Weeks ago I promised Dennis, Kristine, and Dood that, once I got settled somewhere, I would take a moment to write their Eagle RV Park a ringing endorsement and to express my gratitude for their hospitality.
This discussion represents the fulfillment of that promise.
Coming off three weeks of back-breaking, unremunerative, and unrewarding labor in Yellowstone Park, and two full, strenuous days of exploring Cody, Wyoming, I sorely needed a place of refuge in Thermopolis, where I wanted, first, to study paleontology at the Wyoming Dinosaur Center and, second, to learn the Wild West history of the Bighorn Basin, which is brimming with it.
Without rest, however, and, in particular, a safe place to relax and recuperate, I couldn't possibly accomplish a fraction of what I aspired to do in Thermopolis.
Haggard from life on the road, blasted by the scorching sun, and worn out from the relentless heavy-lifting I had been doing in Yellowstone, I yearned for a green oasis in the dusty terrain of west-central Wyoming.
The kind folks at Eagle RV Park provided that sanctuary, and they went out of their way to do so. I was car-camping, in an effort, mostly successful, to economize and simplify. I rolled into Eagle RV Park the week before the Fourth of July. The crew at Eagle RV was taking bookings left and right, getting slammed not around the Fourth but several days before it (in 2018, the Fourth fell midweek). The campground was filling up sooner than they had expected. With all those RV reservations, conditions were ripe for the establishment to make a lot of money fast.
Then there was poor, car-camping Todd H., who needed only a safe campsite and a shower. Eagle RV Park wasn't going to make much money off me. Yet Dennis, Kristine, and Dood accommodated me without hesitation. They recognized my fatigue and need, and they responded accordingly.
Dennis, Kristine, and Dood, understanding my desire for shade in which to park and rest, also saw to that important amenity. They reserved an appropriate spot for me. Shade is sparse in west-central Wyoming. Eagle RV Park has enough of it to cool down a beleaguered explorer like me.
The Eagle folks didn't have to do any of this, but they did. They could have moved an RV into my spot both nights. But they set aside a place for little old me.
I'm grateful, folks, and I won't forget your kindness and cooperation. It's a long, hard road for a lone traveler like me, one getting around on a shoe-string budget. But you made my stay in Thermopolis not only restful but also intellectually profitable, as I learned more in about 48 hours in Thermopolis (including at the Hot Springs County Museum, as fine an exhibit of the American West that you'll find anywhere) than I had in my three weeks of bone-wearying labor in Yellowstone Park. I have Dennis, Kristine, and Dood to thank for that.
My pleasant stay at Eagle RV Park also gave me the respite that I needed to prepare for my race across the United States to upstate South Carolina -- a distance of 1,820 miles that I covered in 37 hours and 20 minutes.
Madness. Don't try this at home -- or, that is to say, on the road. Yet for several reasons, including extremely hot weather across the Midwest, which, except the one late night between midnight and five in the morning, didn't allow me to get any sleep in the back seat of my car, I thought it best, as long as I remained alert, to press on.
Once I got to South Carolina, however, I was disappointed, and longed to be back in Thermopolis, back with the dinosaurs, and the pronghorn, and the high desert . . . and in the welcoming, cozy confines of Eagle RV Park and Campground and its remarkable environs.
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