When you travel full time big birthday parties with all your friends from back home, Savannah GA , are out of the question.  Luckily we are staying and working at a wonderful KOA with three sets of fill in Grandparents and one mom to be fill in (who should have her little boy anyday).  Huggs was especially excited this year because her Granny and Grandpa flew all the way to Wyoming to celebrate her 11th birthday for a whole week.

We started off the week by showing them the town of Dubois and all its art museums, jewelry shops, cowboy gear, and our favorite store that has drugs. Kids drugs like, ice-cream, shakes, and snow cones. Huggs finished her Rock climbing class with a few friends and her grandparents got to see her climb the wall blindfolded.  We visited the National Sheep Museum, Dubois Museum and Forest Service building. Munchy was able to go on a horseback riding camp and almost got eaten by a bear and a rattle snake. The counselor played a few jokes and the kids and scared them to death, and Munchy’s story of the bear gets funnier every time she tells it.

We visited South Pass City where the girls got to pan for gold. This ghost town was once the 2nd largest city in Wyoming and they thought it might become the capital. Some of the original city is still standing and staged to look like it did back in the late 1800s. When you first enter the town you see the mine and several deserted building (private land). We read the historical markers and made our way to the main attractions. The South Pass City consisted of a meat market, general store, typical home, restaurant, brothel, city bar with gambling in the back, barber, and several out houses. We had fun reading the historical signs, learning how they mined for gold, and why the town faded away.

The highlight was panning for gold but all the girls found were green and red rocks. We gave this adventure three popcorns out of five because it wasn’t interactive enough (Munchy’s words). It cost $4 per person for nonresident, $2 for residents and children were free.  Panning for gold was Free, which we thought was good since they only found a few very small stones worth keeping.

We visited Jackson and took the grandparents around the town looking at the t-shirt shops, hiking gear, leather shop, and our favorite store the candy store, and finished with ice-cream at Häagen-Dazs ice cream.  We took them grocery shopping, which is always the highlight of our week and picked up Huggs birthday cakes.

We finished off the week by taking our work camping friend and fill in Grandma, Wanda, on a ride in grandpa’s little plane. She was so excited because she was finally able to take one more thing off her bucket list.  Our birthday party was the last day and we invited all our fill in Grandparents, and some kids we meet at the campground.  Lots of food, and cake was enjoyed by everyone and Huggs loved all the birthday presents from everyone.  We especially loved having her Grandparents fly all the way from Georgia and spending time with all of us.