Lovell City Campground

We stopped here at the Lovell City Campground when in town to pickup extra water and to make our sewage dump on the way home, they operate off of donations so we made sure and left one. The dump station and water are easy to get to and there is a green sign on main street at the south end of town on the east side of the road so you know where to turn.

Casualties of our last camping trip

We had some damages and loses on our last trip we lost our front outside light cover it was taken off by flying mud, we also had a blowout and a leaf spring broke on us.

Memorial day weekend camp trip

Well we just came back from a 5 day trip to the BLM Cottonwood Creek Campground out side of Lovell WY, it s 5 miles up a gravel road off of hwy 14A east of Lovell at a elevation of  4781 ft. The campground has vault toilets a gazebo, horse corrals and most sites have a table and fire pit. There was one large pull behind there when we got there early Thursday afternoon and we got set up in what I would call site #6.

There are 2 short sites as you come in good for about 24' trailers and then what looks like a group site it is large and has a table and fire ring close together and then another table about 25' away the pull behind was setting by the single table. About 3 hours later the flood began and 4 fifth wheels and a cargo trailer showed up they tried to pack all of them into 1 back in site and a pull thru but one of the fifth wheels had to go in the site with the big pull through.

A little later a smaller pull behind came in.

And the 2 more fifth wheels showed up, 1 took the last small site and the other one had to park in the middle.

So now it's getting pretty full and a pickup camper pulling a horse trailer shows up and I thought for sure they would off load there horses, they had 4 and park by the corrals but they parked outside the campground away from the horses were they wouldn't be able to hear them, I thought that was kind of odd. Well we had 2 nice days then 2 days with rain and very high winds, the last day was overcast. Our furnace decided it wanted to be on vacation luckily there was only one night we could have used it and we ran low on water so we called it instead of staying 6 days like I wanted too. As it was we had to deal with muddy roads getting out hurray for 4wd and the the worst came on the way home we broke one leaf spring and blew 1 tire.

Manual landing gear using electric drill

I had a adapter for using a electric drill on my landing gear but it would slip and the shear pin in it broke so I bought a new crank handle and cut the end off and ground flats on it for the drill and it work great.

Our Camping Journal

Here is the journal we made up to keep all of our camp trip information from now on.

Outside vent screens

Ok so we bought all the vent screens from Camco for our refrigerator, furnace & water heater.
The RS600 screen for Dometic  refrigerators does not come with enough zip ties for installation get more before the FUR300 furnace screen comes with nothing to hold it in place so I wired mine on and the WH500 water heater screen has 2 springs to hold it in place but I could see it getting lost on the highway or by a bush scraping it off so I also wired it on on all 4 corners.

Follow up on our installation of anti fatigue mats on bed

My wife came up with a issue of having the anti fatigue mats under the mattress, while yes they do help cushion the mattress she had a hard time making the bed with them loose underneath the mattress they kept getting caught while she was installing the sheets, so maybe adding some double sided tape or lightly gluing them in place would help.

Our Camping Journal

I don't know about you, but I can remember every campsite that we have ever used and how to get there, but how many days we were there or what we did while there has become a blur sometimes. So now we will keep track with a journal.

A camping story: Our first trip with our popup camper

We took our first camping trip in our 1993 Coleman Cedar to the Pryor Mtns in Montana, a place we had been many times on day trips and this was to be our first overnighter.
We headed up Sage Creek Rd to a spot that a lot of campers use there, one that I don't care for to much so we went around the ridge behind it, down a brush choked road, brush scrapping the sides most of the way and pot holes large enough to swallow the trailers small tires till we got to the end and a nice open spot on the ridge where we pulled over.
I no more then stepped out into the grassy area and I was swarmed with bugs it only took a few seconds before I said no way to that spot that time of the year so back up the road we went.
It was at this time that my illness took over, I like to call it where does that road go-itous and it led us down a road we had not been on yet in search of our ultimate camp site for the day. We ended up on a two track of a road going off the ridge down into a canyon that dead ended in nothing I thought till I looked into the trees a caught a glimpse of something so we got out to look and this is what we found.

 Old log fencing

Rock walls

And best of all seating and a kitchen.

And it even had a refrigerator kind of a JC Higgins one.

And here we are all hidden in the woods with a one of a kind camp.

We were mostly done setting up when our German Shepard went on full scale alert, luckily only I noticed it at the time so I grabbed my .45 and we walked further into the camp and stopped, it was at this point I heard a sound I have never heard before but immediately knew it for what it was, the grunt of a bear directly in front of us in the trees. So we moved forward my dog and me and the bear gave ground moving farther up the camp and we kept going till we were about 50 ft from an aspen grove and we could hear it grunting, but it wouldn't budge farther.
We turned around and went back and the dog settled down and we all took a short walk up the road till it dead ended and we watched a marmot and I could hear the bear up on the hill in the grove still grunting and I started to think about how the night was going to play out, either the dogs going off whenever the bear came around or the wife going out in the dark alone and coming face to face with a bear.
I told the wife we were going for a drive and the whole time I was scoping for a new campsite and on the way back I said to her "What if I said I wanted to go to another campsite" she said "I think your crazy" and I said "What if I told you we have a bear in our camp" and she said "Oh where out of there" and so we packed up because obviously the bear had a prior reservation on the site and had no intention of leaving.

And this is the place we ended up.

Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area

The Bighorn Canyon NRA is just NE of Lovell WY and has 2 campgrounds in it for RV's the first is Horseshoe Bend and has 48 campsites and the second is Trail Creek Campground just off of Barry's landing and has 10 RV sites for smaller RV's. There are some nice places to visit while there the first would be Lockhart Ranch here are a few pictures.

Also located within the NRA is Hillsboro also known as the Cedarvale Ranch.

Both places are well worth the walk and both campgrounds have been renovated according to someone who was recently there fees were $10 a night so not bad. Plus there is the lake and all of the canyon views to see.
https://www.nps.gov/bica/index.htm

Check lists, planners, logbooks.

Check out the following sites for.

RV University Daily Logbook
http://www.rvuniversity.com/pdf/Daily_RV_Logbook.pdf

RV Goddess for check lists & planners
http://www.rvgoddess.com/RV_Checklists.aspx

Here are 2 meal planners I found on the internet

Places to go: Kirwin Wyoming Ghost Town

I am going to post cool places to go in Montana & Wyoming, the first will be Kirwin WY ghost town & the DD Ranch on the way to it. First go to Meeteetse Wyoming and stop at the visitor center, they will have a map for you to use then find a place to camp either Lower or Upper Sunshine reservoirs off Hwy 290 or go up the Wood River Rd 4DT and camp closer at one of the following USFS campgrounds.

Wood River Campground
five sites, no fee
Maximum spur 30 feet
Open Season:  May 11, 2018 - Sept. 30, 2018
Elevation : 7300
Water:  No 
Restroom: Vault Toilet
Latitude : 43.93172
Longitude : -109.13231
Directions: From Meeteetse. Take State Highway 290 west of Meeteetse for 7 miles to the Wood River Road (County Road 4DT). Follow the Wood River Road for 12.5 miles to Forest Road 200, which begins at the national forest boundary. The campground is located 1 mile west of the boundary.

Brown Mountain Campground
seven sites, no fee
Maximum spur 16 feet with the exception of one spur of 40 feet.
Open Season: May 11, 2018 - Nov. 1, 2018
Elevation : 7600'
Water:  No 
Restroom: Vault Toilet
Latitude : 43.9351
Longitude : -109.17862
Directions: From Meeteetse, 32 miles. Take State Highway 290 west of Meeteetse 7 miles to County Road 4DT (Wood River Road). Follow the Wood River Road to Forest Road 200, which begins at the national forest boundary. The campground is 3 miles west of the boundary.

After the campgrounds the road becomes rougher you will want 4 wheel drive and there are 6 water crossings, but once you get to the places the trip is worth it. Here are some pictures and links.

The DD Ranch main house and there are 6 or 7 other buildings.

The town of Kirwin

https://www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/kirwin-wyoming

https://www.fs.usda.gov/wps/portal/fsinternet/cs/detail/!ut/p/z1/04_Sj9CPykssy0xPLMnMz0vMAfIjo8zijQwgwNHCwN_DI8zPyBcqYKAfrh-JKR_mA5cH6jbwNzHwNAxzdLI0cDXyDjYNCDFC0g1SgAM4ArUTtB2_gij8xofrR-lH4Xe_Pn4T_Dzyc1P1C3JDQyMMskwAj5R3nQ!!/dz/d5/L2dBISEvZ0FBIS9nQSEh/?position=Not%20Yet%20Determined.Html&pname=Shoshone%20National%20Forest-%20Special%20Places&ss=110214&navtype=BROWSEBYSUBJECT&pnavid=null&navid=100000000000000&ttype=detail&cid=stelprdb5182989

Popup Camper Maintinance List

Manual landing gear on a fifth wheel trailer

My 2002 Keystone trailer has a manual landing gear and like others I went to a cordless drill to power it up. I tried a 12V drill on my stabilizers and it wouldn't budge them so I went to buy an 18V and while at Lowe's I saw a 24V Kobalt drill with 650 lbs of torque and it powers the stabilizers and runs the landing gear with ease you just have to watch for the sudden stop at the end it is a wrist breaker, a good fix for only $99, it's quite a bit cheaper than an electric motor and wiring.

Camping Check List