The Great Road Trip of 2017......Part Twenty Two/Day Seventeen & Eighteen

Part One of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Two of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Three of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Four of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Five of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Six of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Seven of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Eight of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Nine of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Ten of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Eleven of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Twelve of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Thirteen of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE  

Part Fourteen of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE  

Part Fifteen of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE 
Part Sixteen of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE

Part Seventeen of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE 

Part Eighteen of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE

Part Nineteen of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE 

Part Twenty of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE

Part Twenty One of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE

Well we finished in the Buffalo Bill Museum and then hit the road through the town out of Cody Wyoming.

Love this street name......

Then we hit the interstate.  Look an oil well.....

Then the hills started appearing......

Pretty soon we were in Thermopolis, Wyoming.

The Thermopolis Cafe....

More things written on tall Hillsides.....this is the claim to fame of Thermopolis--they have the World's Largest Mineral Hot Spring.

We made it to our hotel for the evening.  Here's mural of the hot spring in the hotel lobby.....

After dropped our bags in the room, we wandered into "town"(a big word for not much there)to find an early dinner.  We ended up at a brand spanking new Pizza Hut.

You might be wondering what this photo of a floor is all about so let me explain.  After we were sitting at a table once our pizza was served I tried to get up to refill my drink.  My shoe caught on the leg of the table and I made an ungraceful splat falling face first on the floor.

Well that was special so I had to memorialize the moment. ;-)  The fall didn't injury me thank goodness and the woman at the next table came over to help me up while Hubs kept eating his pizza slice.

Here was our digs for the night.

And we had time to hit the hot tub and the indoor pool.  The hot tub wasn't working.

And notice that the pool water isn't level with the pool sides.....or rather the pool had settled and the water was level.  Crazy.

And the clock over the door in the pool room was stuck at 12:10(and it was right 2 x a day).

The next morning we drove back into "town", passing this huge solar farm.

And a hillside that had recently burned in a wildfire.

Into the town of Thermopolis, Wyoming.  There were maybe 3 traffic lights.

A little motel with a large statue of an elk and one of those archways made out of antlers again.

The Thermopolis Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce & Visitors Center.

We turned down by the Visitors Center and saw this wigwam sign directly us to the free Hot Spring.  Here's Hubs sitting on a bench in the hot spring.

Here's me giving the "ok" sign in the spring.  It smelled of sulfur but man, did it feel good on your old creaky body!

A fellow bather offered to take our photo together and his buddy photo bombed us. lol

A mound of calcified minerals over where the spring formed.

Even though this was free to enter for anyone, they had a time limit you could stay in it of 15 minutes.  Some old guy(a local)stayed in for hours that day and kept talking to strangers(who didn't want to be bothered).  

This is the women's changing room with lockers to store your street clothes.  I guess crime is pretty low here as there were no locks on the doors.  And there was a shower room to rinse off in so you didn't stink of sulfur afterwards.

The outside of the bath house building entrance.

I noticed this car parked next to ours.  They had two cans of Chef-Boy-Ar-Dee sitting on the dashboard.  Heating up their lunch no doubt. lol

A neat buffalo carved statue by the bath house.  I highly recommend this free hot spring.  There was another fancy thing called The Star Plunge but it cost money.

There were also two hotels nearby that had free hot spring pools for their guests to use(no time limit)but they were out of our price range for this trip.  The public pool hot spring was fine.

We toured around the state park there afterwards.  Here's another formations of calcified minerals.

And yet another teepee.....

A warning sign, "Buffalo are dangerous".  Thermopolis also has a herd of buffalo there.

There was a small cemetery with some old headstones near the fenced off area where the buffalo roam.

Close up of an iron cross in the cemetery, "A tribute to the pioneers who came in 1893.  Trails end."

There had been a settlement, "Smoky Row", where that cemetery now stood.

Me being silly and doing my Carol Merrill, "Let's Make a Deal" impersonation.(You gotta be old and have seen the original Monty Hall version of "Let's Make a Deal" to get this. lol)

A Nerf Gun dart.  Now that's something strange to find here.....

A shot of some scenery in the buffalo area.

And there they were--buffaloes.

There were roads around this area and we'd drive over to where the "buffalo roamed" and as soon as we'd get near, they'd head off elsewhere.

Then the Alpha buffalo headed down to the watering hole.....

And the whole herd followed suit.......

Look at that cute "Ginger Dog" on the far right in this shot.  That's the term for a juvenile buffalo as they are ginger colored and resemble the size of a large dog rather than a bison.

There's the Alpha male with his female harem cooling off in the water.  He kept eyeing me.

You'll notice the small rickety wooden rustic fencing surrounding where the buffalo roam.  If that big male wanted to kill me, it wouldn't take much and I am sure he can run faster than I can.

There was a couple in another car who parked near us and were getting a little too close to the herd(I used a zoom to get my shots).  They were foreigners(from a Slavic country it sounded like from their accent).  They asked me to take their photo with the buffaloes in the background.  Then I had them take my photo.  And I quickly looked back to make sure no one was charging at me.

                                      

The mama buffalo kept close to her baby.

My little camera got some great zoomed in closes-ups.

A dinosaur replica 

Where the hot spring sprung up and the mineral/calcium deposits that make formations. 

This is where the hot springs meet a river too and the boiling water from the hot spring meets the cool river water making it not too warm to bath/swim/lounge in.

And then, just like that we waved farewell to Thermopolis, Wyoming, heading Eastward to the next adventure on the journey.

Sluggy

Frugal Friday.....the January 5th Edition on Saturday

 There are a few Frugal wins these past couple of weeks so here goes....

*  We were able to use some old gift cards for restaurants along the way on the trip.
We had Applebee's in PA and IHop in GA, paying with gift cards.  We also mooched meals off our Hosts in PA, MD and VA.  There was restaurant spending in PA and MD without the benefit of gift cards. ouch

*  I had a $50 gift card still for Ocean State Job Lot(but they don't have stores anywhere down here).  So before we left Wilkes-Barre on Dec. 26th we hit there to use it up, mostly buying discounted Xmas stuff we no longer had(bags, boxes, bows, tissue paper and ribbon)plus some doggies treats and toys for our puppies and a few food items(sesame oil, dark chocolate, coffee filters and a monstrously larger vat of pink Himalayan sea salt.

This 5lb. containers was only $5.99!
It should last us the rest of our lives. lol

*  Grocery shopping the past 2 weeks for December--best deals........while I wasn't home to do regular shopping we bought some foodstuffs on the trip at places we don't have here.

We hit up Aldi in VA while staying at my brother's house.  Got some chili, pumpkin(long dated), crushed tomatoes, dark chocolate bars and a bag of peanut butter cups(my guilty pleasure).  The first 3 items were on clearance too.

We went to a Trader Joes also near my brother's place that same day.  I got a package of Rigatoni(hard to find here, almost as hard as shell pasta is to find), a dark chocolate bar and some dark chocolate peanut butter cups.  So many things at both of these stores we'd have loved to bring home but they required refrigeration. 8-(

And to finish off the shopping spree that day we hit Rose's discount store for these on clearance........

You are either in the Fruitcake Friend or Fruitcake Foe camp, there is no middle ground.  This is by far the BEST fruitcake there is....as Dr. Spo is given to saying, "Do not dare question this!" 8-)

$2.25 for a 1 lb. brick of this delicacy?  Heck yeah!  Claxton's has been around forever so they must be doing the fruitcake game right.  The best fruitcake is 90% fruit and nuts with only enough cake batter to hold the thing together.

*  In the "found category", at the rest stop somewhere in VA, as I walked around to get some exercise, I wandered over to the vending machine cubicle and noticed one of the drink machines was flashing "$1.00 credit" on it's screen.  I needed some water so I put the rest of the coinage needed to purchase a bottle of water into the machine and voila!, out popped a bottle of Aquafina(a very over priced brand IMHO).

So I got a discounted much needed at the time bottle of water courtesy of some kind Secret Santa who put $1 into that machine and left.

*  I found money!

These two blurry pennies were in the vending machine coin return at the Vicksburg MS Welcome Center/Rest Stop.

This quarter in a change return of a vending machine in a VA Rest Stop.

This dime in the Chinese Restaurant we had a tradition of having Christmas Eve dinner in when we lived in PA. We enjoyed the company of our nephew there.

This quarter on NYE on a trip to Aldi's at my brother's house in VA.  Some guy returned his cart but didn't hook it up and take his quarter so I "helped him". hehehe

This Penny on my Brother's Porch the day after New Year's.

This penny somewhere in NC at yet another Rest Stop.(We saw a LOT of rest areas on this trip due to my butt and knee issues.)

And this penny on the ground at the vending machines in a Rest Stop somewhere in AL.

Total Found in last 2 Weeks.... .65¢
Grand Total Found this Year.......$4.21

That's all I got.

Any frugal wins in your neck of the woods?  Let's hear all about them!

Sluggy   

Merry Christmas! I'm Back....

From my house to yours I hope y'all had a Merry Little Christmas!
We are finally back from our 2023 Farewell Tour to see friends and relatives.  It was over a 3,000 mile road trip when all was said and done.

Not having my computer with me I really couldn't post on the blog while we were gone. (I tried once and it was all bolloxed up.)

Here's our little tree this year that I couldn't post until now.  We still haven't done Christmas with my Daughter and her husband so we are still in Holiday Mode. 8-)

Mostly it's decked out in ornaments from our travels.

The Alaskan Inuit Totem Hubs bought in Ketchikan, AK........

The Angel Oak from Johns Island outside of Charleston, SC.

The Boll Weevil Statue from Enterprise, AL........

The Stingray from the Grand Cayman Island.....

The Thistle ornament, the National Flower/Emblem of Scotland from Edinburgh.......

A replica of the Norwegian Dawn, the ship we took around the 

British Isles last May........

An ornament of Icy Strait Point in Alaska from the cruise in 2021.......

Greyfriars Bobby in stained glass from Scotland....

A soft felt version of the Westminster Abbey......

And Hubs set up the handmade ceramic nativity set I made decades ago when we lived in the Poconos.  He cleared a bookshelf by the tv for it.  The green and red poinsettia fabric underneath wasn't the best choice but it had to do. ;-)

Sluggy