After our adventures in South Dakota, I admit we were ready for smooth traveling. Our destination of Bozeman, Montana, was now within reach of a few days. We entered Wyoming with the idea of doing nothing more than spending the night, but we actually had a little trouble finding a place. Our cellphone coverage was almost nonexistent and the Internet was nil. Luckily, we had dependable paper maps.
Thus, I navigated us to Keyhole State Park, located on the western edge of the Black Hills, between Sundance and Moorcroft. On the southeast shore of the Keyhole Reservoir, it is within sight of Devils Tower.
Unfortunately, the kiosk was closed. When I did get a cell signal, I got stuck in an endless Wyoming State Park loop. We were in the middle of the vastness which is Wyoming, near a state park with ten separate campgrounds, and that’s when we broke the law. Despite signs saying you could not camp without a reservation, we drove into Keyhole State Park . . . without a reservation. Gasp! We felt like scofflaws.
Driving slowly, we traveled a long road within the park until we found a campground that had a sign for RVs (as some areas were only for tents and some had cabins). Faced with a slope going down to the water, we braked and got out and looked around. It certainly appeared there were empty sites. Just when we were deciding to risk Wyoming jail and pick one, a pickup truck stopped us.
A weathered, grizzly man with cigarette in hand looked at us with a narrow-eyed stare. We explained our situation, and he made a call to somewhere magical and booked us into a site. However, he also chastised us. He said he was the campground manager and we should have gone to see him first. This left us mystified. How were we to know who or where he was? Regardless, I happily wrote him a check. Where he came from and where he went after he showed us to a site, I have no idea.
We had a site near the water, which was the Keyhole Reservoir, and we had water and electric hookups so we were rather chuffed. The alternative would have been endless hours of driving without being able to book because of our cell and Internet issues, followed by boondocking in a parking lot. Instead, we were surrounded by all this beauty.
While we only stayed one night, I will never forget Wyoming’s landscape. The next night, we were already in Montana at another state park. I hope you enjoyed my photos of undeveloped, beautiful Wyoming.
I’ll leave you with this whimsical nighttime photo.
