This fifteenth posting of our Alaska RV trip is about our time in Montana, Wyoming and Colorado. Our original plans were to leave the RV in Montana and fly to Charlotte, NC for our annual family “Beach Week” (Which is at a lake this year.) But, we found that flights from Denver were way cheaper than flights from anywhere in Montana. So now we will leave the RV in Denver.

Montana

We cross the border from Alberta Canada to Montana, USA with no problems. Neither of us have ever been to Montana. We enjoyed our time in Canada, but we are happy to be back to regular cell phone service, miles, feet, fahrenheit, gallons, and US dollars.

Shelby, MT

We drive to Lewis and Clark RV park in Shelby, MT. We fill up with propane and get a nice site. After we get settled in, we drive into town and go to the grocery store. We buy a lot of things we have been missing in Canada. We go back to the RV, plan for the next few days, and cook dinner.

The past few days have been rainy and cold. Now we are hot and dry. We have electric here, and run the A/C.

Greycliff, MT

The next day we dump and top off our fresh water. As we drive southeast, through Montana, we are in hilly plains. The roads seem better—that’s probably because we’re used to a lot worse. Great Falls is a big city, but most of the way is rural. We drive to Pelican Montana Fish and Wildlife Preserve, in Greycliff, MT. This is a no-fee campsite. We are on a river, in a beautiful site. We are the only ones here! We have cell phone service. This is one the best campsite we’ve ever been in. We make plans for the next few weeks.

We need to do laundry pretty soon. We had planned to stop in Kaycee, WY tomorrow, but there aren’t any laundromats there. It looks like we have to go to Casper, WY to find a laundromat—tomorrow will be a long day.

After dinner, we sit outside, but the rain comes. We go inside and watch through the windows. We see a rainbow. The sky turns red, and we see it reflected in the glacier to the east. We see some more awesome scenery from our “private” campground.

We wake up in the morning, and we still have the place to ourselves. We hook up the tow car and take off.

Wyoming

I drove through Wyoming when I was in my twenties, but this is the first time here for Fran and the RV.

Casper, WY

We drive through hilly-plains. We go through Billings, MT and a few small towns, but there’s a lot of space in between. We get to Casper East RV Park, in Casper, WY, a little after 4:00. We get a nice pull-thru site. The first thing we do is plug into the 30-amp and turn on the AC. It is 98°F here.

Casper East RV Park is nice, but it’s pretty tight. We probably should have made reservations, but it turned out okay.

We need Color Grabbers, so we have to go to Walmart before the laundromat. We put the dirty clothes in the car and drive to Walmart. We get Color Grabbers, and the other items on our list, and then we drive to Bubbles-R-Us Laundromat. This is a really nice laundromat. 

We are really hungry by the time we finish our laundry, so we drive around the corner to HQ Southern BBQ. It’s close by and gets good ratings from Google. We get there at 8:00, and there are people waiting for tables. We get two seats at the bar. We order ribs and brisket. Pretty good!

As predicted, it’s been a long day, but we got a lot accomplished and we are making our way southeast.

A lot of RVs head out ahead of us on Wednesday. We plan to stop at the dump station on the way out, but there is another RV getting propane. There isn’t enough room to go around them, so we go back around and use any vacant full-hook up site to dump. When we’re finished, we still have to wait for the RV getting propane. No hurry—we don’t have far to go today.

Cheyenne, WY

We get a latish start, but that’s on purpose, because we don’t have far to go. We want to go to the Moose Lodge in Cheyenne, WY and they don’t open until 2:00.

It’s a pretty nice drive. A little hilly and the roads are mostly good. We stop several times and get to the Moose lodge at about 2:15. We get a nice site with electric. The people here are very helpful and friendly. It turns out that this is a big weekend in Cheyenne. The Pioneer fest is happening this weekend, and things should get busy. We will only be here one night.

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They have hamburgers at the Moose, but we have a steak in our refrigerator that needs to be cooked tonight. We cook it inside, on a cast iron frying pan. It’s delicious.

Tomorrow, we plan to drive to Olive Ridge campground. It’s in the Arapaho National Forest, right outside of Rocky Mountain National Park. All the reservable sites are taken, but they have some walk-ups. We hope there is something available on a Thursday morning.

Colorado

We’ve been in Colorado with the RV a few times, but not this far north.

Estes Park, CO

We get to Olive Ridge campground a little before noon, and there are people driving around looking for sites to pitch tents. We disconnect the tow car and drive around, but all the sites are taken. We have no cell phone service here, so we can’t call any campgrounds. We set the GPS to the KOA in Estes Park. We figure if they are full, they can at least make some recommendations.

There is a lot more traffic as we get to Estes Park. We pull into the KOA and go inside. They are booked through Sunday, but they suggest some other campgrounds. We try calling some and they don’t answer. We call Manor RV Park. They have one spot for tonight only. We can’t find anybody else so we take it. It is a premium site, on the river so it costs a little more. Full hook-up for $74.

We need to figure out where to go next. We get in the site, plug in to power, and run our AC. The RV park has WiFi with good signal, but it is overloaded, and too slow. We have Verizon cell service, but it’s also overload, and slow. We call the office here and ask if there is anything available for the next two days. They say there’s nothing at the moment, but they will check. They call us back. We have to move in the morning, but we have a site, $122 for two more nights.

Manor RV Park is very nice. It is pricey, but this is a resort town and everything is pricey. The sites all have electric, water, sewer and cable TV. The people are very friendly and helpful.

We drive to the Rocky Mountain National Park Beaver Meadows Visitors Center and get some information.

We get a late start today. We have to move to our next site by 12:00, or after the occupants leave. We see them leave, and we move. Then, we clean the dirt off the concrete pad. After that, we cook bacon and egg on the outside griddle, and grits on the inside stove.

We eat lunch, and drive the car to Rocky Mountain National Park. There are signs that say there is limited parking at Bear Lake, but they let us drive through. We find a place to park at the Glacier Gorge trailhead.

We walk about three miles to Mills Lake and come back. It takes us about three hours. It is a great hike, even though it rains a bit. A lot of the trail is near a river, with rapids and Alberta Falls.

We get back to the parking lot at about 5:00. We drive to the Estes Park Brewery. They offer free tastes. Then, we go upstairs to the bar and have our favorite—the Samson Stout. We also have a stuffed fried jalapeno appetizer. Very good. We go back to the RV and cook some salmon on the grill.

The next day, we drive the car back to Rocky Mountain National Park.Today is Saturday, and the park is even more crowded than yesterday. We plan to do more driving than hiking today. Our plan is to drive on Old Fall River Road, but when we see it is a gravel road, we decide to turn around. Instead, we drive to Lily Lake and take a leisurely stroll around the lake. Then, we go back into the park and drive on Trail Ridge Road. It starts raining, and we can’t see that much. There are lots of people here. We go back to the RV, and cook hamburgers on the grill. 

Denver, CO

We get up and get ready to leave Estes Park. Our plan is to drive to the Elks lodge in Westminster, CO for a couple  of nights and then move to the Elk Lodge in Northglenn, which is a little closer to the Denver airport.

There is a lot of Sunday traffic, but we get to the Elks at around 12:00. They have some nice RV spots. In fact, there are RVs that stay here all summer. We check in with the campground host and she says we can stay leave the RV here for the next 2 ½ weeks, while we are in South Carolina. We aren’t far from the airport, so we find a hotel with a shuttle, where we can park the car.

The next day, we move the RV to a different site and pay $289 for 17 days. We get ready to leave the RV for two weeks.

Somewhere along the way we picked up a hitchhiker. We heard a scratching sound the other day. We had a lime on the counter that is now on the floor in the back of the dinette and we have seen what might be mouse droppings. We put mouse traps on our shopping list. We look online and see that mice like sweet chocolate and peanut butter.

We drive the car to the laundromat. There is a Safeway Grocery store nearby. We walk over to the grocery store after starting the wash. and buy some mouse traps. We decide to buy a bag of Reese’s mini cups for bait. It’s like 100°F outside, and even hotter inside the car and the laundromat. The Reese’s mini cups melt pretty fast. Of course we have to taste some, to see if they are suitable for our mouse. We get back to the RV and put the opened bag of Reese’s in the refrigerator. They are melted together. We put some in the mouse traps, and have no choice, but to eat the rest. We will see if our mouse likes them as much as we do. 

We don’t catch our mouse. We don’t want to leave the traps in the RV for two weeks while we’re gone. All our food is packed in the refrigerator, freezer, microwave, or cooler—hopefully he will move on to someplace with something to eat.

We’ve rushed through Montana, Wyoming and Colorado. We did take a few days in Rocky Mountain National Park, but we didn’t get much time to relax. We’ve been on the road 134 days and driven 11,700 miles.  We’ve spent roughly $6,000 on gas and $3,300 on campgrounds. Now it’s time to see our children and grandchildren.