Curt Gowdy Wyoming 4th of July 2020

Curt Gowdy is located between Laramie and Cheyenne Wyoming. Curt Gowdy State Park has seven sections of richly varied landscape, flora and fauna decorate the foothills of the Laramie Mountains. Common recreation activities include boating, water skiing, canoe and kayaking, paddle boarding, fishing, hiking, biking, archery, hunting and rock climbing.

We chose to go mountain biking 🚵‍, running 🏃, paddle boarding 🌊 and hiking up to a waterfall 💧

Curt Gowdy was an American sportscaster, well known as the longtime "voice" of the Boston Red Sox and for his coverage of many nationally televised sporting events, primarily for NBC Sports and ABC Sports in the 1960s and 1970s.

Our campsite was right on the edge of granite reservoir. It was great to have our own private beach. Lola had endless drinking water and the water was perfectly clear. At night, it was beautiful to see the moon reflect off of the water.

We brought 4 bikes so Lloyd and the kids could mountain bike. I preferred to just run with Lola behind them.

One downside to this park was that they only a few places to fill water. We had to ride our bikes for ½ a mile to get water.

We saw squirrels, mule deer, pelicans, yellow-bellied marmots, and chipmunks are all around Curt Gowdy.

The first thing we did was go mountain biking around the reservoir. I ran behind the family with Lola.

We thought we were only going 5 miles, but we got a little lost on the trail and ended up going 8 miles. Carly told me that she is never going to go biking again. I thought the trail was gorgeous. The water was all around us and there were points where we were in the forest, surrounded by trees.

The next thing we did was rent paddle boards. We rented 5 boards and we had a life jacket for Lola so she could ride on my board.

She was a trooper and got on with me, but she was pretty scared. At one point, she jumped off and swam to Connor. I wasn't sure I was going to be able to get her back on my board.

But, the life jacket had handles, so I just pulled her back up on my board. The kids really had fun on the paddle boards. Carly and Camilla said that they want to be on the same board next time.

Another downside to this area is that there was so much police presence. They drove around our campsite checking on us constantly. We got warned to keep our dog on a leash, even though Lola was right at our feet. We also got a warning notice because Lloyd and I weren't wearing lifejackets. In Colorado, only minors are required to wear lifejackets while paddle boarding and we had no idea that we were breaking the law in Wyoming.

The last thing we did was hike up a trail to a hidden waterfall. It was about a 5 mile hike there and back. We walked along a river the whole way and it was so soothing to hear the water while hiking.

When we reached the waterfall, we had to take off our shoes to access it. Lola swam around us. Hidden Falls is located in between two huge rock structures, and it's so fun to see it up close!

On our last night, we created a big campfire and ate a big meal before bed. The kids and Lola were exhausted from all of the activity. We were able to see fireworks going off around the lake from outside of the park.

Even though we were annoyed by the police presence at this park, we really enjoyed the fact that it was so quiet. My past experiences camping on the 4th of July were not very enjoyable because people were super loud and I couldn't sleep. We were not bothered by loud booms all night and we had a great night's sleep. Waking up to water around us was a huge bonus too.