Carpe Diem

 Since Dan and I both work 2nd shift jobs, the phrase "off to an early start" is not often heard around our house. But once in a while we get motivated to "seize the day"! 

Yesterday morning, we were on the road by 8:30. The sun was shining and the roads were clear. Our first foray was up the East Rosebud, looking for moose. Nope. We came back out of the valley and cut across to to the West Rosebud. Just before we headed up the West Rosebud, Dan spotted an owl. Unfortunately, the tangle of branches made getting a really good photo impossible. 

This cemetery on Ingersoll Road seems like a nice "final resting place."

The road up to West Rosebud and the trailhead to Mystic Lake was not so clear. In fact, it was mostly snow and ice covered and very slippery! We persevered, however, and ate a quick lunch on the shores of Emerald Lake. Again, though, wildlife was elusive. Coming back down, we paused for a few minutes to aid another driver in pulling his stuck vehicle out of the ditch. 

We had enough daylight for one more valley, so we made our way over to Nye and up past the Stillwater Mine to the Souix Charley Lake trailhead. We still didn't find moose, and the big horn sheep were not in sight, either. 

At least the eagles were cooperative!

We came home through Beehive and along the Stillwater River. We squeezed every last ray of sunlight out of the day before coming home for dinner.

Regal Eagles

This weekend, we drove down to Casper, Wyoming to meet up with some longtime friends. We left home just before lunch, thankful that the roads had cleared from last weekend's snowstorm. We were hardly out of Billings when I spotted an eagle in a ravine along I-90. Dan immediately slowed down and asked if I wanted to go back. After a moment's hesitation, I said yes. We backed up nearly half a mile on the shoulder, but I am so glad we did. The single eagle that I had seen turned out to be part of a whole family! 

It was all the excitement that we had for the day, but that was okay. We had a great visit with our friends, then settled into our motel for the night.

We left fairly early Saturday morning. We didn't really have a concrete plan for the day, just to get home by day's end. It was windy, but sunny and not too cold. (Until we reached Shoshoni anyway. It was freezing there!) The only icy roads that we encountered were in Wind River Canyon. There are obviously some places that just never get direct sunlight! From Thermopolis, we turned toward Cody. We grabbed lunch at Wendy's and decided to go check out the South Fork. We have never driven up that way before. Generally, when we go that direction, we are going to Yellowstone, and the North Fork is the most direct route. 

Boy, have we ever been missing out! We started seeing deer right away, then bald eagles. We even saw a coyote. From the main road, we debated momentarily before taking a gravel side road. I laughingly told Dan that that's where the big bucks had to be, since we were only seeing does and small bucks. Surprisingly enough, I was right! We watched three mulie bucks feeding in a  large meadow. Unfortunately, they were quite a distance from us on clearly-marked private property. We had also lost our sunshine, so really good photos were not forthcoming. (I know, I know... Excuses, excuses!) The pictures that we did get confirmed that these were indeed the biggest bucks that we have yet seen! You can bet that we are already planning a return trip to the South Fork!

*** Bonus Pics***

Between Thermopolis and Meteetsee is a stretch of really cool
rock formations.

We found some cool things on the rocks...

... and among the rocks, too!