YCGL - The New Adventure - Ryan Park Campground - Aug 11, 2022 with pictures

 WOW!!!  Did I luck out!!!

Between still unloading the motorhome (who knew you could pack so much stuff over 9 years?), almost completely installing a new solar panel (details later), getting clothes out (I know 5-6 days shouldn’t be that difficult….), getting food out, cleaning the house a little bit (I put the cooler away under the stairs and took the orphan appliances out to the garage along with the two boxes of bottles and cans, plus doing some work on the table and counter…), I didn’t leave last night, but final got going at 1:30 this afternoon.   That’s not too bad for the first night.  

But the lucky part is the weather and the campground.  It’s been hot in Laramie, I mean not just a little hot, but in the high 80s and low 90s.  That’s scorching!   Don’t touch anything black because you’ll burn.  (I think I’ve said before, Laramie’s highest temperature has been 94, like three times.)  So, that’s what I left at 1:30.  

As I got to the mountains, the temperature started dropping.  It was 81 in Centennial, 71 at the Sand Creek cutoff and 61 at Lake Marie (10,450 ft)!  It had also clouded over and spit a few drops, but nothing significant.  It warmed up a little by the time I got to the Ryan Park Campground.   

We’ve never camped here before, driven through and said we should, but haven’t.  There are three loops, each with about 15 sites. The first loop is for groups only.  I drove around the second loop, and every site had a reservation sign on it.  I didn’t know you could reserve sites at Ryan Park.  Well, usually, when one loop is reserved, the other isn’t.  Not So here!  Out of the 15 sites on the third loop, all but three were reserved or otherwise occupied.  I lucked out!  Two sites were pull-throughs, and I got the one that was the levelest and easiest in and out.  (I talked to the campground host the next day and he said that there are five first come-first get sites.  All the others are reservable.  However, not everyone shows up...  Required system reset.)

Did I mention that it was hot in Laramie?  Two hours after I got here, the camper was still 87 degrees inside. I’ve got a small fan running inside that pulling nice cool air through a window screen.  I’m sitting out, under the awning, with a nice cool 67 degree breeze blowing by with my legs up in my zero gravity recliner, and writing you!  I’m lucky!  It’s a great day and everything is working out!  

Too bad you can't see me sitting in the chair.  I've got to figure out how to take a picture remotely.

 

Ryan Park is an interesting place (yeah,Joe, a train wreck is interesting!). The area on which the campground is situated was a CCC camp in the 1930’s.  It later became a German and Italian POW camp during WW2.  They became lumberjacks and operated a saw mill in town.  It must not have been too bad a place because even under minimum security, there was only one attempted escape over three years.  Prisoners could write home to their families through Red Cross and they worked for script that they could use to buy candy, food and cigarettes.  When it was time to go back, many didn’t want to leave and many came back to live or visit.  The Forest Service has put white capped stakes out where most of the buildings were, and a flag still flies on the flag pole.  

  

 

Stakes indicating barracks and other buildings.          Over some stakes to the town of Ryan Park where the saw mill was located.

As I was walking back, I saw a sign for the "Moose Trail".  I felt I was early enough to not see a moose, so walked it. It is between the campsite and the Highway and along Carroll Creek, so not exactly peaceful but beautiful in the trees.  You can’t see the highway anywhere along the path. 

I may take a chair out there tomorrow and read.  

  

I’ll be back again, with reservations!