Here, There & Everywhere

This morning I was in the back of the house and I heard Bubba going absolutely crazy. It was more than “there’s someone walking in front of my house or there’s a cat in my yard” crazy. So I walked in to find out what was going on–he saw a turtle in the grass. By that time Tommy had come in to see what Bubba was barking at. He decided to let Bubba go out, in the pouring rain mind you, to check out the turtle. It was hilarious! The first picture is Bubba barking at the turtle. He would circle around it and bark at it from all different angles.

This second picture is what happened when the turtle decided to move a bit. Doesn’t it look like Bubba is jumping out of his skin? He is such a big wuss!

I just LOVE dahlias!

Where were you when the world stopped turning? I cry every time I hear this song.

What a sad, sad day.

This was our last day of sightseeing as we headed home. We left Amanda, Evan, Moose, Molly and Penny (who was so glad to see us go) at 7:00 a.m. local time. Rather than heading straight home, we took a different route than we’d ever gone. At Cheyenne, we headed north on I25 up to Guernsey and then to Lusk. We got on 20 and went east through northern Nebraska before dropping down to I80 and the boring, interstate drive home.

We hit heavy fog when we got to Cheyenne.

After a while on I25 the sky cleared and we enjoyed some of the landscape.

Tommy wanted to see the Oregon Trail Ruts and we went through this state park thinking that’s where we would find the ruts and Registration Rock. It was a nice drive and the lake was pretty.

This sign is absolutely not needed for me! No way I’d be going in. :)


We finally found the Oregon Trail Ruts.

Tommy and Bubba are standing in the wagon wheel ruts. Every time I travel out west I gain more respect for those that traveled in wagons across the country. I cannot imagine the hardships they encountered.

Registration Rock is a sandstone rock where those who traveled west would carve their names. There were lots and lots of names, some were barely legible, some like the one below looked as if it was carved just recently.

Some windmills that we found along the way.


Some more landscape shots.

And what good is a post without a flower?

This is the last picture from our trip to Wyoming to see Ian Tyson. Bubba is a very good traveler, but he makes us laugh about how he sleeps while in the truck. I think you can see why!

We had an absolutely wonderful time on this road trip. It was lots of fun (as it always is) being with Amanda and Evan. We got to do and see lots while we were on this trip. I love going on these road trips as we are able to see life as others live. Not everyone has to fight traffic just to go to the grocery store. On the other hand, some have to drive at least 60-100 miles just to get to a grocery store.

Tommy and I will rest up from this trip and start planning the next. I hope you enjoyed the pictures!

Tommy saw an article in the Laramie Boomerang asking for volunteers to remove old railroad rails that will be used to create a new railroad park. Having never worked on a railroad, Tommy jumped at the chance. Now he’s going around singing “I’ve Been Working on a Railroad”. Here are some of the pictures from the day.

Hard to believe it was only 27 years ago today that Hall came into our lives. We love him bunches!

The big event finally arrived. The Ian Tyson concert was held at the Fine Arts Center at the University of Wyoming. Amanda was able to get us second row in the middle seats smack in front of Ian. We were probably 12 feet from him.

He put on a pretty good show for his age (did you know that he’s 75 years old?). At some point in the concert he asked his two band members to take over the guitar playing as he was having trouble with his left hand. He sang some old songs but probably more newer songs. We were all very disappointed that he did not sing our favorite, Four Strong Winds. I thought I was going to have to hold Amanda back from jumping on to the stage and tackling him so that he’d come back and sing it. Poor thing–she was about to cry.

After the show was over, Ian came out and signed autographs. So we purchased his new CD, got it signed and got a picture of Ian, Amanda and Tommy. All in all, a good evening.

Another day of work for the kids and another day of sight seeing for us. This time we decided we were going to take 287 south towards Ft. Collins to Tie Siding. At that point we were going to take a dirt road over to Buford (population 1) and hopefully see some trains. Unfortunately there was construction going on and they had the road blocked that we wanted to travel. So we turned around and headed to Medicine Bow. There we found this old hotel and the truck that I imagine they used for transporting people and luggage.

At an old and closed Catholic church we looked off to the left and found a statue by itself in the weeds.


When we left the paved road and once again got on a dirt road we came along road kill. At first we were looking at what the road kill was and then saw these two birds. Golden Eagles!! Pretty exciting! We think these two are probably mates as golden eagles usually mate for life.







Does this make you think of the Beatles’ song The Long & Winding Road?

A windmill farm. These gigantic windmills fascinate me.

OOPS! What can you say besides, “Glad we had a spare.”

I was neither needed nor wanted when the tire was being changed so I went and found some flowers to photograph.

Back to work for Amanda and Evan so Tommy and I hit the road again. We decided to head up towards Chugwater and hopefully see some trains on the way. Once we were outside of Laramie by a few miles the road turned into dirt.

A common sight in Wyoming — antelopes.

Driving along the dirt road where most everything was a brown/gold/tan, I saw this very white bird on this green tree. It just jumped out at me. From the position of the truck, Tommy couldn’t see it and we didn’t want to move in case we scared it off. Amanda’s and Evan’s back door neighbor said it might be a very rare albino peregrine falcon. I just think it’s a very white bird out in the middle of nowhere.

This is Rogers Canyon which we drove through.

Pretty cool sign for a ranch, yes?

Here’s an old telegraph pole that Tommy found. I guess it’s probably as rare as the white bird.

We got into Chugwater (which is the home of Chugwater Chili–have you ever heard of it?) and Tommy stopped so I could take a picture of this grain elevator. He has a thing for grain elevators. :) There wasn’t a lot in Chugwater, but we did stop to buy some Chugwater Chili spices. Can’t wait to get home (well, I really can wait–I’m having way too good a time) to make some. There were about 5 buildings in Chugwater, one of which was the old Chugwater Cabins and Hotel which is closed.


Every once in a while you find some color amongst the brown and tan.

Here comes the Union Pacific. We were told that there are typically 60 trains traveling this track during a day. I doubt it since we only saw one which we followed from Bosler into Laramie.

Our plans were to go to the Cavalryman for dinner. I love it and they have great steaks. But, Tommy had found an ad in the Laramie Boomerang for a cookout hosted by the Albany County Cowbelles. So we decided to try that rather than eating at the Cavalryman. For $10 each we got a sirloin steak, baked potato, slaw, brownie, tea or lemonade. As Tommy said, “…best $10 steak dinner I’ve had.” This was actually at a ranch so we walked back to see some of the bulls.

The end of a very nice day. :)

Amanda and Evan took the day off to go for a drive with us. Tommy had wanted to go to Encampment, Wyoming which was a booming town at the turn of the century known for its copper mining. To get there we drove up and over the Snowies–one of my favorite places in the world!

We saw some moose (is it moose, mooses or meese?)



Then we came upon part of the advertising team at Cabela’s who was photographing the new Cabela’s edition of the Ford F250. This should be in their Spring catalog.

This just has to be one of the prettiest places on this earth.

Here’s Tommy pondering.

Since I’m the one with the camera, I rarely get in any photos, but Evan was gracious enough to take this one.

Some old “restored” buildings at the Encampment Museum.

This is a reconstruction of the actual 16 mile aerial tramway that transported copper ore from the mine to the smelter located in Encampment. During its useful life it was the longest aerial tramway in the world and was in operation until 1909.

Ore cars from a deep rock mine also in the Encampment area. After the mine closed approximately 100 years ago, these cars remained in the sealed mine and were only removed and brought to the museum in 1998.

Looks like we’re driving straight into the mountain doesn’t it?