So Happy Together

When Dan suggested the Pryors for our camping destination for this weekend, I must admit, I internally rolled my eyes and thought, "Pryors? AGAIN?" But hey, it beats sitting at home, right? 

We pulled the camper down Thursday night after work. We arrived at our campsite (thankfully, our VACANT campsite), at about 2:30 am. If you have never stared up into a cloudless, starry night in the high desert, well... you have missed out on something truly special. After marveling at the incredible display of stars, we retreated into the camper and promptly fell asleep. 

By late Friday morning, we were up and ready to ride. We got a whole three and a half miles in before we were off of the machines with cameras and tripods in tow. Since we were still at lower elevations, I was on high alert for snakes. Then I decided that maybe, if I saw it first, it would be a cool photo. Which, of course, guaranteed that I never saw one. (Murphy's Law of Photography.)

Since it was just the two of us and we had no set agenda, we just wandered. Late in the afternoon, we ended up at the irrigation pond where we saw Mama Bear and her two cubs a couple of years ago. The bears were not at home, but the bumblebees and the butterflies were busy. The whole area was vibrant ~ the red soil, the green grass, and the blue skies were just beautiful. The old song, "So Happy Together" came to mind and stayed in my head the rest of the day. 

Our buddy Ronny came up to ride with us on Saturday. Ronny loves two things about the Pryors ~ the wild horses and the big horn sheep. So we set out for one of our favorite roads to the top of the wild horse range, Burnt Timber Road. Okay, I know that it was a beautiful, sunny Saturday in June, but seriously... I thought that I had been teleported to Yellowstone! I don't think we have ever seen that many vehicles in the Pryors! Everyone had the same destination in mind, the high meadow where the horses hang out. I did want running horse pictures, but I was starting to feel sorry for the poor creatures. They would run to one end of the meadow only to be pushed back the other way. We had had enough of the circus and headed back down toward the Big Ice Cave. When we were here a couple of weeks ago, Dan noticed a trail that we have not ridden, so we gave it a try. As we expected, it dead-ended at the edge of the canyon. But, we had the whole place to ourselves and I could breathe again. 

As we pulled out of our campsite at the end of the day, I was so glad that we had come, once again, to the Pryor Mountains. It truly is my "happy place"!

Bonus pics:

We did find sheep, too, as well as something that we have never before seen in the Pryors: A turkey!