Thursday 9-18-25 New Campground, Hiking & Reading

 

Tie City Campground

 

We woke up to a gorgeous morning with sunshine. The temperature was 36 degrees and it got up to 65 degrees. It was cool all day because there was a little breeze. 

It was very comfortable sleeping last because we had the Wave3 running all night. I crawled out of bed at 7:30 and got dressed. I asked Larry what he wanted for breakfast and he said oatmeal. So that's what we had. We had maple brown sugar oatmeal and added raisins to it.

After breakfast we took our time getting ready to move on. We put things away and secured. We were only going 8 miles down the road up the mountain pass to Tie City Campground. We were ready to go by 8:45. 

We arrived at the campground about 9:00 and had no problem finding a site. There were only 16 sites but most of them were empty. We decided to take site #14 because it had more sun. Most of the sites were in the shade because of trees. We backed the Minnie into the site and set it up for a couple nights. Then we walked down the entrance to pay for two nights. There was young forest ranger fixing the pay station. She was switching the signs around so people could understand the information better. She screwed the board in the structure and then painted them where needed. We talked to her about what she was doing and the campground. We told her the only wildlife we saw were the cows in front of us. There was a trailhead at the entrance and the cattle were there. One of the cow crossed over a small cattle guard with no problem. They were a little intimating because they were running, mooing and very big. The forest ranger said she didn't know the rules on where the cows could go. 

We didn't go straight back to the Minnie we decided to go for hike. There are a lot of trails at the campground. We went to the trailhead, which is a couple of sites from us at a gate. While we were looking at what trails we wanted to take a lady came by. She asked if we needed any help. She lives in Laramie and hikes the trails all the time. She uses the same program we use, which is Gaia GPS. She had all the trails on her phone. Larry said we wanted to hike about three miles and she suggested the trails to take. We thanked her and started our hike. We hiked for 2.19 miles on three trails, which were Alder, Lower UW and Meadow. The trails took us through the forest and up and down hills. The were very nice trails and all loops. The trails here you can combine them together to make your hikes as long as you want. The trails had sand, rocks and roots in them but they were very nice. We saw cows laying in the grass and along the fence line. We had a great hike.

 

Cows in the grass 

 

When we got back to the Minnie it was time for lunch. I made chili for lunch. After lunch we relaxed in the Minnie with a book. I took an hour and half nap.

 

Relaxing

 

After dinner we went for another hike. This time we hiked for 2.30 miles. We hiked pieces of multiple trails, which were Pole Creek, Black Jack, Ridge, Upper UW and Meadow. The trails took us through the forest and up and down hills. We weaved through the trees and hiked some cross-country ski trails. At the beginning of the hike we heard a gentleman talking to the cows to get out of the way. We thought this might be a problem but it wasn't. The cattle when they saw us just looked at us. They didn't challenge us. We saw another guy on the trail with his dog. It was another good hike.

When we got to our site there was some cattle on the campground road. I went inside and they walked through our campsite. When I went outside to take a picture of them the moved off a little. This was fun to watch. 

 

Cattle walking the road

 

Cattle in our campsite

 

By the end of the day I had done 13,000 steps.