Sweetwater Station... No Camping Allowed

I'm going to back up a few days to a story that occurred while crossing the wide open spaces of central Wyoming.

First let me say there isn't much between Dubois and Rawlins, Wyoming.  It is roughly 200 miles and I had planned to cover it in 2 days.  The only problem is there are no towns at around 100 miles.  Landers, WY is about 75 miles from Dubois and Jeffrey City is about 132 miles from Dubois.  But looking at maps and satellite photos, I noticed this wide spot in the road called Sweetwater Station rest area.  I did some Google searches and found a YouTube video that said that cyclists could camp there.

The wide open spaces of Wyoming... and busted up roads

So in planning the route, I ASSUMED we could camp at the rest area.  As Nicholas and I finished up the 114 miles of riding we cruised into the rest area and it is clearly posted that "No Camping" is allowed.  And to make things more hospitable there were swarms of hungry mosquitoes.  As we rolled in, Beth had just finished talking to the rest stop maintenance person who told her we could park in the gravel lot across the road where they store cinders, but just don't tell anybody.  I'm not sure why I wasn't comfortable with this, other than I was very tired and a little dehydrated.  Beth tried to convince me to just stay, but it was bugging me for some unexplained reason. 

So Beth used her iPhone (yes, we had service in the absolute middle of nowhere) and found info on an RV park in Jeffrey City, 19 miles down the road.  We loaded up the bikes and headed there.  We drove the 19 miles and found what used to be an RV park with a few trailers, a lot of dead trucks and no sign of life in what used to be the office.  That pretty much sums up all of Jeffrey City.  We later found a sign that said that Jeffrey City had been a Uranium boom and bust town with a current population of less than 100.

Beth saw a guy pull up to one of the trailers in a University of Wyoming truck.  She rolled down the window and asked if you could still stay at the park.  He said sure and gave us a phone number to call Cowboy Garth, the owner.  He said that if you don't get Garth on the phone, just pick a spot and hook up... he won't care.  Beth called Garth who was quite the character.   He said slip $25 in the slot on the door of the "office" and pull into the spot next to his RV that was parked next to the "office".

Well the mosquitoes here were just as bad, but we did have electricity, water and sewer, so we could take a good shower.   By this time it was getting late.  Beth fixed some dinner and I pretty much crashed. I had conceded since this was all my screw up in both the planning and insisting on driving to Jeffrey City that I would skip the 19 miles of lovely Wyoming desert.

Cowboy Garth's RV Park

In the morning, Beth offered one more time to drive back to the rest area so I could ride EVERY mile and I took her up on the offer.   As the rest area came into sight you could see a giant RV parked there and it had clearly spent the night.

We did have a great ride back to Jeffrey City from the rest area.  It was a really nice morning and we made great time covering the 19 miles in just over an hour on the tandem.

I have now conceded that Beth has full authority when it comes to decisions about when we stop and where we stay.  I clearly approach "brain dead" after some of these long rides.  She exercised that authority the next day as I battled the wind on our way into Colorado.  She said the first thing we find after 80 miles is where we stop.  At 84 miles, we found a great little camp ground, 6 Mile Gap CG, two miles down a dirt road.  She got no argument from me, the wind had completely whipped me and I couldn't go much farther.

An interesting sidenote - Jeffrey City (a literal ghost town) was the last time we had reliable phone and internet service until we arrived in Kremling, CO.