over a thousand - but they have a lovely public pool and seniors are FREE. From 5 pm to 6 pm is adult swim and they section off half the pool so adults can swim in peace away from the kids.

It felt wonderful to be in the water.

Signage at the Rest Area.

Sundance got it's name because it is near the Devil's Tower Monument. Native tribes would perform a ritual sun dance at the base of Devil's Tower every year.

Plum Creek Canyon Ranch - Newcastle, Wyoming

 

Darryl and Bonnie TenBroek ran a horse camp outside of Ten Sleep, Wyoming that was legendary among equestrians. They were known for their hospitality. They sold it three years ago and bought property outside of New Castle, Wyoming. They didn't want to get entirely out of the hospitality business, so they installed two RV hook-up pads for guests. A significant downsizing from the number of guests they needed to deal with in Ten Sleep.

We have water and electric hook-up, no sewer. We were able to connect to their WIFI using our Winegard, and the connection is solid enough we can stream television shows and Ari can play his video games.

I only booked us for a couple of nights because it is still pretty hot - easily in the 90s.

We asked Darryl and Bonnie to take us out for a ride. They are both on quarter horses.

Bonnie's horse is Spark. Darryl's horse is Ned. Darryl told me he bought his horse from a neighbor and the horse was named Nibbles, because the horse likes to give little kisses to people. Darryl said, he was not going to ride a horse named Nibbles, so he gave him a new name.

Ari spotted a rattlesnake on the trail. So Darryl dismounted to kill it. Ari dismounted to watch. Bonnie is holding onto to Ned, Darryl's horse.  I uploaded video of the kill on my Instagram account.

Darryl cut off the head and tail of the rattlesnakes for trophies. I took the tail to give to our grandson, Zane. If you shake it, it makes a rattling sound like a gourd.

The rattlesnake tail has ten segments. A rattlesnake adds a segment every two to three years, so you can use the number of segments to estimate the age of the snake.

Darryl killed the snake, basically with his bare hands, using only the lead rope from his horse.

Darryl's great-grandfather drove the wagon that collected the dead after The Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876. The bodies of the officers were picked up and transported for burial in Arlington. The enlisted men were buried in mass graves.

This was not an easy trail ride - lots of climbing up and down - and the trails are not well marked. We would not have been able to figure out where we were going without a guide. Both Lennox and Mercy behaved really well.

Back at the barn, the horses were rewarded with grain for a job well done.

They are in large pens with cover. They are pretty darn happy.

Tomorrow we head to Sundance Horse Camp, near Sundance, Wyoming.

Curt Gowdy State Park - Wyoming

We waved good-bye to the bison as we left Terry Bison RV Park. We were both pretty disappointed with our stay there. 

But, the good thing about living full time in a trailer is that you don't have to feel stuck in any one place and the next place may be better.

Curt Gowdy State Park is located equidistance between Laramie, WY and Cheyenne, WY.

We checked into the visitor center. There is a great view from the parking lot.

Here is the view from the balcony of the visitor center. You can see the lake below.

The visitor center has great free WIFI and a room where you can set up your laptop/tablet.

There are several campgrounds in the park. Most of the RV sites have full or partial hook-up - EXCEPT for the equestrian campground, where you get NADA. No water, no electric, no sewer, and no cell service.

But, you get a picnic table and a fire ring and a really good sized area to park.

The horses got a large shared pen with a shelter. There was a large water trough filled with water. The rangers filled the water troughs for the horses in anticipation of our arrival. This was AWESOME! We had filled both our water tanks prior to our arrival, but having this done for us was a huge stress off of us.

We spent the next three days riding the trails. Only one trail is marked for equestrians - Lariat trail. But we rode Stone Temple as well as the Rock N Roller trail. We spoke with a ranger and he said that they discourage horses on the other trails because they have had horses spook at the mountain bikes, but if your horses are OK with sharing the trails, you can pretty much ride on any trail as long as it is not specifically marked NO HORSES.

The trails were fabulous. Well marked, easy to follow, well kept. There were some low branches, and tight squeezes between rocks, but overall great riding. We rode barefoot all three days and the horses did just fine.

We did meet the occasional mountain biker, but everyone was polite and kind and, depending on where we were on the trail, either we moved out of the way or they did.

This little mountain blue bird had a nest right next to the horse pen. He would come out and scold the horses. 

You can see the lake in the distance.

Lennox waiting for his dinner.

We went into Cheyenne Wednesday night and visited the Holiday Park. This Mama Goose was taking care of her babies by the lake.

We loved all the rock formations and aspen groves.

Several horse people advised us that the Back Country Horseman have a horse camp called Blair Wallis, primitive camping with corrals set up, just down the road. Also, people recommended riding in Happy Jack - another dispersed camping area close by.

If we had time, we would check out the other places, but we are heading into Nebraska!

Really excited to enter State #11, only 37 more to go.

Ari and I were both really happy with our stay here. This is a great place for horse camping.

 

Terry Bison RV Ranch - Cheyenne, Wyoming

 well, this place was overall a disappointment. They do guided trail rides here and there are trails, but they do not allow boarders to ride on the trails. We also weren't allowed to use the arena or the round pen. So, our horses were basically stuck in their corrals the entire stay. We would take them out and walk them on their lead ropes and let them eat grass for about 30 minutes in the afternoon.

On the plus side, it rained most of our stay so we wouldn't have been able to really ride any way.

The horses have very secure corrals with a small shelter. They are a decent size.

The ranch tells us that they will clean out the stalls for us, but they haven't cleaned our stalls - or as far as we can tell - any stalls. 

Also, there is a hose in the barn across the way, but it is too short to reach our stalls. We asked for another hose so we could refill the buckets, but that never happened. So, Ari is filling small buckets and refilling our water without a hose.

We have full hook-up and the WIFI is pretty good.

The campground is pretty spacious. There are two different playgrounds for the kids.

There is a laundry. We attempted to do laundry here, but none of the dryers work. Ari spent five dollars trying to get our clothes dry before he gave up. We ended up putting our wet clothes into laundry bags and driving them into town to a laundromat. It cost another $1.50 to actually dry the clothes.

Lots of murals and cute art throughout the campground

There are bison out in the back acres of the campgrounds. We are told that the bison are the reason we can't ride on their trails, but that is a bullshit reason. We rode with bison on Antelope Island in Utah. We have ridden through open pastures with cattle. We don't chase the critters. We leave them alone and they leave us alone. Plus, they take trail rides out into the same area and the people on the trail rides are total newbies on a horse. 

There are several newborn foals, which are quite cute. There are also goats, ostriches, and peacocks. My horse does not like the ostriches. So, if they had ostriches out where the bison are, I would agree with their policy about not riding out there.

We did a walking tour of downtown Cheyenne. The walking tour was like this:

Walk to the corner of 15th and Pioneer. If you look to the west corner, you will see the location where the very first bank was built by So and So in 1896. It burned down in 1904. Here is a picture of what it looked like. 

Walk a block west. If you look in the middle of the block, there is the location of a saloon where Doc Holiday played cards. The saloon was demolished in 1934. Here is a picture of what it looked like.

I think Cheyenne was doing their best imitation of a Southerner giving directions - go down this street, turn right where the gas station used to be, keep going until you pass the corner where the bank was..

Downtown also featured several large cowboy boots which were quite cool.

Tomorrow we head to Curt Gowdy State Park. The weather is clearing just in time for us to be able to ride.