Good Morning. I just got back from a week in Wyoming; I went for my nephew's graduation and got to do side trips as an added benefit.
My sister lives on the south fork of the Shoshone River, and in her front yard is Carter Mountain. We spent a day on four-wheelers up in the mts. It was the perfect blend of mud and hail. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/Joy.gif" alt="" /> The muddy part was a blast, you never know if you'll make it through the puddle or if you will have to get out and push!
Carter is being forrested for beatle-kill trees, (they are all ready dead), but Man are there a lot of them. We did get to see "the hollow tree". This tree must be about 25 feet high, is hollow all the way up and is still alive and growing. Pretty cool.
We went to Yellowstone, saw all of the regulars, the Bison, the Elk, the deer. But we also got to see a coyote, a Bald Eagle in her nest and a Grizzly(yea!). The bear was just heading away from us on a berm as we went by.
The drive home from the park was long, too many of the gates close early. We ended turning a 2 hour trip into a six hour one. But, we had a huge snowstorm and I was spending time with my sisters and we had fun.
I had a friend meet me in Wyoming and we had 3 days to go camping. We just went down the road (about 50 miles) from my sister's house to Deer Creek. It is almost to the end of the South Fork road. We camped by the river bed, and listened to the river flow. It was wonderful. We had a family of 3-4 deer in camp every morning. The hiking wasn't what we had planned. I guess our eyes were more ambitious than our bodies. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/duh.gif" alt="" /> We would start out real gung-ho and get to the top of the rise and sit down, and admire God's wonderful world. And sit, and sit... We did get a kick out of walking the river bed and playing with the rocks. And getting our feet wet to the knees "jumping" the river.
Our last night camping, we were standing by the fire, just loving where we were and we heard some thing on the rocks. Something big! Of course the bear mace was about 100 yards away in my tent. So I start clapping and singing, my friend was telling me to be quiet so she could hear! Well, I grew the balls I needed and went to the tent and got the mace, we then sat in the truck for about ten minutes. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/Blush.gif" alt="" /> I am sure it was deer, not bear, but.....
We were so cold, it got down to mid-30's at night. So we came up with the great idea to put hot rocks in our spare socks and put those in our sleeping bags. That worked great, but don't put a bunch of hot rocks in your jeans with the legs tied off unless you WANT them to scorch. Oh well, we were warm that night.
The flights were all Delta and I have never been so smashed in as tightly in my life. Goes with the package.
All in all a great trip. Oh yeah, we also saw about 20 Big Horn sheep. They came down from the mt. right in front of us and the teenagers were just so full of it. They were kicking up the heels and trying to head-butt each other. The oldsters just watched with amused looks on their faces.
I love the ocean when I'm there, but man I love the mountains too. Laura