This morning in Guernsey State Park we woke up to find fog covering the lake and our campsite. I opened the Airstream’s door and discovered a wonderful smell, reminiscent of cinnamon toast, like a light perfume. It seemed to be coming from the yellow flowers that are everywhere, but it was so faint that only when the air became still overnight did it concentrate enough to be detected. We all piled out in our pajamas to explore, and Emma led Eleanor back down to the dry lakebed to hunt for more rocks. A few minutes later, the fog began to lift and a light breeze resumed over the lake.

Emma’s searching of the lakebed last night turned up several nice pieces of jasper and agate. A few are keepers, including one we’ve never seen before: a light yellow-brown jasper with tiny black spots in it. Our Airstream is getting heavier by the day since she became a rockhound.

Since we are back in the west, we are camping without hookups more often and once again relying on the solar panels to keep up our batteries’ charge. Back east, the solar is not very useful since electric is often available, and clouds and overhanging trees limit our ability to recharge. I’ve discovered that light to moderate fog like we had this morning is not a serious detriment to recharging. In fact fog seems to increase our power-gathering ability in the early morning by scattering the light more evenly to the panels. Our panels don’t tilt to take best advantage of the sun, so in the early morning and late afternoon our power generation capacity is greatly reduced. A little fog can be nice.

During the middle of the day this time of year we usually get enough sun to fully replace our usage from the night before, and yesterday was no exception. But once the temperatures start to drop and nights get longer, we’ll be much more challenged to stay afloat without plugging in once in a while. If we get to Yellowstone in the next week, as we hope to, we’ll have a real test of the system.

To the left is a photo of the entrance door of the Guernsey State Park Museum. It’s a real gem of Civilian Conservation Corps construction from the 1930s, all handsomely fitted Wyoming stone with cypress doors from Florida and quarried flagstone floors. I was more fascinated with the building than with its contents. The arrow on the floor points west to Laramie Peak, clearly visible on a clear day.

I completely forgot to mention that we have left the Honda Fit behind in Denver. It is safely tucked into a private garage under the care of a good friend. We will miss it. It was incredibly convenient to have it as a runabout, and a real gas-saver too. But this is our closest point to Tucson for at least two months, and it would be thousands of miles extra on the car to bring it along our planned route. From here on, we will resume traveling with just one vehicle. Once we arrive at home base in Tucson, sometime this winter, I will fly up to Denver and fetch it.

I also forgot to mention that our household goods arrived safely in Tucson and so I can now publicly vouch for the company that handled our move, Broadway Express. Broadway Express and ABF were both recommended to me by blog readers as less-expensive alternative to full-service movers. “You pack it,” is their deal. You also load the truck yourself, or hire your own laborers to do it. Doing the work ourselves (and hiring someone to unload the truck at the destination), we saved about $2000, well worth it. Of course, it helped even more to move as little stuff as possible, which we did thanks to two summers of energetic divesting.

Since we’ve gotten out west, we have had plenty of suggestions of places to go, from blog readers. I really appreciate all those tips, even though we can’t take advantage of most of them. If you’ve got a suggestion, put it on the blog as a comment (click the link at the bottom of the post) so other people can benefit from it too!

Today we decided to get up to Thermopolis to spend a few days checking out the mineral hot springs. The drive from Casper to Shoshoni is long and fairly bland for about 70 miles, with virtually no services along the way. The road rivals US 50 in Nevada as one of the loneliest we have driven. We topped off in Casper before starting that leg.

Once past Shoshoni the road turns north through the Wind River Canyon, a really neat drive. Through the winding and deep canyon is the highway, the river, a few campsites, and the railroad. Three short tunnels added a little excitement to the road for Emma. Along the way, signs point out the rock formations, which are a real geology lesson, going from the Cambrian era (500 million years ago) through the Triassic (a little over 200 million years ago).

We are camped at a campground that boasts the world’s third-largest hot water pool. We can smell the sulphur occasionally at our campsite. And where’s hot spring #1? In town, of course, at Hot Springs State Park, just a couple of miles away. We shall “take the waters” as they say, tomorrow.