All our lives, we have heard the phrase "blood, sweat, and tears." It means giving your all and trying your best to accomplish something. We're not sure if we can say that we tried our best today, but we did experience a little tears, sweat and blood.
For the last three blogs, we've been raving about this wonderful campground we've found in the Snowy Mountain Range of Wyoming. We've talked about the pristine lakes that we can walk to . . .
and the myriad of great hikes that literally start right at our doorstep. Why wouldn't we just stay here forever?
There are actually two reasons we must leave. One is that we have no cell phone service. Even with the cell booster, the only way to even send out a text is to climb to the top of the motor home--and that doesn't always work.
The other problem is that we have no electrical hook-ups, and our residential refrigerator is an electric hog. Even running the generator for an hour two times each day, it runs down our house batteries quickly. By the third day, our old batteries are needing some shore power.
So Denisa will shed a little tear that after only three nights, it looks like it is time to leave Sugarloaf Campground. But before we leave, we have one more hike.
As we're starting on our hike to the Gap Lakes, we see more skiers starting their hike to Medicine Bow Peak. This is the second time we have seen hikers with ski gear so they can ski down the back side of the mountain after they hike to the top.
The yellow alpine lilies are still in bloom. This is such a special place!
This morning's hike is to the Gap Lakes, and it only took a 1-mile hike to get to the leading edge of South Gap Lake.
We have wandered into another of God's wonders!
Our hike took us the entire length of South Gap, and then the trail disappears into that pile of boulders. We must pick our way through those boulders to continue on to . . .
North Gap Lake on the other side of the rocky ridge.
We sat and enjoyed the lake and the blue skies, contemplating if we would go further. This trail continues with a chain of links sprinkled over this mountain valley.
But to go any further means picking our way across a giant boulder field. You can barely see the two people working their way across those boulders on the bottom left hand side of the picture below.
After watching them struggle with the rocks, Denisa decided that North Gap Lake was a good destination, and we headed back towards the motor home.
Since this was now going to be a pretty short hike, we had time to play in the snow on the way back.
We had noticed this big patch of snow with an interesting blue crack, and Mark wanted to check it out.
He hiked onto the highest section of the snowbank, and the snow is still surprisingly hard even in July.
From there he could peer down into the crevice to see that bright blue color that is always fun to find.
He even talked Denisa into climbing aboard for some interesting views as well.
This was another great hike that we could start right from our doorstep. We will shed a few TEARS that we must leave such a beautiful cool place in the middle of the summer heat! When we were ready to pull out of our favorite RV camping site, we had people waiting to pull in. This is a popular place!
From our campground at 10,500 feet in elevation, we drove down and down and down. We stopped at another first-come-first-served campground at Saratoga Lake, just 40 miles down the highway. But at an elevation of 6,792 feet, it's hot down here. There certainly isn't a line of people waiting for a camp site. But we are thankful to have a good phone signal and 50-amp electrical service (that will make our refrigerator and batteries happy).
Saratoga, Wyoming is most famous for its Hobo Mineral Hot Springs, so we headed there in the evening. We thought some warm water therapy might be good for the muscles we have been using to hike and kayak the last few days. We started at the medium-hot-springs.
Then we tried the hotter spring pool, and this one made us SWEAT! We found that the further we could get from the inlet of the hot spring water, the less hot it was. While we've seen hot springs that charge as much as $25 per person to swim in the warm water, this place is totally free!
Where the hot water comes directly from the springs is a rock tub that the locals named, "the lobster pot." Denisa tried to get in just to try it, but all her survival instincts kicked in and she only touched it with her toes. It was so hot it made you sweat just sitting beside it.
Just below the pools, the North Platte River runs through town. It was a lovely natural place to enjoy the water this evening.
The hot water from the springs also filters into the river, and people have made natural rock barriers that trap different amounts of the hot water. There is an infinite number of hot spring temperature options within the rock circles that line the river.
After showers at the Hobo Hot Springs bath house, we drove through the quaint town of Saratoga, Wyoming. You know it is a little town, when a doe and her fawn feel comfortable walking down the street too.
As we headed back to our camp site at the lake, we noticed that it might be a nice sunset. The wind was calm and Denisa walked down to the water to get a picture of the sun setting over the water. That's when she found out how bad the mosquitoes were at Saratoga Lake. She was swarmed, and made a generous BLOOD donation to get this picture.
So this ends another varied day in the life of two wanderers. It's a bit of a stretch, but we had tears (from leaving our best campground ever), sweat (from the hot springs) and blood (from the swarms of mosquitoes). We gave it our all and tried our best to accomplish another good day of wandering His wonders.
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