Magnus goes (with luck) to Oregon, Day 8

Monday, September 7

During our morning walk I heard a pair of sandhill cranes talking softly. I recognized that I'd heard the sound before, but not until I saw them did I remember who made the sound.

They flew over me toward the deep green fields and as I was following to take a look I saw an osprey on top of a power pole. I rushed back to Magnus to get the camera--I thought it might be a peregrine falcon. Eventually it flew down to the lake, gliding like a buteo with crooked wings. Later I heard it mewing and realized it had been an osprey all along. Silly me--I saw it several more times and it was still an osprey

Ed is feeling better but still excessively bloated and tight.

 

x

We made it to Idaho. It looks just like Utah but feels different.

Highway 26 from the Interstate to Arco is a long, straight 2-lane road through a totally flat scrubby grassland. Slowly approaching mountains ahead. With piles of big black chunks of rock intermittently appearing on the sides of the road. Very strong south wind. Brr

Wilson's warbler in tree by neighbors’ RV. Lifer! Then he came over to ours. Yellow-rumped warblers. Mountain chickadee. Robins.

Pelicans
 

Review Mountain View RV Park

One of the nicest RV parks ever

Arco isn't much of a town but Mountain View RV Park is great. Pretty and orderly, with a big dog park and a play area for grownups with cornhole set up. I’d give it 5 stars. And it’s not even all that expensive.

The check-in was done online and I never saw anyone in the office, but there was a camp host down at the far end of the sites if you needed one.

The sites had nice picnic tables and bbq grills. No fire pits, but some people brought their own. Lots of lovely trees, mostly spruce and fir. They did not block starlink at all; reception was fine.

Our site C04 was a pull-thru FHU site. Good water pressure. Gravel surface.

Nice people were camping there. And there were horses to admire in the nearby field.

Their little restaurant  was closed on Monday but looked nice. On Tuesday it seemed to have a decent crowd. The menu didn't have anything for vegetarians so we didn't try it.

Magnus goes (with luck) to Oregon, Day 7

Sunday, September 6

Ed seems to be good one day and miserable the next. I want him to try to eat but he's complaining of nausea. After 1200 calories yesterday and no output this morning, who knows?

Sitting around obsessing about every little ache and pain is not helping matters.

I'm angry at myself for having given the false hope that we had a two nighter next stop. Not so. It's a long drive (3.5 hours) and a one night stop. There's a 3pm check-in time but since it's Sunday that may not be a problem--most likely we can check in early. Still, it is labor day weekend...

Crossing Wyoming. Wide, flat, rolling, treeless. The only trees I see are those planted beside houses and not many of those. No mountains in the distance--just more swells and sky.

On the far horizon to the south I can see power lines and an occasional building. That's all. Imagine if you were in a covered wagon crossing this prairie--you could see nothing at all.

Crossed a Continental Divide. Is it THE Continental Divide?
Later crossed it again. Same one? I don’t think so.

This campground--Dry Hollow Campground Echo SP--is kind of small and crowded but so lovely! On one side there's a "rail trail" between the campground and a county road, and beyond that rich green pasture tucked under big bumpy hills.
On the other side a steep bank lined with cottonwoods, just starting to turn yellow. It slopes sharply down to a big dry lakebed with water in the distance.The northern end of the lake has lots of water, this end has little. And across the lake another steep slope with Interstate 80 hugging the side. The trucks stream by but so far away you can't even hear them.

Down in the shallow water lots of white pelicans. Up in the campground turkeys. Not shy at all.

Ed and I walked down into the lake bed. There's a vehicle trail leading down, starting from the middle of the campground.

Later Molly and I walked along the trail north for a ways but never did make it to the other part of the park. We passed some parking areas on the road and could see where people had carried their picnic supplies down for a day of play in the lake. Nice.

Lovely trail. They must have done a lot of cleanup to remove cinders-- it was mostly smooth and clear.  No signs of a railroad having ever been there--maybe it was a small, old timey steam train.

Evening sunset of a lifetime. First pink and then turning vibrant yellow; then, glowing orange toward the sun and deep purple blue opposite. Two large bats flew up from the cottonwoods, met briefly, and fluttered away in opposite directions.

Molly and I walked south along the rail trail and found another campground there, a group camp. The sunset went on and on, red at the end and fading slowly.
Rain in the night but dry by morning.

Review:Dry Hollow Campground Echo SP, Coalville UT
Sweet little no-frills stop at the dry end of the lake
 
We had site 4D, a pull-thru site with 50 amp and water. There is no dump station but the campground host gave us good description on how to get to the one at the nearby Phillips 66.  We decided we didn't need it so I can't tell you what it charged.

Our site was small but more than adequate. Site surface asphalt. A very nice host parked beside the gatehouse greeted us on arrival.  The campsites were not exactly spacious but they were not cramped, either. It had a number of campers because it was Labor Day weekend, of course, but it wasn't full.

Perfect access to the rail trail.

 

Magnus goes (with luck) to Oregon, Day 6

Saturday, September 5

We had a slow and annoying start off due to horrible confusion with Ed's app not finding the KOA in Rawlins, Wyoming. Eventually he gave up trying and forced me to navigate. Not as much fun for either of us but necessary.

Fences to deflect snow, we guess. 

We got up to 8000 feet on I-80 and thought that was very exciting, but soon we were at 8600 when we passed a Abraham Lincoln memorial. There was a big statue of his ugly mug there. After that we were on an 5 percent grade for a long way down. Fun driving.

 
(Written at time)
West of Laramie. Really cool out here. Huge, wide open greenish brown grass. Mountains in far, far distance. Very few trees, not even by the creek we just crossed.

Partly cloudy. Is a front coming through?

 

We arrived at the KOA pretty early. It was way overpriced but the owners were nice. I bought and mailed three postcards. I would have maybe gotten myself a pizza but there was no menu or information on how to order. Also, 12 dollars. I decided that I could do better with a bowl of ramen noodles and the leftover sardines.

Edward called while I was walking Molly. I called back later, at 5, but he didn't answer--probably he was eating at Cici's. Eventually we talked.

Ed managed 1210 calories for the day. Probably a record. I hoped tomorrow would not be a disaster.

 

The KOA was sandwiched in between the town and the interstate. You could see the town up on the side of the hill—it looked like an interesting little place but I didn’t walk Molly that far. I would have had to go way downhill and then turn around and go way uphill on the way back, and that (plus neighborhood dog possibilities) did not appeal to me.

There was constant traffic going by on the Interstate and it was pretty loud. But I chose the place for convenience and it was that.

It was warm when we arrived but chilly at bedtime. Nice. 42 or so for the overnight low and I was quite okay with that.

 There were a few small trees in the campground but the land was mostly dry high prairie. Love it. You can see clear to Scechtenady (a joke).

Magnus goes (with luck) to Oregon, Day 5

Friday, September 4

I thought it was my birthday for a while; I was happy to find out it was not.

It was a slow day. Ed was feeling like he couldn't get down liquids, so he ate practically nothing all day. But we did Molly's walk and then at about 9 o'clock went to the raptor observation center, about 10 minutes away. We only saw one raptor (Red-tailed Hawk) but we saw a coyote down the slope in the prairie dog town. I saw a Say's Phoebe and a weird sparrow that I couldn't quite get.

 

It was still pretty early when we returned so I took Molly for a jog. It quickly became very hot and there was almost no shade. But we made it one hour--barely. Saw a kestrel or some small falcon down by the water.

This park is memorable for the concrete—concrete parking spaces and long bike trails. Lots of both. The day use area is absurdly huge.

At about 4pm I took her for the usual long walk. Norm called before we were halfway through--much earlier than expected. We went south on the bike trail to the end, where it intersected with the prairie trail which went over a small bridge and  on for who knows how far?

On way back it was still hot and miserable but I saw a Black-capped Chickadee and Merlin confirmed my ID. It is bigger than our Carolina  Chickadee species and the song is more complete-- chicka chicka chicka dee dee.

Ed was still not eating at suppertime. He forced down a bit of cereal and quit trying. 

Magnus goes (with luck) to Oregon, Day 4

Thursday, September 3

Ed had output in his bag! I did a happy dance.

It was such a lovely place and we had such a miserable night. After three days of worry and anguish, I had finally decided to take him to the ER. But we called the doctor and she gave us a new laxative to try.

Ed was feeling a little nauseous for the first time that I was aware of.  (Nausea is one of the trouble signs for blockages.) But he was also having an allergy attack, had gotten very little sleep and took only a protein shake for breakfast. So we went on to the next campground.

Boyd Lake State Park in Northeast Colorado is highly rated and I guess that’s because it’s big, clean, and airy. The sites are spaced okay but there aren’t nearly enough treees and bushes for my taste. Some areas have more trees but we're in the full hookup loop and it’s wide open.

The lake was very low but very pretty where the water was. There was a small flock of turkeys in the shade by the bike trail. The trail had very little shade and it went on for miles and miles, in all directions. But it was nice, though. Down in the day use area there was a huge playground area with a beach (dry, now).

 There were nice cottonwoods along the lake. Molly and I walked down to the water but she didn’t want to go swimming. We walked along the trails for an hour but I was getting hot enough to be weak in the stomach.  So we came back at 4:10 or so and went to Walmart to get Ed’s new laxative. (Senna. Hope it works better than the Miralax, which we’re supposed to go on taking.)

Then talking with Norman and supper. After supper we went for a long walk at dusk along the trail to the playground. Came back at almost dark.

Nice afternoon but mainly because we didn't have to spend it in the ER.

BTW, this park has a prairie dog town by entrance station. Say's Phoebes. Black-capped chickadees.

Magnus goes (with luck) to Oregon, Day 3

Wednesday September 2

It was cool in the morning, 71 or so. Wow. Ed felt shitty.

There was a rabbit in the parking lot taunting Molly.  And with that, we happily said good-bye to Texas.

We started seeing the mountains at about 35 miles away from Raton. We passed by Capulin Volcano, a place we visited a few years ago. But it was funny that I could not tell which volcano was Capulin. Was that because we approached it from the south, when before we’d come at it from the north?

The stopping point for the night was Lathrop State Park in Colorado, near Walsenburg. It was a very nice little park, nearly empty, with nice big sites surrounded by small trees that obstructed our view but not so much that we felt closed-in.  Just lovely, state park camping that I enjoy the best.

Molly and went for a 35-minute jog at 2:30, down the road to the lake. It was a nice little lake but awfully barren of wildlife. 

The weather was hottish, about 82 degrees, and mostly sunny. So that, plus the altitude change, made a 35-minute jog plenty enough exercise for me. We were at 6300' and I felt slightly breathless.

Note for another time: sites 80 and 81 had great views. Or 90. Our site had a water fill that might be annoying in busy season. There were plenty of other water fills around the camping loop.

Later Molly and I took a walk on the trails. We didn’t make it to the Hogback Trail but it looked like a great trail. But we did make it up the approach trail, about .6 miles to the scenic overlook. There were lots of great big boulders to sit on up there. Some had water pockets in them, still holding water despite the drought. I could see the lake and past it,  the highway in the distance.