Boondocking across Wyoming was a lot harder than we thought

Before we started RVing full-time, we tried to take as many trips as possible, many of those being road trips. When travel wasn't in the cards, I used to like planning "trips for the future," as I would call them, and I had a little pink notebook where I'd scratch potential itineraries for road trips. One had us visiting Mount Rushmore with a quick side-trip to Devils Tower in eastern Wyoming. Another had us traveling through Utah and quickly jaunting over to Ashley National Forest and chipping away at Wyoming's southwest corner. Then we had our coveted 2020 road trip that would have included Yellowstone and Grand Teton, but the world shut down and we waited three years to make up for lost time. Wyoming seemed to pop up in a lot of plans, despite really not knowing anything about it. Beyond those little glimmers, the state's remaining 94,000 square miles were a mystery to us. So when we entered into our second summer of full-time RVing with no definitive plans, a trip across Wyoming seemed intriguing. The state is RV-friendly, with lots of resources and plenty of land to camp on. The state parks system is robust and prioritizes campgrounds, and there is no shortage of federally-owned lands on which to camp as well. We had been patiently waiting to boondock for extended periods of time, and now that we finally had our solar installed and our broken toilet upgraded, we were finally ready. (For the purposes of this article, we're using the term "boondocking" to describe camping with no water, electric, or sewer hookups).

We technically checked Wyoming off our "states visited list" long before we camped there, thanks to a couple of visits to Yellowstone as we camped our way through Idaho and Montana. Our first stay in Wyoming, though, was at Gros Ventre Campground at Grand Teton National Park. This also became our first boondocking site in the state.

We left Gros Ventre with plans to dispersed camp in Bridger-Teton National Forest. It didn't quite go as expected, but we quickly discovered what we'd be in for during our summer of boondocking: Lots of hot sunshine and lots of bugs. Due to those circumstances and feeling iffy about the etiquette in this dispersed camping area, we left and headed to our first Wyoming state park: Buffalo Bill.

At Buffalo Bill, we camped at the North Fork campground along the Shoshone River, and it was a beautiful campground. While some sites had electric, we of course boondocked, putting our solar to good use - and sometimes also our generator so we could run our AC. The heat was no joke. Also, fun fact: Our solar panels don't work as well in the heat, so this added to the necessity of running the generator from time to time. Despite the heat making boondocking difficult, we got our first glimpse into Wyoming state parks, and we liked it. The state certainly prioritizes scenic campsites, and even though that particular campground didn't have much in the way of recreation, we had plenty to do in the surrounding area.

We initially planned to boondock straight through the entire state, but that plan went by the wayside almost immediately. When we dispersed camped outside Grand Teton, we hit our first dip in morale, which spurred us to book a few nights at a full hookup RV park so that we could regroup. We were able to pick up some packages, flush out our tanks, and do laundry just steps from our site. This was the type of camping juxtaposition we always sought, having our nature-centric sites with no hookups, followed by a regrouping stay with all the resources and amenities, but we couldn't help but feel like we gave up on a boondocking challenge. Did we cave too soon?

We quickly got our answer. After our regrouping stay, we headed to our second Wyoming state park, the largest in the state. Boysen State Park gifted us an unbelievably beautiful site right on the reservoir. Everything seemed picture-perfect, but our first of two weeks there, we hit another morale dip. A major heatwave rolled in and the few small trees in our site weren't providing nearly enough shade to shield us from the sun. There is something about the Wyoming sun that feels like we're sitting in an RV-shaped skillet getting burnt to a crisp. I personally had never felt anything like it, and I've spent many summers in various parts of the country and even the world.

Our ignorance about Wyoming showed because we chose a spot in a literal desert in the middle of the summer. We didn't think about Wyoming as being the desert, but central Wyoming is. Just ask our little rattlesnake friend that made his home in the site next door.

Thank goodness for the oasis of the lake and for our trusty generator for keeping our batteries replenished as we ran our AC. This was the first week where we felt that AC was not just a comfort, but an actual necessity for our health. This notion was cemented when we witnessed one of our neighbors getting helicoptered out of the park. In case you didn't know, heavy drinking and sweltering heat don't mix.

We loved our site at Boysen, but we honestly weren't sure if we could handle the heat for our entire stay. We were constantly running our generator, and even our fridge wasn't keeping up with the temperatures. We ended up defrosting our fridge right then and there because we needed to make sure we had as much cool airflow as possible. Thankfully, we had a pretty empty fridge by that point, as we were well into our second week since we had bought groceries. Tanner also found an advantage because he got to cool off by licking the giant iceberg we peeled off the back of our fridge.

We talked about leaving Boysen a week early, but the weather cooled enough for us to push through. We did leave one day early, though. We had gotten over the complex of "challenging" ourselves to boondock straight through summer, not to mention that ship had already sailed anyway. After everything we went through at Boysen, we didn't want to then have a long drive day that included errands and chores. We decided to grab a full hookup spot at Worland RV Park, a halfway point between Boysen and our next boondocking destination.

We assumed that our overnight would be convenient. We could dump at our site, do laundry right at the park, and we wouldn't need to tow into parking lots to buy our provisions. We were wrong on all counts. We ended up towing to the grocery store anyways because the lot was empty enough for us to park and grab some items on our way to the RV park. This way we wouldn't need to unhitch during our overnight. The RV park was adorable and the staff were very nice, but the one thing we needed - laundry - did not work for us. The machines were small and slow, and one wasn't functioning properly. We had two weeks' worth of clothes to launder, including lots of towels from our impromptu defrost-fest, and so eventually we decided to just hold off and tow to Worland's laundromat on our way out the next day.

Dumping at our own site is usually a welcome convenience, only this time Anthony had his first "poopsie." For the non-RVer, a poopsie is basically any time you accidentally spill black tank contents, aka toilet wastewater, where it's not supposed to go. It wasn't Anthony's fault. We have a reverse flush valve to help clean out our gray tank, and this one time, it decided to detach itself. Thankfully, Anthony was right there to catch it and no really gross water spilled, but it was content from the sewer hose, and boy did it reek to high Heaven. Cue the next hour of Anthony spraying and disinfecting the ground and me airing out the inside of the RV. In retrospect, we guess it was better to happen at our own private site (with no neighbors right next to us, thank God), than at a public dump station with everybody watching us!

The next morning, we finished our chores with our stop to the laundromat, which worked well for us because we had time to kill before our check-in window at our next campground. One thing we can count on in Wyoming is the large spaces to park. Most laundromats have teeny, tiny parking lots, but this one had plenty of space for us - and plenty of machines! In such a small town where almost all residents have their own washer and dryer, we had the laundromat entirely to ourselves, except for one woman who popped in to do a load. We had a pleasant couple of hours eating lunch and getting our laundry done. Perhaps we underestimated the ease of doing travel day chores and provisions.

Our next boondocking spot, also manned by Wyo Parks, was Medicine Lodge State Archaeological Site, a Native American site with rock outcroppings covered in petroglyphs. We had a huge grassy site with a view of one of the coolest rocks we've ever seen, which we nicknamed Boat Rock. You can see why. Our site was right across from a nature trail that led to museums and the petroglyphs, and behind our site, another small trail that led down to the creek. This campground was outstanding, and we finally had a little reprieve from the heat and could give our AC a break.

Suddenly, the boondocking plan was looking up! When we left Medicine Lodge, for the first time we didn't feel the need to head to full hookups. Instead, the plan was to just cram all our chores and errands into our travel day. We'd be making our way 200 miles east and had two main towns where we could stop. On the errands list was groceries, an Amazon package pickup in the town of Gillette, a prescription pickup at Walmart also in Gillette, and of course, gas and lunch. There was no dump station at Medicine Lodge, so we also thought about dumping if it was convenient. We'd need to dump sooner or later, either once we got to our next location, or somewhere along the way.

200 miles is a fairly normal travel distance for us, but we needed to venture over a mountain pass through Bighorn National Forest, which is slow climbing up steep grades, punctuated by unpaved roads that were stripped due to construction. We got over the pass and made our way into the town of Buffalo, where we stopped at a Cenex. We thought about dumping because the Cenex has a free dump station, but it was a Sunday and it was packed. We've never seen so many RVs at one gas station before. Thankfully, as is the Wyoming way, there was plenty of parking, and so we backed into a spot and had some lunch.

Our big provisions stop was in Gillette. We first picked up our packages at the Amazon counter, which was at a gas station, so we killed two birds with one stone and filled up while we were there. Then we went to the Walmart pharmacy. Walmart is typically an RV-friendly stop, and this was no exception. Our biggest time-suck was our grocery run. We could have just grabbed a few items at Walmart, but we try really hard to stick to a clean, organic diet, so we knew we'd likely have better luck at one of the supermarkets. Unfortunately the first one we went to was slim pickings and we had to go somewhere else.

This was by far the most errands we had done on a travel day, while towing. Many RVers love the convenience of being able to bring groceries straight into the RV in the parking lot, and we do too at times, but we noticed a few limitations when running errands this way. The main challenge is that we have pets. They travel in the truck with us, and then when we go into a store, we bring them into the trailer. We had to do this a total of four times that day.

Once we finally finished all our provisions stops, it was dinner time and we were fast losing daylight. We decided to grab a quick dinner and then drive the final hour to our campground, where we could dump on the way in. We arrived to our 4th state park campground, Arch Rock at Keyhole State Park, just as the sun was setting. We dumped and filled, found our way to our campsite, and set up in the dark. That day, we set our record for our longest travel day yet, clocking over 10 hours. We knew adding provisions to a travel day would be time-consuming, but it was exhausting as well. That's the price we pay to boondock; sometimes errand days and travel days need to be the same.

Our campground at Keyhole was small but fabulous; we had another water access site and also discovered that the very rock the campground was named for was in our site. That was an interesting surprise. Like the other state parks we stayed, it was a long walk to get anywhere beyond our campground, but this park did have a lovely sidewalk that made for nice walks in the morning...when it wasn't too hot.

Ah yes, after our week of reprieve, the heat returned. We felt like we were having déjà vu. We had a gorgeous waterfront site, but the heat was really harshing our buzz. Unlike Boysen, this time we had some shade. Not great for solar energy, but better for keeping the heat away. In Wyoming, the sun is a giant radiator. In the sun would be 100 degrees, and in the shade was 20 degrees cooler. We tried to use the shade from the trees, our blinds, and our awnings, but after a few days, the heat got worse, and we were back to using our generator daily so that we could run the AC as much as possible. We didn't really go anywhere, except for a short drive around the rest of the park to check it out. There were a couple of walking paths we wanted to use, but the heat was too intrusive. Even early mornings and late evenings were in the 80s, and most of the walking trails didn't have shade, so we couldn't go far. Walking is one of the things that keeps me sane, and it was starting to weigh heavy on me that I struggled more days than not to even just take my 1-mile morning walk. Floating - another sanity boost in my life - wasn't enjoyable either because I'd be baking in the sun within 15 minutes. My body doesn't do well in the heat, as you will soon see.

We chose the RV life so that we could soak in nature and have the freedom to explore new places right from our doorstep. When we feel like we can't use the outdoors, we start to feel stifled, and this is what contributes to our dips in morale. We had a third dip at Keyhole State Park, feeling constantly disappointed by the fact that we had another beautiful site but could barely use it. Hiking and floating were a bust, and we never even had an opportunity to put down our patio! Then, with two days to go in our stay, I started exhibiting symptoms of dry mouth, dizziness, headache, fatigue, and body aches. I was trying to stay hydrated, but I determined that I likely wasn't getting enough electrolytes because I had mostly just been drinking plain water, which in this heat, probably wasn't sufficient. I had a sleepless night trying to stay cool and calm my body, and then the following morning, my muscle fatigue caused me to tweak my neck getting out of bed. I spent the whole day barely able to move, just focusing on taking in all the minerals I needed to help my body repair itself.

To make matters worse, our generator started issuing us warnings that it needed servicing. Wait, didn't I just call our generator trusty?! We had noticed several days earlier that it was smelling like gas more, but it continued working. On this day, it gave us more trouble and we had to take the access panel cover off to get it to run. It wasn't quite due for maintenance, but maybe all the heat and dust made it reach that point faster.

That night, with only an hour left until we reached the eastern border of Wyoming, we decided that our boondocking experience was over and we needed to leave Keyhole early. We needed full hookups - especially electric - so that we could run our AC without needing to worry about the generator. I also needed a reliable campsite where I could recover. It's always tough to change plans, especially when they go against something we really wanted to do. We were so looking forward to finishing our boondocking journey across the state, but those six weeks beat us down. We couldn't go on without a new game plan. It was time to make quick, smart decisions and turn things around.

To be continued...