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 Ron and Terry's fulltime blog
We are a Big Rig looking for a Tent Experience.
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June 20
Made it to our first Prime stopping point.
Green River Lakes center right on map.

It took a week sitting down on the flats (where the Geen River runs under HW 191) waiting for the weather to clear but on Thursday we took off and after many miles of not so perfect rutty (after the rain and snows) road we made it to Green River Lakes campground only to find the water hasn't been turned on yet. (We dumped our fresh water tank so it read E). The out houses are still locked, but we don't need them. We carry our own bathroom or can do it in the woods like bears do. BTW this is bear country so nothing gets left outside. Anyway since the campground is not officially open that means no fee. 


 X marks our campsite 

This is in the Bridger-Teton National Forest. A nice brochure of the area.pdf

Headwaters of the Green River.   It doesn't get much better than this.

On our way up river we spotted momma elk and baby crossing the river. We stopped as I did not want to get between momma and her young one as they were going to cross the road in front of us.

Foot bridge crossing the headwaters leading to the horse and foot trails to the high country.

We are in site 11 high overlooking the lower end of lake. The last site in the loop. We had stayed in this same site many years ago before the pine beatle took out many of the trees. Now there is much light for our solar system and great views. The young green pine trees make it a nice campsite again. They cut and cleaned the dead trees several years ago.
Terry is off fishing at the bridge as I do this post.

The Green River starts in the left center of this picture.


Our first campfire of many as we plan to be here this week before the campground officially opens and then for the limit of 16 days after that. 1/2 price at $6 a day since I'm past 62. The might move down river to one of many boondocking sites on the river itself. Later on there is Granet Creek and hot springs between here and Jackson Hole when we get tired of all lthis. 

The trail into the wilderness.

Just found out they are turning on the water to the campground later today. The campground is scheduled to open Juily 1. Stilll need to flush the system but can use it if we boil it for 3 min we were told. Terry missed his tea this morning. We did find another water source (a pipe stuck in a small creek held up on a log high enough to geet a 5 gal buckek under) and put some in our tank for washing etc. Added chlorine. It's all just snow met runoff we assume.

Too give you more perspective, Google Earth view of this special place. 

Looking south.... we are at the red dot.

Gotta get this posted as a fire and happy hour is awaiting....
 

June 14
It's cold out there. 
We have been in our BLM campground west of Pindale, WY at Warren Bridge for about a week just relaxing waiting to move up to the Green River for a month or so. We have mail forwarding and Amazon Prime stuff being sent to us so we are just hanging out. So next week about mid week we will be ready to make the move up river. 
The weather has turned darn right cold with scattered showers... like freeze warnings for the last two nights. Not that it got that cold but still broken cloulds and windy and cold by my standards. We right now are inside the 5er listinging to Cousin Brucie om XM radio. We are NOT sitting outside around the campfire tonight, to be sure.
So since this is Saturday when we got up this AM we thought a day trip to explore where we want to go after a month or so here and to get supplies in Jackson Hole WY. 


 


The famous Cowboy Bar in Jackson... We have never been in this place. 
Think it is about time we stopped by, but where do we park the 5er. 

Have to submit a couple of pics... north of Jackson... cloudy but still impressive. 


We like to scout out the path ahead, much like sending a scout ahead in the Louis and Clark days of yesterdays. 
Since we got to Jackson in good time we took a drive north into Grand Teton National Park to check out the Gros Ventre campground. Over 400 campsites and not a place we would want to spend much time in. Generator time from only 8 PM to 10 PM. Pretty much run down.  After returning to Jackson and stopping at a huge Alertsons food store we headed back to our now camp home. 
But the main point of the drive was to scope out places to camp or boondock between here and there on the way back from Jackson. And we did find what we wanted... (we had explored this many years ago) we headed up Gros Ventre Road  east on on Granite Creek with many sites to camp and at the upper end is a good turnaround  so no to be stuck with no way out. BTW there is a Hot Spring up here.Granite Hotsprings Pool 
This pic taken from the trail head turnaround where if we can't find a boondocking site up the road at the main FS campground which we found closed in and not big rig friendly. Below  we can still turn around and head back down the road to the left. The rigs were all from WY  so we think if we get here in mid week we can have this all to ourselves. You can't see the bridge and the creek in this picture below. 

We had been here many years ago and happy to see the road was much improved. We will stop here after we tire of the Green River on our later summer travels. The main campground up 9 miles is not big rig friendly but there are many boondocking sites on this road. 


Other boondocking sites... This may be just as great as the Green River road as for boondocking and fishing as we will report on later in our travels. Stay tuned. We have just begun to report on this season of our adventures. 

This site is right on the creek below. 

Oh let me not forget Terry did his thing in the dutch oven.  It was on of his best. tasty...

 
 

June 10
Scouting out our next move.
Our goal for coming to this area of WY was the fishing and camping along the Green River headwaters. Checking online at www.pinedaleonline.com it was saying the campgrounds and roads to Green River Lake were closed due to 7 foot drifts. O damn... tell me it's not so.

So yesterday we went on a day trip to see for ourselves. What did we find, for one thing no snow blocking anything, only rough roads. We could see someone had attempted to grade the road but didn't do a very good job of it. When we were all the way to the lake there sat two huge graders looking like they were about to start the return trip and finish the job. 

We had resigned ourselves that we might have to stay where we were at for a month and just wait it out, but now happily discovered the road open and ready for the adventurous to travel this out of the way spot.  Oh and the high non fishable river turned out not to be so bad at its headwaters. People were actually fishing and floating in a dory boat. Water clear which is always a good sign.

They call this Table Top mountian.  And below this was good section of road.

So we think we will stay till next week in our nice BLM campground at Warren Bridge and relax (with my 4G LTE) cell signal and just take it easy. In the mean time the road should get better and the fishing WILL only also get better. We do plan to spend a month or more in this area as three are several great boondocking sites right on the river so no rush.

Now for some pictures of us here way back in 2002.
That's when we were in vacation mode because it really was vacation time from work. I retired in 2003.

This above Jayco was the second of now four 5th wheels. 
We had the first one, a tiny 5er,18 ft. Fleetwood 5th wheel which we pulled behind Terrys Ford Ranger. Or should I say tried to pull. Those were the days. This is what it looked like, not the actual unit. We even pulled it also to the Green River. I also had about three pop up campers before even this unit. This was real step up and it took much talking to get Terry to agree for me to buy it. Look at us know.

Our campsite high on a ridge overlooking the river. Notice how much we had to jack up the front to get it level.

Terry took this post card shot.

Terry fishing in the lake at the headwaters of the Green River back in 2002.

Get this we even hiked all the way around the lake...  That would not be attempted these days. 
Yup, Terry tied his own flies even whay back then.

We hope to make more memories.
 
 

June 6
Checkout time was 11 AM 
Last evening we made it to Evenston, WY after escaping the campground from hell. See below.
To the only RV park in town. Pricey but after what we had just been through... we welcomed it. 
We had to run to Walmart this AM to get my meds and a fishing lic for Terry. It was about 11:10 when got back to the RV park and pulled out. We are just getting used to the time change of one hour earlier now.
Off we went on US 189 north toward Pinedale.  We have spent many vacation days in past lives in this area so we are familiar and are looking forward to exploring this great area. We headed straight to Warren Bridge BLM campground right on the Green River west of Pinedale.


So at $5 what a bargain with a Senior Pass


Our site. The drivers side facing west to block the wind and afternoon sun. 
And note no boulders on the sides of the drives to restrict access. 

Terry checked out the Green River and it is way up due to still large spring runoff. It should go down soon for good fishing...   like in a month... Remember we are in no hurry and can wait it out. 
And Terry just got his fishing lic. today at Walmart in Evenston for $102 for the season. So we are not leaving Wyoming anytime soon. 

Also the river should be lower at its source at Green River Lakes as we WILL be going there later on.
Reading the reports of campgrounds... Oh My... as of the Memorial Weekend report the road is still blocked by 7 ft drifts. Guess we are a bit early and a late spring with heavier snow this winter. Now that's a good thing for the area and we can adapt. We will just stay here for the month. I mean we just left HOT AZ six days ago. We were in vacation mode now time to slow down and enjoy the cooler weather here for a spell.   Oh, I can handle that as at this campground I find I have 4G LTE 5 bar data. Must have some Mc Mansions in the area. That means we can watch Amazon Prime free videos if we want. 
 Now for the maps..



Note we took US 189 from Evanston all the way up to Warren Bridge Campground. 

You can see where we want to go to Green River Lake when the road is clear.
There are many great spots to boondock all along the road getting there right along the river. 

Just a couple of pics of where we want ot go later on up the Green River. 
These are file photos by me from years past. You can see how low the rive is compared to the current pics above.


Stay tuned as we will report on what we find so you might want to follow along after us.
 

June 5
First off it is Terry's birthday today. 
Took HW 150 in northern Utah. A great scenic road and well worth a drive. 

The campgrounds on the pass were closed do to snow. So on we went to the lower campgrounds on the west side of the pass but found then not user friendly for RV campers. Found the campgrounds just tooooo small for anything. And they had huge boulders on all the roads and pull thrus and the trees have limbs way to low. Had to have the host come and move some boulders so we could even get out of there and also cut a tree branch on a main road. What a nightmare.

Terry and the camp host got up and cut this branch off so we could escape. 
It was about to rip off my Sat dish. We took off and made it to Evenston, WY and found the only RV park in town.  It was nice but kind of pricey at $33. We are not used to paying that. Last year we didn't spend that much in a month. 
 

June 3 
We got out of southern Arizona just in time. 
Heat wave 108° in the shade weather warnings is what my new cell phone is sending me.  But not for us we are at about 8000 ft and 75°. We did have to get in gear and trvel 450 miles the first day as we left Benson, AZ at 7 AM. For me that's a record on getting up time. Took the fast route I 10 to I 17 to Flagstaff and then HW 89 to Less Ferry. (The HW from Lees Ferry to Page is still closed... BTW) We were going to stay at Lees Ferry but it was 97° and of course with no electric in that campground so off we went on HW 89 to Jacobs Lake just north of The Grand Canyon at a forest service campground.
We laughed as we went on by Lees Ferry as I tend to just keep on trucking. I then tend to get grumpy when we do find a stopping point as it tends to get late. 

Jacabs Lake campground site 19. Good for Sat dish and solar and for $9 with Senior discount. Love these Ponderosa Pines. We were surprised there were several sites open and it still hasn't even filled up.


The next day we took a day trip to the North Rim to see the sights. HW 67 is a grand drive.
TThe Grand Canyon main web site. 
The North Rim Guide .pdf  A great guide with lots of information.
Did you know the 1928 Lodge burnt down in 1932 and was rebuilt in 1937. Read all about it in the North Rim Guide.


 
 


You could continue on the path to go out on the upper ledge. Terry did that while I relaxed on the bench under a tree.

We opted to stay a third night in this peaceful (cool as in temps) campground so I could do this blog post and just relax... We have all summer and fall so what's the rush.


Our plans are to head on up through Utah on US 89. Later take scenic route HW 150 in northern Utah heading to Evanston, WY and follow US 189 up the Green river to its source fishing all along the way. And taking our time. So later going out to have a small campfire and just enjoy being alive.

BTW I got my Verizon wireless plan restored to unlimited data as was on my old plan and at the old plans cost. Took a week but it did happen. A  happy camper to be sure now with my new Samsung Galaxy S 5 and 4G LTE network speed. How you ask... I had bought the phone on their Edge plan with monthly payments but that changed my plan to 3G of data. They allowed me to return the phone and then buy it outright and then they would restore my old unlimited plan which they did.
Also our Datastorm internet dish is performing swell now that I got it refurbished. Updated base with newer upper control board. New 2 watt transmitter, spare D3 controller. Had to re run the installer routine as Hughes changed my satellite transponder assignment on me. 
 
 
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