Star Valley, WY - Jun 2006

We arrived at Star Valley Ranch Resort late in the day after a delightful drive through the south end of the beautiful Star Valley. The valley was lush and green, the river was flowing strong and the wildflowers were sprouting up all over.

The Star Valley Ranch Resort is a Coast to Coast membership park, so we had to agree to sit in on a short presentation (aka sales pitch) in exchange for getting a full hookup site for 3 nights for $39 and a free round of golf -- not too bad. The park sits at the base of the mountains in the Bridger National Forest and is about 2 miles north of the town of Thayne, WY. The member sites are pretty good sized and nicely landscaped, but the "prospect area" leaves a bit to be desired. Nevertheless, we picked two spots that were side-by-side and had a green patch of grass between them along with a couple of aspen trees and a picnic table. It made for a nice area to let the dogs play and also to sit and enjoy the view up to the mountains.

We were tired our first night at the park, so after a walk with the dogs and then a drive around the park (it's quite large), we all tucked in early and got a good night's sleep. It got chilly that night -- down to about 43°, but we still left our window open and enjoyed the fresh air on our faces (and the down comforter on the rest of us.)

On Friday, we took a drive through the Grey's River Canyon. I had read good things about this very scenic 60 mile drive along a gravel road in the Bridger National Forest and it didn't disappoint us. We left the RV resort in the morning and traveled north about 20 miles to the town of Alpine and from there we took Grey's River Road for about 15 miles -- until we got to Murphy's Campground -- and then we headed back. We didn't go the whole length of the drive, but we enjoyed every mile of it.

The road led us through an incredible canyon -- with pine covered slopes on both sides, snow-capped mountains in the distance and the swiftly flowing Grey's River snaking it's way at the bottom. The grassy meadows were emerald green in their lushness and dotted with colorful wildflowers. The only bad part was the cloudy day kept our photos from coming out as lovely as the scene itself.

We took all three of the dogs with us and they were pretty good together in the car -- that is once they established their positions. We stopped several times to let them roam about and sniff the bushes. George encouraged Yoshi to try her first "dip in the river" experience -- she didn't like it one bit. I think the frigid water was just a bit too cold for her tender tootsies.

While wandering around, Scotty managed to pick up a big glob of pine tar on his foot, so all the way home we had a pine-fresh scented dog in the car. He had to lick his foot a long time to get all that sticky stuff off -- and then he had pine-fresh breath!