Terry Bison Ranch - Cheyenne, Wyoming and Change Of Plans

Since leaving the Great Sand Dunes National Park area we have been moving pretty fast only staying a couple days at each spot so I have gotten a little behind on the blog.  We left the BLM land near Great Sand Dunes NP and moved to Arkansas Point State Park in Pueblo, Colorado where we stayed for a couple days.  This was a nice park on a large lake.  From there we moved to Boulder County Fairgrounds in Longmont, CO for a couple days.  From there we moved to the Terry Bison Ranch which is just over the Colorado/Wyoming border near Cheyenne, WY.  This is a huge working bison ranch with over 27,000 acres and over 1000 head of bison, lots of horses and assorted farm animals and a few more exotic animals - a great place to camp for a few days.  We then moved on to Platte River Campground in Glenrock, WY where we have been for about a week taking a break from traveling which gave us time to get mail and some packages sent to us.  While here we upgraded the solar on the RV.  We added two more solar panels  which required upgrading our solar controller to handle the extra panels and replacing some of the wiring to handle the extra current.  

We were heading to Yellowstone to beat the summer rush but we have to go to Sioux Falls, SD to take care of some personal business so we will try to go to Yellowstone in the fall after the summer rush.  On the way to Sioux Falls we plan to go to Mount Rushmore, The Black Hills and The Badlands which are all in Southwest South Dakota and somewhat on our way to Sioux Falls.

Our route over the last 12 days or so

Our Campsite At Arkansas Point State Park

The Marina At Arkansas Point State Park

The Entrance To Terry Bison Ranch

Stuffed Buffalo In The Ranch Office/Gift Shop

Jackalope In The Ranch Office/Gift Shop

One Of Several Camels At The Ranch

One Of Six Ostriches At The Ranch

A Small Herd of Buffalo At The Ranch - There were about a hundred buffalo that hung around the campground - they have about 1000 altogether

The Office

The Office/Gift Shop/Rec Room Complex

Part Of The Working Ranch

Our Campsite At The Ranch

More Buffalo

You Can Tour The Ranch On Their Train

Another Buffalo

Some Of The Farm Animals

Peacock That Escaped From Its Enclosure

Our Site At Platte River Campground In Glenrock, Wyoming

Playground and Dog Park At Platte River Campground - River is just beyond the tree line

Great Sand Dunes National Park - BLM Camping Near Alamosa, Colorado

On Monday we moved from Elk Creek Campground to BLM land near Alamosa, Colorado just a few miles from Great Sand Dunes National Park.

Our Site - our closest neighbor was about 1/3 of a mile away.

View from the camper - there are 4, 14,000 foot peaks in this group of mountains, the tallest being Mount Blanca at 14, 344 feet.

Entrance to Great Sand Dunes National Park - Sand dunes and several 13,000 to 14,000 foot peaks in background.  Overall, the Great Sand Dunes were not as impressive as White Sands in New Mexico but it was still nice to see.

Sand dunes with 13,266 foot Marble Mountain in background

Darby and Donna "barefootin" - tiny dots in upper left of dunes are people climbing the dunes

The sand got hot so Donna put her shoes back on - Darby was still "barefootin"

Rabbit Valley, Colorado - Dinosaur Fossils In The Wild - Elk Creek Campground, Gunnison, CO

We have moved twice since the last blog post.  We left Moab and traveled to Rabbit Valley Camping Area (BLM - Free Camping) near Grand Junction, Colorado.  The reason for stopping here was to get some service done on the truck at the Dodge dealer in Grand Junction (we haven't been near any Dodge dealers for a while and the truck was due for maintenance).   We were at Rabbit Valley for 5 days and left this morning for Elk Creek Campground near Gunnison, Colorado. Elk Creek Campground is in the Curecanti National Recreation Area.  This is an interim stop on the way to Great Sand Dunes National Park.

Our route to Rabbit Valley and then on to  Elk Creek Campground

Our site at Elk Creek Campground on Blue Mesa Reservoir  - Blue Mesa Reservoir is the largest lake in Colorado with 96 miles of shoreline and an area of 14.3 Square Miles.  It is located at 7500+ ft. so we expect some chilly nights while we are here.

View through back window of camper

Meanwhile, back at Rabbit Valley, we had a cattle drive go by our campsite one evening, complete with cowboys on horses. In addition to camping, most BLM land can be used for open range grazing land for cattle - cattle roaming about the campsites is pretty common on BLM land but this is the first cattle drive we have seen.

Also at Rabbit Valley, right near the camping area was a hiking trail called the "Trail Through Time" that is an active dinosaur fossil study area where excavations are still going on.  The trail has a number of partial dinosaur skeleton fossils that were left in place as it was impractical to remove them.  The sign below shows what you are looking at in the next picture.

This one is easier to make out

This one is pretty clear in person but is so long that it doesn't photograph well

Near the campsite we found a couple of geocaches - this one was named "Bone Hunter's Tomb" - note the coffin shaped box that held the geocache

It rained much of the time we were at Rabbit Valley which caused a lot of desert wildflowers to bloom

Close-up of above