Horseshoe Bend Campground... Living the 307???

I know, the site is living the 406. Well, a huge storm was set to go through our campground in Red Lodge, so we cancelled and made our way down to Wyoming. How far? Not that far, the border is less than an hour away from our house, and getting to this campground was maybe 3 hours.

Learning Lessons

A few to note for this trip. Lesson 1, make sure that you learn about batteries when you start going through the fun of camping and campers. I learned the fun way that if you have one battery type and another battery type, non matching is equal to batteries draining at different rates... aka one will die very fast and the second will follow soon after. Not good. So prior to this trip I went to Batteries Plus and they had a sale on some new batteries. Got us some wet cell Duracells in a pair and got things ready. If you must know, I kept one battery from one camper and the new one came with only one, so I had very different batteries and it did not work out for the camp trip in Columbus.

My mismatched batteries. Not recommended folks.

Another fun item was that no matter how much you prep your vehicle, it can still have issues. As you read in our last blog, I put a ton of work into our 2016 F150 Lariat 5.o V8. Our trip went well and we made it, but the fact is that the intake manifold for the 5.0 V8 losses torque at low RPMs and also loses speed. In short, what should be an easy hill climb turns into a death match between the engine in second gear and 4900 RPM at barely 35 MPH. Not good at all. I thought we could make it but after that, discussions happened. It got worse when we got home. Ford is completely back ordered on that part for 6+ months AND the truck loses compression when driving normally. Not good. More to follow in another blog for that little story.

Horseshoe Bend Campground

This was a fun campground that had decent weather, was close to home with a familiar route to me. As you can see, the trip itself is short and just south of Billings.

We decided to pack up, grabbed my son and headed south. The drive itself was pretty easy since we are very familiar with this area. As you can see here you barely leave Montana and then make a left.

As you head into Wyoming you will pass the towns of Frannie, Deaver, Cowley and Lovell. Once you get to Lovell you get just outside of town and head up highway 37 towards Bighorn Canyon and Horseshoe Bend Campground. The road itself is well marked and well paved, and if you are lucky you will see some wildlife in this area.

The campground itself was nice. Not many trees, so I can imagine in the summer this place must be super hot. Our site was on Loop B, and I would say between Loop A and B it was about 50% capacity which was nice. We paid for a site that had water and 30 Amp power. The site also had a fire ring and an area to eat with shade. The campsite itself has multiple restrooms and about 1/4 of a mile from the campsite there is a kids playground hidden at the Horseshoe Bend Marina and store. You can get guided tours there, but we rode our bikes down and hung out in the playground. We also noticed coming in that the site had a dump right before you go up to the site itself which is handy super handy. No need to run into town and find a place, it was just down the road. It did not have potable water, but we had water at our campsite so that was fine with us.

Photos of Horseshoe Bend campground and our site

We arrived on a nice day and that night we had scattered light showers and wind. Nothing like Columbus, but we did watch a movie or two. The camper itself was fantastic. It is pretty big for just the 3 of us and 3 doggies, but we had so much room to move around inside and places to lounge which is very different than our experience with our smaller camper.

The camper we have now is a Shadow Cruiser 259BHS. One of the big reasons we picked it was due to the large bunks in the back, the large bathroom, the slide out, and the outdoor kitchen! I finally got to use it and I loved it. The griddle itself is just right and once I got the hang of it I had fun making food on it. We have yet to use the outdoor fridge, but I'm sure we will end up putting some drinks in it for the next camp trip. Its also nice to have so much storage for all of our stuff.

Exploration

On day two, the rain was gone and we decided to go explore the Big Horn Canyon area. This is an area that has wild horses, and we did get to see some roaming around which was really exciting. We also found lots of places to pull off and look at the canyon and read about its history. This location was called Devils Canyon Overlook.

We also meandered our way North and eventually found Barry's Landing. This is another boat launch area and small camp site. We did may stops in between to look at the critters and sites of the area. We found the area reminded us of our trip to Sedona last year. Very similar in color and some formations.

Roaming the Big Horn Canyon area

Cowley, WY

Once we had our fun being outside, it was food time! We decided to go into the town of Cowley to get some food at The Bull Pub. I had been there before many years back, and recall the food was pretty good. We got in, got some local fair and it did not disappoint. I love to make food at the campsite, but sometimes after a day of going all over its nice to have someone else make food for you. If you have never been, check it out and support a local business.

Going Home, back to the 406

So that's pretty much it. A very fun and relaxing camp trip to Wyoming. Sometimes plans change and that is OK. For me it can be hard to make changes like that when I have all the camping items laid out ahead of time, but I also realize that nature doesn't care. It doesn't care if you have plans, it will do what it is going to do. As of today, there is tons of sites closed in Red Lodge Montana and surrounding areas due to flooding. My neighbor was kicked out of a site as the rivers started to overflow. You just can't plan that stuff, but you should always as prepared as you can. Just like my truck, you can only do so much. Take a deep breath and realize you are not the only one its ever happened to and as long as you and your family are safe, then everything else doesn't really matter. That's my two cents anyhow.

Until next time folks! Thanks for reading and checking out our adventures! Next up is Georgetown Lake, with a little bit of Fairmont Hot Springs and Philipsburg in the mix. Very exciting since I will be camping with my sisters family and their new camper.