Before heading to the grocery store to make a grab for food we headed out in search of a campground.
I had been randomly doing searches of free campgrounds, first in Wyoming and then in Idaho, and unexpectedly came across this site:
The website provides the background to this place but the long and short of it is this:
An ex-military man who briefly took care of (and then came to love) his daughters' dog, named Honey.
At one point Honey and this man came upon hard times and (although it does not say in the website) I think perhaps they were homeless at one point.
While in the midst of these hard times the man promised Honey that when things got better he would build a park for this pup.
Honey died suddenly and unexpectedly.
Eventually the man found his way to Arco, purchased an eight acre piece of land, and named it Honeys Park.
He kept his promise.
LC and I were both curious about the campground and curious about this man, and went in search of him.
We found him easily enough on a piece of property not far off the highway.
We tentatively drove down the rutted out driveway and headed towards the back of the property where we could see a large camper.
As we slowly approached, I saw a man with his back to us sitting on a lawn chair, and I could also see a large brown dog chained in front of him.
When he heard the vehicle the man turned, watched us for a moment, and then stood up and walked towards our truck.
I had imagined him to be older, but surprisingly he was in his late 30's or so.
The chained dog barked excitedly, the man smiled as he approached, and a second large dog bounded happily along beside him.
For the next hour LC and the man talked about everything under the sun, while I sat watching these two strangers develop a quick and tentative but easy rapport.
Talk about the campground, his military history, LC's military history, politics and more politics, gun rights, dogs in general and Honey and Jamie in particular.
The happy bounding pup alternated between running through the fields, digging for moles, and running back to her owner for reassurance.
The chained pup was a run-away who found his way to the property and was still learning the ropes of life in Honeys Campground.
The man was eager to talk, and relished in the finding of another man who shared many of his world views.
When he realized that I shared many of the same views he asked me if I had a sister.
After an hour it was time to leave.
It was obvious that he didn't want us to leave, and that he had greatly enjoyed the visit.
Throughout the hour I watched the man closely, and realized that in this tiny town at the edge of the both the desert and the mountains, he had found a safe and secure place to hide away from whatever ailed him.
And something definitely ailed him.
He had been at the campground for a couple of years and we were the first visitors he'd had.............
More pictures of downtown Arco and others taken in back of the motel.
Click on the pictures to enlarge.............
A link to the first blog post of three, sharing our previous trip to Arco a couple of months ago, which shows many more pictures of the area:
On the way home we stopped one more time at the house in the little, nothing, podunk , desert town, and slowly walked around the outside of the home, trying to imagine living in this place.
The day before had been sunny and warm.
On this day it was very windy and very cool.
It was easy to imagine that it was often windy and very cool in this place.
We saw nobody walking around the tiny community the day before, and we saw nobody walking around the tiny community during our second visit.
It was a good house. Solid. Spacious. Attached garage and detached garage, green house, work shop, huge rooms. Good price.......................
Pictures taken on what seemed like a VERY long drive home through Jackson, back over the pass to Dubois, through Wind River Canyon to Thermop(olis) and (finally) home.
A beautiful, cold, damp but long drive................
One minor injury...........
Two last pictures showing a portion of our tiny desert community............
We put an offer on a house here in Cody last week and it was rejected.
It's the first house we have seen in our two living experiences in Cody, that we truly liked and felt that we could afford.
We could offer a little more but we are weighing mortgage payments vs quality of life if we pay a little more.
We are weighing my business that has taken a major step forward recently.
We are weighing a big house in a little community for a little price in the desert of Idaho.
We are weighing simplifying our life............
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