Winterizing the Boat, A Quick Trip to Flaming Gorge

Our boat is in storage at Flaming Gorge Reservoir. It has been there for the last seven years and so we must travel there each year to winterize the boat. We had hoped to move the boat to Star Valley but we weren’t able find any storage place available.

It was a smoke-filled drive, from the forest fires in Idaho, Oregon, Utah, and Montana, for the entire two hundred and twenty miles to Buckboard Crossing, (that’s a National Forest Campground near Buckboard Marina).  We stopped at Green River to buy some supplies and food and then headed to the lake.

Arriving at the campground we found a nice spot with electricity and near a restroom. The ground was bone drive as the drought here has been prolonged so we were surprised to see campfires were still allowed. There was no campground host or none showed up and so we paid the weird fees. This campground is the only one we have ever seen that requires a special token to dump your waste, (you must purchase one from the campground host and well there was no host. Incredibly stupid Forest Service)!

I had brought along jack stands and tire changing tools but we were lucky and the tires were all full of air. Hooking up the boat we pulled the boat to our campsite, where we could air up the tires and cover the boat with a newly purchased heavy duty tarp.

We did have entertainment as a herd of deer has moved into the adjacent closed campground loop. They were unconcerned about us until we started the noisy tire pump which quickly caused them to vacate the area. Its hunting season here and no shooting is allowed in the surrounding land so the deer have found a haven.

Things went well and the next morning we woke up to clear skies as the wind had shifted and blown most of the smoke away! Covering the boat, we returned it to storage, paid our yearly fee, and headed back to Star Valley. We were pleased to see that the smoke had also cleared along the route home and even in Star Valley!

So, we have checked one more thing off our list, now we can concentrate on finishing our doctor and dentist trips, winterizing our fifth wheel, as our time here is growing short. Due to the hurricanes, we are not sure where we will go as our two requirements are water and warm weather.

Our normal winter spot, at Rockport, Texas was destroyed by Hurricane Harvey, (the wind blew off the storage space where our friends store their boats and allowed us to store our kayaks and we have heard that the space has been looted). It’s a small price to pay when you consider our friends losses of their homes and fifth wheels.

Add to that Hurricane Irma is of course heading for the west coast of Florida. Our daughter and her husband live there and have been ordered out of the area they live it, its zone a, on Treasure Island. They are sheltering at a friend’s house outside of the flood zone. She is a nurse and is required to report to her hospital the shift after the hurricane passes.

Clear skies and calm winds.