Let's face it, I'm never going to get caught up

Because there are just so many other things I'd rather do than sit on the computer. Unfortunately in the last 12 hours or so I have spent a lot of time sitting on the toilet. But whatever seems to be torturing my gut at least waited for us to get home from the impromptu camping trip.

So, in the spirit of "catching up" let me start at the beginning of it all. I got the new job. I start on Monday. I will be regularly paid again here soon, which is a good thing. There were many pieces and parts to getting this new job and some serious miscommunications and other issues, but at this time it appears things will get going as of Monday morning at 8am.

I was hoping to start the new job this week. Because of that I gave notice for working full time at the restaurant weeks ago and had no shifts for this week. I will continue part time with the restaurant picking up shifts here and there for extra cash in my pocket since Publishers Clearing House has still not knocked on my door. Someday... Tuesday when I had no shifts, and Bob had the week off, we decided to do a quick camping trip. And by quick I mean we decided that morning after I got my first item off the loom to pack it up, and head north.

The Big Horns are beautiful. There is no doubt about it. Despite the smoke from our forest fires sitting in the valleys, and the early morning thunderstorms, it was still beautiful.

Even if in our rush to get out in the woods we forgot some stuff. Like Shiela's Rimadyl. I know, we're such bad dads. We ended up cutting it short by a day and heading home because we could see despite having her Adequin shot that she was hurting. That was not the only thing we forgot. Can you say camp stove? I think we learned the valuable lesson of not rushing packing. Make our plans, then ou list, and move from there.

In our wonderings we even saw something that is a rarity here in Wyoming.

That's right! Moose! Mom and two babies were happily munching away when we came across them. My camera misbehaved and focused on the trees in the foreground instead of the moose but I was able to get a couple pictures before leaving them in peace to continue eating. They are such a rarity here that I didn't want to disturb them.

Then there's the ever present antelope. I did notice that the ones up here away from people are a lot more skittish than the ones you see around Casper. They just aren't as used to vehicles and people.

We went up to the Painted Rock Lakes area. We had never gone in there and were perhaps a little unprepared for the rough roads. It was late by the time we got into the area and we decided to pull over into a little high meadow to camp as we were losing light and didn't know how far we still had to go. Little did we know as we packed up before the storm hit us the next morning that we were less than 20 minutes from the campground and lakes. 

That following evening though we decided to return to where we had camped so the dogs had some off leash freedom and we had the quiet away form other peoples camper generators and ATV traffic. I think we were better off despite the next mornings rain.

Despite the rain it was a warm night listening the cows in the lower pastures low to one another. That morning I made biscuits and grave and we packed up the car to come down and get an old girl her anti-arthritis meds. Here you can see Tucker who was terrified we may leave him on accident already loaded up. We weren't even done with breakfast yet.

Emmitt made himself a cushy nest on the way down out of the mountains as well. He's getting older now, at 7 years old he can get cold and stiff too. Regardless, he is still always willing to go.

We cut back through the Hyattville area on the way down. Such a pretty little agricultural area. For some reason that day we had constant bird sightings beyond the typical song birds. Above is an Osprey as we were heading to the Medicine Lodge Archaeological site. Below is a Red Tail we saw from the road.

I didn't make The Guy stop the car when I saw the mystery bird on a bluff. I should have because when I got home and zoomed into the picture you could see it was Golden Eagle. Unfortunately due to the zoom work and the moving car it was very blurry. Then there are my favorites. I have always loved Ravens, and this one was posed so nicely for me as we wound are way down out of the mountains.

Hyattville itself sits in a valley between the ridges of tilted ancient rock sediments. To the north is the Chugwater Formation and to the sour lies the Tensleep Formation with a green pasture land separating the red ridge from the greenish grey ridge of the other. Both formations are ancient and can often be littered with fossils. This shot was looking north as we were leaving the area heading towards the town of Tensleep to go up the canyon across the mountains to Buffalo so we could catch the interstate south to Casper.

I don't know why this tree and hay bales is so comforting to me, but I loved the scene when we came across it.

In this area was a nice little gulch with an RV park , creek with walking trails and an archaeological site with some imagination capturing petroglyphs.

I always love things like this and it was such a pretty area to get the dogs out after the bumpy ride out of the mountains. We all needed to stretch are legs a bit by this point. I am considering organizing a little retreat up to this park next year for the spinners and knitters of the group. I think it would be great fun. It was so quite and peaceful with its red rocks and green grass. We'll see what comes of it.

When we were heading out of the moutnains but still up in the high pasture lands I noticed some odd black dots on the road. After a few seconds I realized they were moving. I asked The Guy to stop teh car and got out to investigate. It seemed as though we were lucky to catch the Mormon Cricket migration. All those black dots on the road you see there? All of them were these bugs.

They are kind of a nifty bug that isn't a cricket at all. They are actually a katydid species. I have seen pictures of them in true swarms that make the thousands we saw seem like chip play but it was neat nonetheless to see them. The larger patch you can see at the top of the first picture is where the ones crushed by earlier cars or cows were being eaten by the next ones that came up on them.

In Buffalo we stopped at a local restaurant that my stomach has not been agreeing with since. I felt a little nauseas on the last leg of the way home but that passed. I made it to knit night last night where we al went to a mexican restaurant for dinner. We got home and continued cleaning and sorting gear when I decided to take the kids out for the evening stroll. About halfway through the walk I got that sense of impending gastric doom. You know the one, the cramps, the urge to squat and the cold sweats. I practically ran home and rushed through the door with the kids on the way to the bathroom. Let us just say it hasn't stopped yet. Oh well, if that's the price I have to pay for a beautiful camping trip tp destress before starting the new job, I guess I'll pay it. And on that note, I'm going to leave you to head back to the bathroom to make a payment. 

Hope you are all well,

Q.