Farewell to Hoop Lake

A hint of fall has been in the air for the past two weeks, and finally the true color of fall at Hoop Lake is in plain view.  We have only one color – the vivid yellow of the aspens that share our forest with the lodgepole pines. 

To every adventure there is a beginning, a middle, and an end.  Our Hoop Lake adventure ended on Labor Day.  Labor Day weekend was the busiest weekend we had all summer – with campers and with friends and family who took advantage of our final weekend to come visit us.  We welcomed our daughter Lisa and her boyfriend, Josh; longtime friends Dave and Chris; and Rob, Paul’s good friend, who was there for the third time.  Party!!!!

Our water was shut down on Labor Day, September 3 – our last day as campground hosts.  The campground will remain open for an extended season to accommodate the deer and elk hunters during September and October.  The hunters, of course, have no problem bringing their own water.  They are also happy to have bathrooms, even if they are cleaned only once a week by Forest Service personnel.

We pulled the trailer out on September 3 and brought it down the mountain.  It was somewhat a comedy of errors.  Parking the trailer the first time was challenging. The angle at which the trailer was parked required a very precise angle of the truck to get it hooked up again, which took about seven tries.  Thanks to Rob for his assistance (and his patience) in hooking up the trailer.  It was a very good thing that I was all the way across the campground cleaning out fire pits.

Our original plan was to move the trailer into another, more level site, once it was hooked up.  But after a couple of tries at backing it into the site, it was clear that our trailer was too large to fit.  Actually, Hoop Lake was built when the largest trailers built were 20 feet – nothing like the 32-foot behemoth we own.  There are only two sites in the campground that easily accommodate a trailer this large. Plan B – pull down the mountain and then spend the night at the KOA in Lyman, Wyoming.  Good plan.  We got the trailer all the way out of the campground and to the base of the lake when we realized we’d left the sewer hose hanging on the signboard.  Sigh.  Since I was wearing my hiking boots – not my running shoes – I walked up to get it.  Picture me hiking down the road with about 20 feet of sewer hose wrapped around myself like a feather boa.  Too bad nobody got a photo!

Thankfully, bringing the trailer home was uneventful. 

Our adventure at Hoop Lake has ended, but our retirement adventure is just beginning!