Sharing photos, videos, vintage images I've discovered, and -- occasionally -- commentary and thoughts from retired life and travels.

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Bull Trout

July 29, 2010

The last three nights, we’ve been camped in the mountains west of Stanley, Idaho, at Bull Trout Campground.  Our camp site is close to a small lake, Martin Lake.  It’s a natural mountain lake, with very clear water.

Martin Lake, Idaho

The weather overall has been good since we got here.  I think it might have got up to 80°F the first afternoon after we got here.  Highs the next couple of days were in the mid to lower 70s, with lows at night in the low 40s.  This morning the low was 41.1°F at 7:06 a.m.

The road coming in is a 2 mile dirt road. It was very dry and the surface was like powder.  Even driving very slow, it billowed up around us.  When we got into the campground, the car, which we tow behind the motorhome, was covered in dust.  I used our broom to sweep the worst of it off.

Fortunately, though, it rained that night so the road was just fine the next day.  Yesterday, it was already dry and starting to kick up a little dust when we drove over it.  This is a popular recreational area.  On the weekends, there are probably a lot of people in here with various types of motorcycles and all terrain vehicles, which is largely why the road was worked up into such a fine powder on the surface.

We’re moving on today into southwest Montana.  We’re going without a reservation as we’ve seen a lot of forest service campgrounds in this area that are not on the reservation system, which right now I’m not very happy with.

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Fort Laramie, Wyoming

July 29, 2010

We visited Fort Laramie late in the day after stopping at several other places.  As a result, we were tired and didn’t spend as much time looking through it as we would have liked to – and we still were an hour away from where we planned to stop.

Fort Laramie, Wyoming

Barracks at Fort Laramie, Wyoming

From Wikipedia:

Fort Laramie was a significant 19th century trading post and diplomatic site located in the U.S. state of Wyoming. During the middle 19th century, it was a primary stopping point on the Oregon Trail and the Mormon Trail and was, along with Bent’s Fort on the Arkansas River, the most significant economic hub of commerce in the region. In the 1840s it was taken over by the United States Army to protect travelers on the Oregon, California and Mormon trails.

Today, the remaining structures are preserved as the Fort Laramie National Historic Site by the National Park Service.

National Park Service – Fort Laramie

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