Big Time in the Big Horns...

Hi All,


We're "home" safe and sound. Had a great trip! The cabin was really rustic but we really weren't there all that much. Yesterday was just your perfect day with the kids in the mountains. We made breakfast on the cabin porch, drove some, picnicked, hiked a little, built a "fort," saw tons of wildlife and just had an awesome time.

Todd made us bacon and pancakes on the griddle. NOTHING is better than the smell of cooking bacon mixed with the mountain smells of pine and woodsmoke! For lack of chairs, the kids made use of the cooler. :O)


We drove around for a while before finding our dream picnic spot. There was a little stream running to the right and a great view! A nice fire pit had already been dug and lined with rocks. In addition to traditional campgrounds, you can camp pretty much anywhere in the Big Horns. There are a lot of well developed "unofficial" campsites that are gorgeous. This one also included a lot of down, dry wood and dry cow pies. (Lots of "open range" country here.) For you Big Horn buffs, this site is a little north and east of the visitor center near Burgess Junction. Random thing of the day: Just down the hill on the other side of another little stream was a sporadic line of runners. They were doing the final leg of a ONE HUNDRED MILE race they'd started the day before. http://bighorntrailrun.com/

We had a fire, roasted hot dogs and marshmallows and the kids had a blast at the stream. Brennen was so proud of himself when he figured out how to cross the stream on this fallen pine. He and Kindrid insisted on using the stream to wash hands - especially nice after the marshmallows! They also ran back and forth filling water bottles and pop cans with water to put the fire out when we were ready to leave. On the way out of the area where we ate, Kindrid took a little rest. We stopped to watch some mule deer a long ways off across some fields right near a ranger station when, before we knew it, Brennen was out of the car with his "spear" and running across the fields toward the deer. Before we left on the trip, we had had this conversation:
Me after being on the phone with Todd at work talking about going out of town: "We should have an adventure this weekend, don't you think? Do you wanna see a moose?" Brennen says with his earnest little face, "Do we get to go hunting?"
He kept talking about hunting something or trapping things the whole time we'd been there so we let him go ahead and run knowing the deer wouldn't hang around to find out what he was all about. Or so we thought. When he got about 150 feet from the closest one, the deer took a few steps toward Brennen. Hmmm. Maybe these deer are not as shy as we think. Oh dear, or "oh deer." :O) Todd took off in the car after Brennen hollering for him to stop. The deer starts running and so does Brennen right after it brandishing the stick. He runs a losing race with his whole heart and finally stops, panting and watching deer butt disappear over the hill. He turns back toward us too far away for us to see if he's upset. Todd grabs the binoculars and says after a bit, "He's not upset but he is tired!"

Shortly after that we saw this big fellow having a rest in the grass:
He was so tired that he tried just eating from where he lay. When he could no longer reach anything edible from that position, he decided to stand. :O)
He was just one of many, many moose we saw!

A bit later we stopped to let the kids play with their balls in a meadow along the tree line. Lots of downed wood here and some wood-cutting too. Brennen and Daddy made a "fort." It turned into quite the production and we even went back to see it today and added a little more. We will remember where it is and go back someday to, "see if anyone is living there, Mommy." Again, with the earnest little face!

This morning we had breakfast buffet at Arrowhead Lodge where we were staying (Bear Lodge is buying them out). Big Mike, the Bear Lodge pie-maker, makes the biscuits for the biscuit and gravy and, oh man!, were they amazing!

Here are the kids on the porch of Cabin Number 3 - note we drove the Corolla for this trip - can't believe Todd packed bedding, cooler, food, suitcases, folding chairs, towels etc. all in the teeny trunk!

After breakfast we set out to meet our next goal which was to find the elk herd. We found them high on the hillside about 5 miles west of Burgess.

These next pictures are for my dad. This is the road into Porcupine campground!

And this is Porcupine! The bars you see are the cattle guard at the beginning of the camp ground!! If you read the first announcement part on the link about the 100 mile race above, this is what they were talking about! Highway 14A had some snowbanks well over the roof of the car next to the road. We saw some folks doing a little back country downhill skiing! Can't imagine how much snow they had this winter for there to be this much still on the ground at the end of June. We tried to go down out of the Big Horns a new way on the east side on some back roads today but had to turn around due to snow covered roads (too bad the Corolla doesn't have 4-wheel drive!). We ended up coming down the west side on 14, heading south at Greybull and going through Thermopolis and the Wind River Canyon before turning east at Shoshone.

Random Kindrid comment (she's full of "out of the clear blue" stuff like this): "Mommy, do you remember when I had an ear confection?" To which Brennen replies, "No silly, you mean ear CONFETTI!" So then Kindrid asks, "Mommy, do you remember when I had an ear confetti?" So, I patiently explain that it's an ear INFECTION while laughing behind my hand and then ask her why she wants to know if I remember - of course, she has no idea...just random!!

The Big Horns, our favorite mountains, are practically in our backyard...unbelievable to just go see them for the weekend!

Love to all of you,

Christy