June 4, 2015

After a pretty nice day yesterday, shortly after we got into the truck to leave the Devils Tower KOA, it once again started to rain. Not really hard, just very steady. After about 20 minutes it started tapering off, then eventually quit.

About 15 miles before I-90 connects with I-25 at Buffalo, WY, the Powder River intersects with I-90, flowing under the interstate. Sometime during the wee morning hours of the 4th a powerful thunderstorm unleashed itself on north central Wyoming. I haven't seen the number of inches that fell, but it must have been a bucket full! When we crossed over the Powder River we could tell that the river had flooded over it's banks, carrying large pieces of deadwood across the northbound lanes, the wide grassy medium and then across the south bound lanes. It had been recent as there was mud on the interstate and crews were working at cleaning it up. 

When I bragged about the truck running so well and pulling the hills without a glitch, I may have jinxed us. About 10 miles out of Sheridan the damn engine light went off again!! &^*@($^@))$&^#$%^%#%&**&%### (Not suitable for publication!!) Knowing the drill, I wrote down the mileage, date, time and code number. So very frustrated!! This is the first time this has happened during this trip and that lead us to believe that we had it fixed.

When we got to our campground for the night (Peter D's) in Sheridan, WY, we mentioned the flooding to the owner. She told us that the storm had been so bad that the river had flooded and that the interstate had been closed until 9:00 that morning! We went through that area around 11:00 am. The campground had also been flooded, upon a closer look we could see that the gravel from the sites had been moved downhill, and she told us that the office (also at the bottom of the hill) had 2" of water in it. She had obviously been working hard because we didn't see any evidence of that.

We hadn't planned on leaving the campground, so we didn't even unhitch, the site was long enough to make that possible, with room to spare. Other than doing a few loads of wash, we just relaxed for the rest of the day.