Fishing in Cody and our Stay on an Alpaca Farm in Wyoming

After leaving the Grand Tetons and a brief stop at Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park, it was on to Cody, Wyoming.   

If you missed the blog for that area check it out at https://imagineourrvdreams.blogspot.com/2020/09/grand-tetons-national-park-wyoming.html  I'm getting comments that people really enjoyed that one.

We visited the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody on our 2008 trip to this area so we didn't do it again but it was a really nice museum.  Especially for us non-museum types.  

Entering town we saw this sticker on a truck in town.  Well, okay!

It says, Save 100 Elk, Kill a Wolf

We arrived with no troubles to the Cody Trout Ranch Camp and got set up in our site.  I picked this campground based on this information:   

If you’re the adventuresome type, you can catch your own dinner.  Since the property is a Trout Hatchery, our RV Site guests may fish without a license in our catch out pond! RV Site & Tipi guests must pay $5 per fish for trout that you catch and keep; we can clean and bag the trout for you. Great for the young and old alike; all equipment is provided for Pond fishing. 

I thought it would be fun to catch our own dinner and Al has been talking about trying to fish.  Since we have no fishing gear with us, this was our chance to give it a try.  

The campground was mostly empty. 

Now for some fishing.  The girl in the office gave me a fishing rod (with no reel) and some bait which was neon colored mini marshmallows.  We walked down to the pond and I put one of the marshmallows on my hook and put it in the water to try my luck.

 

 

I can see some trout in the water so that's a good sign.  Let's hope I can snag one for dinner.

 

I tried and tried to entice the fish with my neon bait but no bites.  The fish could care less!  I even threw some of my marshmallows into the water to see if they would take it and the marshmallows just floated on top.

After about half an hour I gave up with no fish.  😞  We had to find something else for dinner.  

We spent a few nights at that campground and used the time to get some errands done like laundry.  We had a lot after all the time we spent at Grand Teton National Park.

Next we headed to an Alpaca Farm in northern Wyoming.  It was a Boondocker's Welcome site and sounded interesting.  I didn't have much hope after the trout farm bust!

The ride from Cody to Clearmont, Wyoming was a pretty one.  Especially the drive through Bighorn National Park.  Had I known I would have planned a night there. 

 

 

We arrived at the small town of Clearmont, Wyoming and drove further to Sage Ridge Ranch.  We were not the only campers on the property for our first night.  

 

 

We met the owner, Linda, and she told us where to park our trailer on her property.

Soon the curious Alpacas were headed our way to check us out.

After we got set up, we went down to the barn area to talk more with Linda and meet the animals.  She had a name for each one and told us their stories.  It was a meet and greet as each of her animals made their way over to check us out and looking for a head rub or food.

 

 

 

 

She has four horses and they were beautiful.  One is new to the farm and the other three haven't quite accepted her yet.  

 

 

Look at that Face! (Linda knows just where she likes to be scratched!)

 

One happy pig getting her belly rub!

Buddy with a stick to play

Linda's property was something like 600 acres and went all the way up to the ridge!

This is Linda's property behind her house

Al helping Linda hook up her horse trailer.  She had to take one of the horses to the vet.

The chicken coop where Linda gave us a couple of fresh eggs.

Emu

 

Our site near the front of the property

When we stay at a property with Boondocker's Welcome, we like to ask the owners if there is anything we can help them with.  They are letting us stay on their property for free.  Linda kept telling us she didn't have anything for us but finally said if you really want to help, you could remove the plywood from the inside of this old camper.  Plywood was very expensive per sheet so she wanted to recycle what she had.

The emus were our inspectors!

We got to work removing all the screws holding up the plywood sheets.  We were able to remove most of the wood. 

 

After Linda gets everything she wants out of the trailer she plans to push it down the hill into a pit and light it on fire to get ride of it.  She'll wait until the weather is better to not worry about the fire getting out of control.  

Linda has a shop in one of her barns where she harvests the wool from the alpacas.  She sells the yarn she spins and makes some items herself.  She also does felting which I didn't get to watch but sounds interesting.  

She let me pick out a skein of alpaca yarn to crochet myself a hat.  Here is one she made that I used as an example.  The yarn is thick and I used a big wooden crochet she loaned me so it didn't take long to make my hat.

 

Strutting his stuff!

Our second night on the ranch we had a neighbor

 

The next day Al offered to help Linda and her son dig holes (by hand) and put in some posts for a new barn.  They were giant posts!

While they were building a barn, I walked down on the property and just stood still for a while and watched the horses and alpacas.  After some time, the prairie dogs started coming out of their holes.  See all the light brown spots off in the distance in the photo below?  Those are prairie dog holes! 

 

 

The alpacas were very nervous if I got too close.  When I did, they all took off running away.

 

After I scared off enough of the alpacas I went back to check on the barn building progress.

 

 

By the time we left the ranch, Al had helped Linda and her son put up 5 posts for the new barn.

One of Linda's kids wanted to show a bull with his 4H club at the fair so she got him a bull.  That was 15 years ago.  He's living his life out on the ranch. 

The Bull

Prairie Dogs

These two horses came up from the field for some water and to check me out and get a head rub.  I'm intimidated by such large animals so I was hesitant to pet them and just let them get close to me before I reached out.

 

The Bull

On the farm there were 2 emus, 2 pigs, peacocks, 2 sheep, cats, 4 dogs, a bull, chickens, and 100 alpacas along with the free loading prairie dogs, pronghorn sheep, and foxes.

Sadly it was time to leave Sage Ridge Ranch.  We really enjoyed meeting Linda and her animals.  As we drove out of Clearmont, Wyoming, we passed by their water tower. 

Next stop, Devil's Tower National Monument in Wyoming.