Friday, September 29, 2017

We're shot!  No, not bullet shot, just tired!  It's a good tired, though, as we stayed in the park all day.  They have geo-caches here and it involved some hiking, climbing up the hillside (they call them mountains out here), and then getting back down!  What a fun day, we had!  We found all twelve caches that we looked for, and some were terrain difficulty of 4, which means, old people shouldn't be doing them!  We'll sleep well tonight.  There was a reason why we couldn't find a decent campground in the vicinity, and we couldn't be happier with Guernsey State Park.  The cost of the state parks to stay in, is about half of what a private campground costs.  Of course, we don't have the amenities of a full campground, but the charm and uniqueness of the state parks, is worth 'sacrificing a few luxuries' when camping.  This is a large park, consisting of 6,227 land acres and 2,375 water surface areas.  The sad part of it is that, they had a wildfire in 2012 and it burned a good portion of the park.  It has a very nice museum, and the structures, trails and bridges were built by the CCC.  They were quite the artisans!  They have a picnic shelter in the park and they call it 'The Castle'.  It is jaw dropping beautiful.  We ended the day by going to the Stockmen and Miner's Restaurant and Steakhouse in Hartville.  It is known to be Wyoming's oldest bar.  The back bar dates back to circa 1862, and was made in Germany and shipped over here.  Hartville is the oldest incorporated town in Wyoming.  I found that bar/restaurant when we were back in Wisconsin and it was on our MSN page as a great place to eat.  It lived up to its bragging rights!   I tried to upload some pictures, but our internet is so poor, that it won't work.  I'll resend them when we get to Loveland on Sunday.
We're in Loveland now, and will upload the pictures for Friday and then do our blog for Saturday and Sunday combined. 

These two little twin cuties crossed the road in front of us, and I didn't even have to zoom in on them.  They acted like they hadn't seen anything like us before!

We saw several of these picnic areas that, were constructed by the CCC and thought how ingenious of them to use the support poles and incorporate it into the picnic table!  They had a beautiful fireplace alongside of this structure (in the background). 

This extraordinary building was the most lavish park shelter that we have ever seen.  It had a spiral staircase that led to a wonderful view of the lake below.  They name this 'The Castle' and it so deserves that name.

This view is from the side of  'The Castle' and you can see how intricate the design is for this park shelter.  There is a picnic table inside and a fireplace, as well.

This view from the top of 'The Castle', give you a good idea of the landscape and a portion of the lake in Guernsey State Park.  We drove every road (gravel and otherwise) and covered the whole park.  It was a wonderful way to get acquainted with the park.  It literally, took us all day!

This is the oldest bar/restaurant in Wyoming, and it dates back to the 1860's.  These are the unusual and fun places we like to find in our travels.  They had a gourmet type meal, and one wouldn't expect that here.  It was the end of a very fun and exhausting day!