Day 5: Corned Beef and Cabbage at Basin, Wyoming

Corned Beef and Cabbage in Basin, Wyoming

Looks like Basin must be the county seat, cause near the campground is the Big Horn County Sheriffs Office, Courthouse, firehouse, and emergency response vehicle garage. As we are cooking, we kept hearing the radios going off at the firehouse and various emergency vehicles are leaving to attend to what seems to be some great disaster. Some of us imagine that a levee has broken along the Bighorn River and it's just folks clinging to uprooted tree roots for their dear lives somewhere in the blackened flood waters full of dead livestock, runaway tanks of nasty farm chemicals, and other assorted debris of that nature.

After supper is cooked, we eat, and then decide what to do next. The rain has stopped, but the grass is wet and about half the crew is thinking that it would be nice to feel what bed linen is like again. It had been a long day with fire towers, fish hatcheries, thunderheads, and cloud bursts so we are a little punchy with fatigue. After an hour of debate concerning the pleasures of tenting on wet grass to the pleasures of watching HBO in a dry motel, the motelers win. Now lets just go find us a place. We check with the Motel in Basin and the lady does not like the look of some of us, specially Cooky. Besides the feeling is mutual cause we don't think she had enough rooms for us. As fate would have it we go over to Greybull and get rooms at the Wagon Wheel Motel. For some it's for the best, cause it's the first shower in quite a while based on modern American standards, but not by cowboy standards. Anyway, I know a few campers after showering staid up to watch Independence Day on HBO that evening.