Stuck in Lander, but finally leaving!
Our first free campsite (other than a rest area)
So, we made it Lander, Wyoming after 3 long days of driving through the plains. It was beautiful, for the first couple of hours, and although we saw some cool things (like our last post), we were ready to get somewhere new.
We love our free camping book by the way, thank you Jason. That snagged us a beautiful empty campsite on conservation property, just off the highway, near a lake. It even had an outhouse. It was definitely a step up from the rest area we had slept in the night before.
Arriving in Lander, we were quick to find City Park, right near "downtown" (the whole town is pretty small) and were able to camp for free. Again, near a river, in the middle of a beautiful park, with toilets and water.
An early night, and we were up early. We headed up to The Sinks, a beautiful rocky area filled with mostly limestone. There is this cool river, that runs fiercely for a period, then disappears under this limestone rock and the water takes about 2 hours to filter through, and then comes out the other end a quiet, trickling river. It's very bizarre (see the pictures we took). There is so much different types of rock here, it is a geologist haven.
Well, we tried to start up Toby, and she wouldn't start. Tried a couple more times and she was running real rough. We headed back into town and were still planning to try and get up to Wild Iris to try climbing when we were driving down the street and she started to sound real bad. So, we luckily happened upon the public library with free wireless internet which extended to the parking lot and we proceeded to, with the help the The Samba and Full Moon Bus Club, try to fix the westy. We spent the day, and other than rescuing a lost dog who came upon us and finding it's owner, and meeting tons of really nice people offering their homes and their tools, we were unsuccessful and proceeded back to the city park, quite discouraged, knowing nothing was open again until Monday, 2 days later.
As we drove into the park, so did another vanagon, who we of course befriended. While they didn't have much mechanical knowledge to share, they did raise our spirits some. We shared a meal and then headed out to Lander bar to meet some friends of theirs. A fun night of drowning our sorrows, and we were up the next morning and decided to head back up to the Sinks with them to do some climbing, knowing we'd have a lift down if Toby broke down.
An amazing day, absolutely beautiful weather, amazing rock and fun climbing, though slippery on limestone, we were happily exhausted by the end of the day. It felt so good to be climbing.
This morning we woke up to face our problems. We thought we had figured it out Sunday night, so we went looking for a part, back to the same auto place that Jake had visited Saturday and who had offered us parts at cost. He did not have the part, but remembered a friend of his who used to be a VW mechanic, and gave us spotty directions to his home. Off we went, we found it, and he found the problem, right under our noses. The hose was loose around the Mass air filter and we were getting too much oxygen in.. He put a new hose clamp on, larger in size, and so far we're doing really well. We headed up to Wild Iris to see how she did on a long hill, and up she went.. Jack, our saviour turned out to be an amazing man, showed us his workshop and gave us a bit of history.
And so, tomorrow we are off to Yellowstone National Park, meeting some friends from KY. The weather looks nice, cool, freezing at night, but surely some beauty awaits us.
Check out our pics to date at
So, we made it Lander, Wyoming after 3 long days of driving through the plains. It was beautiful, for the first couple of hours, and although we saw some cool things (like our last post), we were ready to get somewhere new.We love our free camping book by the way, thank you Jason. That snagged us a beautiful empty campsite on conservation property, just off the highway, near a lake. It even had an outhouse. It was definitely a step up from the rest area we had slept in the night before.
Arriving in Lander, we were quick to find City Park, right near "downtown" (the whole town is pretty small) and were able to camp for free. Again, near a river, in the middle of a beautiful park, with toilets and water.
An early night, and we were up early. We headed up to The Sinks, a beautiful rocky area filled with mostly limestone. There is this cool river, that runs fiercely for a period, then disappears under this limestone rock and the water takes about 2 hours to filter through, and then comes out the other end a quiet, trickling river. It's very bizarre (see the pictures we took). There is so much different types of rock here, it is a geologist haven.
Well, we tried to start up Toby, and she wouldn't start. Tried a couple more times and she was running real rough. We headed back into town and were still planning to try and get up to Wild Iris to try climbing when we were driving down the street and she started to sound real bad. So, we luckily happened upon the public library with free wireless internet which extended to the parking lot and we proceeded to, with the help the The Samba and Full Moon Bus Club, try to fix the westy. We spent the day, and other than rescuing a lost dog who came upon us and finding it's owner, and meeting tons of really nice people offering their homes and their tools, we were unsuccessful and proceeded back to the city park, quite discouraged, knowing nothing was open again until Monday, 2 days later.
As we drove into the park, so did another vanagon, who we of course befriended. While they didn't have much mechanical knowledge to share, they did raise our spirits some. We shared a meal and then headed out to Lander bar to meet some friends of theirs. A fun night of drowning our sorrows, and we were up the next morning and decided to head back up to the Sinks with them to do some climbing, knowing we'd have a lift down if Toby broke down.
An amazing day, absolutely beautiful weather, amazing rock and fun climbing, though slippery on limestone, we were happily exhausted by the end of the day. It felt so good to be climbing.
This morning we woke up to face our problems. We thought we had figured it out Sunday night, so we went looking for a part, back to the same auto place that Jake had visited Saturday and who had offered us parts at cost. He did not have the part, but remembered a friend of his who used to be a VW mechanic, and gave us spotty directions to his home. Off we went, we found it, and he found the problem, right under our noses. The hose was loose around the Mass air filter and we were getting too much oxygen in.. He put a new hose clamp on, larger in size, and so far we're doing really well. We headed up to Wild Iris to see how she did on a long hill, and up she went.. Jack, our saviour turned out to be an amazing man, showed us his workshop and gave us a bit of history.
And so, tomorrow we are off to Yellowstone National Park, meeting some friends from KY. The weather looks nice, cool, freezing at night, but surely some beauty awaits us.
Check out our pics to date at
http://picasaweb.google.ca/tjkuenzli
posted by Kim at 8:14 PM
1 Comments:
Wow girl, you've turned out to be quite the travelogue writer! Keep up these fabulous posts por favor. Glad Toby is feeling better. Off you go!
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