Brooks Lake, Wyoming
Our Wyoming fishing trip July l997
Mom's Writing is in plain text; Steve's writing are in italics
Day , July l8, l997
We were going to leave early, so we won't waste any of our vacation. At 7:00 am we started down the driveway. As we got to the road, the trailer breaks locked up. So Jerry turned around, pulled the reluctant trailer up the driveway, over the garbage can, (thank goodness it was empty) now it was squished.
Jerry took the wheel off the trailer; it still was locked up. So he checked the controls in the truck. He cut several wires, then discovered the trouble was only that the emergency cable had pulled out of the hitch locking the breaks. So Jerry spliced the wires together, we plugged in the cable, and hit the road again, 2 hours later. The drive to Mt. Home was long. Got to Rick’s between 8 and 9 pm We went to Rick’s friend’s house, and met his friends Ernie and Teri; what nice people.
Day 2, July l9, l997
Left Rick’s about 8:00 am. Doughnuts for breakfast. Had a real nice drive to Brooks Lake. The only problem was roadwork, and we got oil-tar on the front of the truck and 5th wheel. At the lake we parked and got set up. I heard a noise and found that a water pipe under the stairs came apart. My bathroom was wet, (for several days). We made temporary repairs until we could get to town for parts. We are over 9,000 feet up. The mosquitoes are BIG, hungry and plentiful. At 8:00pm Rick and I went to De Boise
About 25 miles from camp. We would wait for Steve. While waiting we had an ice cream cone. YUM!
Steve took a shortcut, so was a little late. Steve got to town about 9:30pm So we all went back to camp.
I've driven most of the routs before, so I found another rout to take between Montana and Wyoming. Well, the road turned into gravel and I was in some serious ranch country. Too late to back up to the major roads, so I pressed on. I finally reached Ashland Montana and bought some cholesterol disguised as food at a convenience store. I ask if the other road turns back to paved anytime soon, and they said it didn't, so I took highway 212 to I-90 and headed south. I drove on looking for that cheap Wyoming gas, skipped Sheridan and filled up at Buffalo where gas was more expensive. Go figure.
I hit a BAD thunderstorm before Thermopolis, had to drive real slow. I then had a dinner in Thermopolis, called my answering machine and left a message for Mom and Dad. I continued on.
Somewhere
in Riverton I saw this thing. A Chevy and a Harley all covered in mirrors. I had
to loop around the block and get these pictures of it.
Northeast of Riverton I saw these crazy dogs, on the roof looking out for
their property. If you look at the first two pictures, you will see an open
window that the dogs use to get up on the roof. Sure would be hard to sneak up
on them.
I arrived into Dubois, and met up with Rick and Mom, and we drove to the campsite. I had to use my mechanical skills to stop the water leak and we got it temporarily fixed till we could get into town for a few extra parts. As I crawled into the attic storage area (the top bunk) I discovered half of the mattress was gone. I had to get extra pillows to keep me from sliding off of it. During the nighttime bathroom trips, I got my feet wet
Day 3, July 20, 1997
Went
to town, to get fishing license. Quite costly, $6.00 a day per person. Jerry and
Rick got 3 days; Steve got 2 days. Parking was $9.00 a day. They had
better catch lots of fish. Also picked up repair stuff for the water pipe. Had
lunch in town. Back to camp. Fixed the leak, blotted the floor with towels.
Tomorrow the men go fishing.
Day 4, July 21,l997 Brooks Lake, Wyoming
The
guys went to the lake, blew up the rafts, and I mean "blew" up the
rafts. One of them split open. So now they are down to one raft. They will have
to take turns. They all limited out on fish. We all fished both from
the bank and in the raft. We had real good luck from the place where the stream
fed the lake. So we had l8 fish for the day. I
cooked 8 for dinner. Sure were good. While they fished, I slapped mosquitoes. At
5 am the camp host came pounding on the trailer door. There was a grizzly bear
in camp. He was checking out all campsites, for food and anything that would
attract them. He called me darlin', so I didn't mind being woke up. See Boys,
just talk nice to me and I can wake up in a good mood. (Yea, right!)