So There We Were In Bear Country...

...in the mountains where there were lots and lots of signs that said be "Bear Aware".  Joe's kinda napping and dozing off on occasion, when suddenly I see this BIG BROWN thing coming down the road.  I think it's a bear!  After all, we are in bear country and in all the traveling we've done, I've never seen a bear in the wild.  So, here is my/our big chance.  I start taking pictures through the windshield, while yelling at Joe to "look, look" before it's gone.  Picture No. 1...





Picture No. 2...it's getting closer and closer.

And then the bear gets closer when I suddently realize it's a lone buffalo - a bison just strolling down the road like it's out for a Sunday stroll.  I totally stop the car, hoping it's a safe distance, when it walks past the car.  Joe could have reached out and touched it if he'd a mind too or the buffalo could have turned around and gored the car.  Try explaining that to my Allstate Insurance dude, huh? 

This thing was at least 10 feet tall and 20 feet long and could have popped his head inside the sunroof.  Well, maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but that's what it looked like

We had to turn the car around and go back for another look since you don't see that kinda thing just every day. No, Dorothy we certainly aren't in Georgia anymore!

Old Western Leftovers

Buffalo and The Bighorn Mountains

Though it was raining most of the day Friday, it was still a beautiful day in the Bighorn Mountains. Neither Joe nor I had ever been here before and we looked forward to spending a portion of the day in this new mountain setting. We were not disappointed. We saw incredible snow-covered mountain peaks and field where there were so many flowers that you could almost not even see the grass.

We saw mountains that were marked as billions of years old - so many years old it was hard to imagine how old they actually are.

Joe kept saying all day he really wanted to see a moose and finally near the end of our day, he was rewarded. We were driving down the road in the forest, when I saw several cars pulled over on the side with people standing looking at something. That's a sure sign that something is up and so we stopped to investigate. Joe finally got to see his moose! In fact, he got to see THREE!

We spent most of our time in the forest exploring the Crazy Woman Canyon Road. Yes, they named a road after me! It was a wet, gravel/dirt road that descended into the bottom of a canyon next to a roaring creek and pine-covered forest. There were several times that we just turned the car off and just listened and all you could hear was the sound of the water and the screeching birds. Times like this make me feel very small and blessed to experience opportunities like this. It makes me realize how large the world is and how even though there are millions and millions of people, I can have some part of the world all to myself to share with my husband.

What an incredible sight...the snow capped mountains, the flower covered field and the deer.

Shuffling Off To Buffalo (and Gillette)

Tomorrow morning it's off for another exploring weekend. This time we're going further and more northern than before since the weather is dry and hopefully it won't rain on us.

To follow our travels, you'll need to click on the map to enlarge it. You will see Casper near the bottom middle of the map. We will be heading straight north to Buffalo which is about 116 miles from us. We plan on exploring the Bighorn Mountains to the west which still have snow on them even after these hot days we've been experiencing. One of the peaks is over 13,000 feet! We will then be spending the night at the base of the mountains in a cabin as we will be traveling to Gillette which is east of Buffalo for more adventures on Saturday.

So, stay tuned for pictures and descriptions in the next few days.

Shuffling Off To Buffalo

In August of 2002, I had a national family child conference in Buffalo, NY. I took Corey along with me and he wound up having a really great adventure. While I was in my sessions, Corey noticed a fire engine at the hotel and struck up a conversation with the firefighters (since he was a firefighter at the time). Anyway, to make a long story short, he was invited to come back to the firehouse, go on some runs with the guys and spend the night. Needless to say, he went and I didn't see him until the next morning when I came back from a session and found him passed out across his bed. He had gone on several calls the night before and gotten only a little sleep. After all, this was Buffalo, NY - not one of the small south Georgia stations. And, he added another fire t-shirt to his collection. One of the guys literally gave him the shirt off his back.

While in Buffalo, we also attended the "Wing Fling" in downtown Buffalo - this is where the original buffalo wings originated. We also saw the headquarters for the Buffalo Bills NFL team. Though it was July and normally hot weather for us at home, it was definitely very cool and windy here in the evenings. I can see why Buffalo receives as much snow as it does every winter.