June 29th in the Bighorns

Bighorn Mountains description
The Bighorns are unlike the mountains we're used to at home.  They rise steeply 5,000 feet from the desert below.  Once you get up 5,000 feet of steep winding road, there is a plateu about 15 miles across with rolling meadows and treed areas.  We're here at the very beginning of the wild flower season and are seeing a lot of different flowers.  We also spot a feature that might be unique to the Bighorn Mountains.  As we wander around the back roads, we come upon RV's parked in the woods.  They look like they've been left up here for months and months.  The first time we saw it, we thought it was pretty weird.  Now, we drive by and say, "there's another one."

We've also seen a lot of wildlife: deer, elk (even an entire herd of them), moose, birds I don't know the names of including one that looks like a crane cross bread with an ostrag, a beaver in the pond near our tents, marmots.  We usually see lots of chipmunks while driving mountain roads (they like to run across the road right in front of the car) and I'd remarked to Dode that we hadn't seen any this trip.  Not three minutes later, one went diving under our tires.  He wasn't laying in the road when we drove off after emergency braking so he must have made it!

William's birthday
Wednesday was our second day of exploring the Bighorns on our own. As we were eating breakfast, Isaac Colson counted the days we had left of vacation, six. What had seemed like a great three week escape from life previously was now feeling like a long time away from home. We're up in the mountains with no cell reception so he has no way to call home. But, since it was William's 7th birthday, we were going into Sheridan and he was looking forward to talking to his mom.

Our trip into Sheridan accomplished two purposes. 1: It was William's birthday and we've made a tradition on the trip of going out to eat on a birthday. His is the third birthday this trip! He loves Taco Bell and so do several of the other children so we found a Taco Bell for our lunch meal. 2: Dode wanted to drive the rest o f Hwy 14 to see the sites on the East side of the mountains. We saw Fallen City and Steamboat Rock and lots of highway construction. Now that we've seen it, he's decided 14A is much more scenic.

William was thrilled with his Taco Bell lunch

Miriam was not thrilled with Taco Bell

The weather in Sheridan was pushing 100 degrees, just like I remember from our lunch stop last year on our way to the Black Hills of South Dakota. After a quick stop at Wal-Mart to replentish our groceries, we went to Kendrick Park to play. The kids lasted about five minutes at a time before they'd need to sit in the shade and cool off. Everyone was pink cheeked and sweaty by the time our visit was up. Isaac Colson got to call his mom and felt a lot better after getting to talk to her.

I've never seen a teeter-totter like this before

The kids have already asked Dode to build one!

playing restaraunt

We headed back up to the mountains, away from the punishing heat. Once back at camp, we loaded up the rubber raft so the boys could float a stream. We've had our eyes open for a stream that wasn't too crazy and it was tough to find one. There was a portion of Prune Creek where we could put in at the campground and take out near Arrowhead Lodge that looked fairly tame. Isaac Colson was sure it would be a snore. After one trip down, he'd had enough. We were able to follow a good part of their progress from the road.  About 1/3 of the way down, we saw them pulled up on shore.  We attempted a rescue but by the time we got there, they'd headed off again.  Apparently they were portaging around a log.  Our Isaac went two more times to take Miriam and Elizabeth down in turns. Miriam is our wild child and she loved it. She especially loved that as they went over a patch of rapids, Isaac got the splash, not her!

We headed back to camp for swimming and dinner. It was really windy. I had to stick the propane stove in the back of the trailer just to keep it lit. The kids piled in and ate their dinner in there for the same reason. Each day that we're up here, the mosquito population seems to grow exponentially. The winds were quite strong but each time their was a lull, the mosquitoes would descend. I walked over to the trailer to check on the kids and saw that the mosquitoes also thought the trailer was a good place to hide out from the wind, and have dinner!

TRYING to light the birthday cupcake candles

The wind was helping blow them out

We finally got 7 candles lit at the same time

William had a difficult time directing his blower to the right spot,

Between him and the wind, by the time the candles were blown out some were 1/4 inch tall!

Since we'd already spent 1 ½ hours at the pool and in order to escape the mosquitoes and the wind, we loaded up for a scenic drive after dinner. That means Dode and I are looking out the windows at things and the kids are watching movies. We drove down several roads until we got to “Road Closed” barricades. It's very frustrating to encounter these because they are just parked in the middle of the road with no snow behind them or other reasons that we can see for closing the road.  We got within two miles of an overlook and had to turn around due to one of those signs!  We managed to make it all the way to the trail head for the Black Mountain fire lookout. If it was just Dode and I on the trip, we would have come back Thursday and hiked up to the lookout. But, with kids, a lookout is not a good destination hike.

We drove for about an hour and then wandered back to camp. The winds were picking up with huge gusts. The forecast were from winds 20-25 mph with gusts to 40 mph with a 50% chance of thunderstorms. We decided to have the girls sleep in the car, William and I slept in the trailer, and Dode and the Isaacs toughed it out in a tent. We definitely got some strong gusts. I could hear the metal on the trailer flexing in the wind and rocks flying up to hit the trailer. The winds petered out as the night went on and we never got the promised thunderstorms.

can you see the tent folding against the wind?

We had a very nice view of the lake and hills from our site

I'd seen a truck deliver to the resort in the morning, Mike's Mile High Pies with the slogan "Pie fixes everything".  There's been a scarcity of ice cream in these parts so I decided to indulge in a piece of pie.  The crust was very flaky but the filling wasn't as good as my chocolate cream pie recipe from Cooks Illustrated.  Now that I've had Mike's chocolate pie, I want to go home and make mine.  But, I'm going to have to wait a while since when I get home, I have five days to get everything ready for day camp.  It's going to be a mad dash to the finish!