On the advice from Lisa’s brother, we decided to make a stop in Saratoga — the Wyoming one, known for its natural beauty and hot springs — population 1,789. We arrived in time for lunch and had sandwiches from the Saratoga Sandwich Company. I had the Ten Pound Bird (ended up being 2 meals for me) and Lisa had the veggie sandwich. She said it had sunflower seeds in it. Both sandwiches were delicious! There was a group of local young men (ranchers?) in the shop at the same time and we both couldn’t but help notice their politeness — “yes, ma’am, thank you ma’am, etc.”. Gotta love it.

After driving around looking for a place to spend the night, we finally landed on the Saratoga Lake Campground located north of the town. There was an RV park within the town with full hookups but was primarily a full-time trailer park.

With a site picked out we headed to the Saratoga Hot Springs. We were surprised to learn that they are free and there is a bath house available. This was especially welcomed since there are no showers available at the campground. With Lisa’s recent surgery, we only put our legs in the pools, and they were plenty hot for just that. The ponds are constantly refreshed with hot water flowing into them. There is a river next to pools and the water keeps flowing through pipes into the river. We did some wading in the river and enjoyed the mixture of very cold and very hot water coming in from the pools.

We took a short walk to Veterans Island Park accessible via a foot bridge over the river. Naturally we had to see the Stone Toilet built by the CCC in 1953.

The campground was very basic and nothing special but we enjoyed a nice evening and got in a walk/run around the lake before heading out the next morning. The abundant birds and Wyoming ground squirrels provided Cat-TV for Catnip and Primrose.