Flaming Gorge

I've got to do better keeping this up. I've decided what I want for a graduation present to myself when I finish my master's degree. I want a good digital camera. I will have more time to have a hobby other than school and I'd like to take pretty pictures like this one from Flaming Gorge.

Our last camping trip was to Flaming Gorge. That place is so beautiful. We went up to Wyoming so Mike could visit Fort Bridger. I think we found the only dry town in Wyoming. I wanted some wine coolers because I am such a hard drinker. But there wasn't even beer in their stores let alone wine coolers. We had to return to Utah where the liquor laws were less strict.

Shoot-out at the campground

Yesterday we were in town when we heard sirens and saw an unmarked police car racing out of town. It's the first time I've heard sirens since we left Salt Lake City. We thought it odd but continued on our way. Then another police car passed and took the turn off south of town; exactly where we were headed. Hmmmm, something is going on. We continued south toward our campground and passed an ambulance parked on the side of the road as if waiting for a call. To get into our campground there is a short dirt road and a bridge over the Blanco River. We get to the bridge and it is blocked by a Sheriff. Apparently they were serving a warrant on one of the campers in the tent section for a hit and run. The man took a shot at the officer. As we sat about 200 yards away from the area where the "suspect was at large", more and more State Troopers arrived. Mike and I had our books so started to read while we waited. Suddenly a shot rang out loud as a cannon. It echoed off the mountains. We heard the officers call for the ambulance, but the ambulance only stayed briefly and left without a passenger. They finally let us back into the campground. Our trailer is about 100 yards from the tent area where the man was killed. He had a big beautiful, obedient German Shepard that was led away by animal control. He seemed like such a nice dog. I hope they find him a good home.

Our version of roughing it

Mike and I are on vacation at a campground in Pagosa Springs, Colorado. It is beautiful with mountains on three sides and a river right behind the trailer. There is no cell phone coverage, no TV coverage, no radio except a flamingly twangy country station, but by cracky we've got internet! I needed to have internet because I've stupidly decided to go back to school. I will call this stupid until I get the degree, then I will decide it is the smartest thing I've ever done.

Mike and I went to the Fred Harmon art museum today. Fred Harmon was the cartoonist that drew the Red Rider and Little Beaver series.....Robert Blake played Little Beaver on TV. The guy was a good artist but I have to say with 21st century sensibilities it was quite racist; making the indians look kind of dumb. But those were the times. Mike loved every minute of it! He got to see an orginal Little Beaver BB gun! I had to pretend my knees were sore to get him out of there. Oh wait my knees are sore from climbing up and down cliff dwellings in Mesa Verde.

Bear Lake

We're spending our weekend at Bear Lake (UT). We call it our weekend but it's actually Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. Those are Mike's regular days off. My days off vary because I negotiate with my co-workers and we have to have 24/7 coverage. We belong to a campground association called Camperworld. There are 10 campgrounds in Utah that we can use, one of them is at Bear Lake. I put the link there because we forgot to bring our friggen camera. The lake here is the most beautiful blue. The blue is because of limestone in the water. It looks as if the lake has been dyed aqua. I'm a bit bummed that we forgot our camera because it's so beautiful here. But we'll be back again.

We went to museum in Montpelier (ID) today. It was about the Oregon Trail. It was different than your standard pioneer museum in that they did kind of a vignette where they pretended we were families going on the trail. It was hokey as hell but Mike liked it. I think it would be fun to take grade school kids.

Kill the Wabbit, Kill the Wabbit....

The dogs are enjoying the RV park. They have been surprisingly well behaved. Trigger has only barked once and that kind of slipped out. He was trying to hold it in. But he was just feeling so exuberant and happy that he felt the need to share. This morning when I awoke, Mike was out at the picnic table talking. I assumed he had struck up a conversation with some of the other campers, but no; he was watching a rabbit and telling our vicious dogs to "kill the wabbit" (Picture Elmer Fudd singing Wagner) The dogs, however, were cowering under the picnic table. I don't blame them, wabbits can be vewy scawy.

Thoughts

I've been putting up with some kind of bad-assed shoulder pain the last 10 days (but who's counting). I've decided to try and take scheduled flexeril (knocks me on my ass) and ibuprofen to see if I can kick this thing because what I've been doing sure isn't making it go away. Notice I don't write "suffering from" shoulder pain. I hate the term "suffer from" Do you suffer from diabetes? No I fucking have diabetes but I'm not suffering. Suffering is poverty, rape, genocide, rolling your car and losing your spouse. I have and do see suffering in my job every day and what I have ain't it. I have a condition that is forcing me to give up cookies and orange juice. I'm not suffering by a long shot.

Mike and I are running off with our trailer tomorrow; today if Mike gets off early enough. The boys are out of town with their father, so we've decided to run away. But since the boys aren't home, we have to take the dogs with us. This should be an interesting trip since Trigger has a bark that can split eardrums.

Camping in Wyoming

I'm sure purists among you would not call what we do camping but I've been there done that took my morning bath with river water after hiking several miles to camp. Now we camp with a trailer with a kitchen, bathroom, TV and with any luck...internet access. So we couldn't access the internet, we still had fun and were away from camp tooling around Yellowstone or Teton National Park most of the time. We spent four days at the Star Valley Ranch RV park. The sites were shady and level but there was no grass. It is a huge RV park with a swimming pool, tennis courts and golf course; none of which we used. We had a nice time. Yellowstone and Teton were beautiful. We saw mostly Bison but at the end of the day when photography was impossible we saw herds and herds of Elk. Mike has a waterfall fetish so we went to the Upper and Lower Falls of the Yellowstone. The hike down to the lower falls was a bitch especially the hike out but we made it. We were shocked to discover that we were not sore from our hiking the next day. Now we've no excuses not to hike more because if we can do that without orthopedic consequences then we should be able to do more.