DAY 33: Cheyenne, Wy - Our First "Repeating" State...

Friday, July 3 - Cheyenne, Wyoming

Well folks, for the first time on this trip, we're in a "repeating" state.  This means we've been here before on this excursion.  We are in Wyoming which was the 5th state we visited in June.  We had originally planned on going from California down to Arizona over to New Mexico and home to Texas.  But I got to tell ya, word from home is its blazing HOT and we had enough of that in Vacaville, CA.   We also know its more than blazing HOT in Arizona, and since my friend Lee and Cliff from Phoenix decided to go on an cool Alaskan cruise during the time we had planned on being in Arizona (which, I've got to say, was a very smart move on their part!) , we made a detour to cooler weather.  I love the fact that we have no set itinerary or game plan and can change our minds at any time and go wherever.  I can feel my neighbors "cringing" right now wondering whether we're ever coming home and relieving them of things like mowing our yard, picking up our mail, feeding the dog and cat and my Meals on Wheels.  Of course we are.  Someday.........(just kidding....)  At this point, I would REALLY like to turn North instead of South and start this vacation all over again.  But Chuck tells me we can't do that.

So, Cheyenne is simply a stopping point tonight as tomorrow we are heading to my favorite place; Manitou Springs, CO.  Can't wait to see friends we made last October while visiting there for the first time.  I just love this little town of Manitou Springs.  It's at the base of Pikes Peak and just a neat little quaint town with Garden of the Gods nearby (we actually changed the name to Garden of the Dogs after Murphy was there) and wonderful motorcycle roads that will take your breath away.  So, tomorrow we'll be up and at em' early to get there!

Today was a major driving day.  Drove for 8 hours up and down mountains, through canyons and tunnels and even taught Murphy how to drive for awhile (see pic).  Beautiful drive from Salt Lake City to Cheyenne.  After we arrived in Cheyenne, we decided to stop at our favorite gas station, Flying J (you may recall it was a Flying J in Montana where the RV wouldn't start after gassing it up......it still makes me nervous pulling into one, so now, we never turn the RV off.......we'll show it whose boss!!).  Crazy stuff always happens while we're at Flying J's, but this time, it wasn't ME!    You know, I never wish bad stuff to happen to anyone, but I've got to tell ya, I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO relieved this happened to someone else and not me.  This poor guy (I'm suspecting he's a rookie RV driver...an old pro like myself can always tell!) pulled his motorhome into the regular vehicle gas bays instead of the trucker or RV bays around the back.  Mistake #1.  He was pulling a vehicle behind the motorhome and when he went to leave, the motorhome cleared the gas tanks but the car didn't.  Mistake #2.  Yikes!!!  It was really stuck.  Several men were jumping on the bumper of the car trying to free it from the tank and the wife was just standing there, hand over mouth, shaking her head.  So now, the motorhome was pulled forward and blocking all traffic from being able to get in OR out of the Flying J.  I must remind you at this point that this was happening at 5:00 pm on a holiday Friday and everyone and their mother was at this station.  The best part of this long story was I was in the RV bay where I was suppose to be and it didn't affect me whatsoever.  When I went in to pay the cashier, I mentioned I was sure glad it wasn't me.  She smiled and said, "Ya, me too.  I just hope the station doesn't blow up....I have a big holiday planned".  

We arrived at our camp site for the evening.  I told Chuck, "Look, its snowing here" and sure enough, it looked to be snowing when we drove up.  Turns out, they just went crazy when they planted the Cottonwood trees on the property.  They are literally everywhere.  Chuck was saying how much he loved Cottonwood trees and how they pretty much kept his A/C business going for 20 years.  Nothing like stopping up the compressor unit outside with cotton from cottonwood trees!  He loves cottonwood trees!!

That's about it for our day.  Tomorrow will be great....Manitou Springs...here we come!!

Hey Mike; Murphy now knows how to "sit" and "lay down" on command.....we knew you'd be proud of us!