Overnight camp south of I-80 Angel Creek

We are now at the Rock Springs, Wyoming KOA

With a short day of driving, we arrived at our planned night stop in Wells, Nevada rather early in the afternoon.  The temperatures were still hot, and the parking lot at the Flying J, while big and fairly empty, left much to be desired in the way of ambience.  Instead, we fired up the CampWhere app and discovered a couple of forest service campgrounds just 8 miles or so south of town.

It helps to see the area on google maps, and see if the road into the east side of the Ruby Mountains looked passable.  It also helped that one of the campgrounds had a size limit for motorhomes of 45 feet. Surely with a limit that high, the road must be OK.  The higher elevation campground at Angel Lake has a 30 foot limit and we discussed the possibility of trying that one out. 

Driving the Angel Lake road was completely manageable as far as the Angel Creek Campground turnoff, and still a bit undecided we thought we would check out the campground before attempting to drive higher.  I said, “Let’s just be safe and unhook before we go up this steep, winding road!”  Mo agreed wholeheartedly as we looked up along the ridge to see something that looked like it might be the highway.

The campground was delightful, with 18 sites, some too short for even our rig, and yet a few here and there that were plenty long for even the biggest rigs.  The camp hostess was a delightful young woman living in a tent shelter with a nice big German shepherd companion.  When we asked her about the Angel Creek Road she said without hesitation that we probably didn’t want to take our motorhome up there.

We settled into our site, paid the half price fee of $6. with our senior pass, and unhooked the baby car for a trip up the mountain.  Within a few hundred yards we were quite happy that we didn’t have the motorhome.  The road is incredibly steep and the drop-offs to the valley below are hair-raising, at least for me, and even in the baby car I found myself leaning inward to supposedly avoid going over the edge.

On our way up the mountain, a huge cloud of smoke from some far distant fires darkened the skies and with the added storminess, the final view of the small lake itself was a bit of an anticlimax.  It certainly didn’t make us want to pull off the kayaks and jump in.  We didn’t even pay the parking fee to let Abby go swimming, since all seemed a bit dingy and uninviting.  The Angel Lake campground was a big surprise, however, with several really big rigs tucked into low shrubs and uneven sites with no actual view of the tiny lake.  Sometimes these really high elevation lakes don’t invite me that much, they seem harsh and barren and inhospitable. 

In contrast, our little camp at Angel Creek seemed lovely even with the stormy clouds hovering and the smoke coming and going on the winds.  Dinner was a simple quesadilla and a walk around the campground afterward made for a lovely ending to the day.  We were in bed at a ridiculously early hour, with the wind blowing and rain spattering the roof now and then.  With no hookups, but plenty of stored power from the day of driving, we were just fine for the second night of dry camping.

I was so happy that we found another quiet, dark, beautiful place to spend the night since the rest of this trip is fairly well planned. This morning when we woke, there were was still a bit of cloudiness, but by the time we got to Utah the skies were fresh and blue and clear.  We stopped at a nice little rest stop for a short walk before traveling east toward Salt Lake.

My turn to drive, and once again the Garmin Girl proved her stuff, taking us along Route 201 to Salt Lake City rather than directly along 80 to I-15.  I have driven through Salt Lake many times, and usually the traffic and congestion are horrendous.  This time, however, it was a breeze, and we flew right through the southern end of the city and up the Park City grade without a bit of trouble.  The grade was as long and steep as I remember, but the MoHo did just fine and traffic wasn’t terribly heavy so we were only slowed down once by trucks trying to keep moving in the two left lanes.

Once we were on I-84 we called brother Dan to see how the other 2/3rd’s of our caravan were doing.  They were just an hour behind us, having spent the night at the friendly Walmart in Mountain Home where Don was once stationed when he was in the Air Force. 

Mo and I arrived in Rock Springs in time to stop in at the local Walmart for some RV toilet supplies before we drove back to the KOA where we had reservations for all three rigs for the night.  Within an hour Dan and Roger joined us and we all were set up in a row in three easy pull through sites with full hookups.  We could have easily boondocked another night, but when planning the trip, we were unsure of the weather, and with others in the group everyone decided that a hookup night would be good.  The Walmart here in Rock Springs already had some folks parked, and it seems that is one of the “ask to park” stores that welcomes RV’rs.

We had no campfire, but we all sat around the rug and caught up on our travels and already the family stories of kids growing up along the Columbia River in Oregon started making the rounds. I am sure that during the next few days we will hear many more of these kinds of stories, one of the more fun parts of family reunions.

One more great surprise was in store for me.  Usually when Mo and I are on the road and my daughter Deanna is trucking somewhere we are one interstate off, or going the wrong way, or on the wrong side of the country.  Yesterday morning I called Deanna and told her we were on I-80.  She laughed and said,"Oh we are too, but we are way north of you”.  They were heading west from Ohio, and going through Rock Springs !  I told her no matter what time it was to call me and she did.  At midnight, we got the call, and Mo and I snuck out in the Tracker to drive 4 miles up the road to the Flying J where I got to have a two hour cup of coffee with my daughter before she took over the driving the rest of the way west.

Hmm…coffee at 1 am?  We came home and I tried to go to sleep, but of course that was silly.  After awhile I thought that maybe processing photos and trying to blog a bit was better than lying there in the dark with my mind spinning!  Now it is after 5am, and soon we will be continuing our trek east toward Colorado.  Something tells me that I may need to doze a bit today while Mo drives, ya think??

Miles driven today: 365