Plan A, No Plan B, C, D, ...

Buffalo, Wyoming
44 21.279 N 106 40.617 W

I get up at first light, which is 0430 around here.  Libby was up by 0600.  We took advantage of the early hour to take the nature trail nearby.  It was great fun.  It starts with a very shaky foot bridge (think of Indiana Jones).  Then we go trough a meadow, a conifer forest, a sagebrush environment, and a riparian environment back to the start.  We had fun and we still got to break camp by 0900.

Our plan was to drive to Thermopolis and to camp in the Hot Springs State Park there.  The drive up takes one through Wind River Canyon which is spectacular.  Thermopolis, what a name, but apt because it claims to have the world's largest natural hot springs.   We learned that the park did not allow camping and we failed to find any other camping place nearby.   Before leaving though, we took our 20 minutes in the mineral hot springs bath.  It was very relaxing.

Soaking in the hot spring bath

The next plan was to camp in Worland, but when we got there we couldn't find the camping area.

The third plan was to go to a National Forest Service camp ground in the Bighorn Mountains.   We got the GPS coordinates from the Internet.  The drive up took us through the charming little town of Tensleep, and up into another spectacular canyon, Tensleep Canyon.   But alas, when we got to the coordinates (8000 feet up) there was nothing.

Our fourth plan was to backtrack to a fish hatchery camp site we had passed near the base of the canyon.  But on the way there, some very threatening thunderstorms appeared so we changed our minds.

Tensleep Canyon

Plan five was to finish driving across the Bigfoot mountains and to find a motel in Buffalo.  We have no desire to camp out in thunderstorms.   That plan succeeded.

Look at that sky

By the way, watching TV news in the motel we saw emergency flash flood warnings and tornado warnings.  Camping in a tent, next to Tensleep Creek, at the bottom of a mountain would be a very bad thing to do when flash flood warnings are out.