Western Swing 2013 - 27 - Douglas to Gillette

Tuesday was a travel day after spending the night at the KOA in Douglas. Though we had arrangements to stay at the Douglas Golf Course (made through our membership in RV Golf Club) we decided on the KOA so we could fully empty the gray and black tanks and fill the fresh water tank. While we had electrical service scheduled for our stay on the CAM-PLEX grounds for the FMCA family reunion, we would have no water and sewer service at the site. That makes it important to start with empty waste tanks and a full fresh tank.

Martha, Redford, and Julie Ann enjoyed rocking in the

sunshine at the KOA in Douglas while Byron

attended to getting the LP tank filled. The “kids”

will do just about anything as long as they

can be around Martha.

By the way, Redford is classified as a red English

cocker while Julie is called orange (white

with red markings). As you can tell, they are

great companions.

The trip took us up Wyoming 59 across the Thunder Basis National Grassland, a vast area that includes approximately 547,500 acres of land managed by the National Forest Service. The acreage isn’t all contiguous since there are areas where private ownership of land exists and where rail lines also cross. It is in northeastern Wyoming in the Powder River Basin between the Big Horn Mountains and the Black Hills. The climate is semi-arid where sustainable grass is allowed to grow (no farming operations, just ranching). There are no developed campgrounds in the area although camping is allowed. The Grassland is home to a lot of wildlife year-round and provides forage for livestock. Under the surface there are mineral resources including coal, oil, and gas.

Just north of Douglas where there are active oil wells with working pumps, there a many drilling rigs set up for gas exploration. As mentioned earlier, there are railroad tracks that cross the area. At points there are sections where the there are sets of three tracks. Train traffic is especially heavy coming from and returning to the large mines south and east of Gillette. Byron believes he was at least six, 120-car consists moving southbound in the 90 minutes we were driving northbound. Each train had two engines pulling and two engines pushing. One even had three pushing. The northbound trains, which are made up of empty cars, have two pulling and one pushing unit per train.

A coal train works it’s way southward from the mines in

Campbell County, Wyoming. Gillette, the county seat,

calls itself the “Energy Capital of the Nation”.

We spotted several antelopes on the many cattle ranches. Just north of the Grassland were several large sheep farms as well.

The terrain on the Thunder Basin National Grassland includes

prairie grasses, sagebrush, and mounds of dirt that are

reminiscent of sand dunes on the dessert.

As to the terrain, there are many places where the land where we saw mounds reminiscent of the mounds made by the natives in Southern Indiana only taller with peaks. They also reminded us of sand dunes only these aren’t made of sand. One wonders if theses were naturally formed or made many, many years ago by some of the plains tribes.

Adjacent to the protected Grassland are several large strip mines

operated by the Peabody company. These mines utilize

massively-sized equipment. The mines also are

involved in land reclamation putting the land

back to use for forage by livestock and wildlife.

Gillette is a town of approximately 38,000. It was built as a railroad terminal in the 1880’s. Today the main business is that of energy and the many businesses in town support that business. The coal in Wyoming is low-sulfur as opposed to the coal from Kentucky which isn’t as clean burning.

Just south of Gillette is the small community of Wright. Many workers in the mines live here where the average yard is about three-quarters of an acre. The yards in the outlying part of town are probably two to three acres in size. They certainly take advantage of the ample amount of space.

Judging from this sign one would think that Wright is a

prosperous town of many thousands instead of a

community of a couple thousand. But, like many

communities in the west, they are patriotic.

We arrived at the CAM-PLEX and were parked among the three thousand or so motorhomes by 2:30 PM. By late afternoon the dark clouds filled the sky and the wind picked up speed and changed direction. A cool front moved through dropping the temperature about 15 degrees. It also brought two showers that each lasted about thirty minutes. The thirsty ground, however, quickly absorbed the water. It did nicely settle the dust created when we all drove onto the grassy fields surround the facility.

The seminars get started tomorrow as does the nightly entertainment. Welcome to the 50th anniversary celebration of Family Motor Coach Association.