I need to stop writing these so late.
I'm much less creative when I'm sleepy, but I hope you're still fairly entertained. :) Busy days lead to late nights.
Today was an easier day. At the break of dawn…haha, just kidding…at 9 am we met Yellowstone Mountain Guides just down the road here in West Yellowstone. We met Charles and Chris the two guides, and a gentleman from South Dakota/Germany who was doing a full-day ride. They drove us in their truck (also pulling the horse trailer) a few miles north to a trail that is actually
in Yellowstone, but rarely visited. It was a skinny trail, that took us through a stream and then next to it occasionally; the trail also climbed up a bit of a hill at one point so we could overlook the valley around us.
Our guide Charles introduced us to Skip (white spotted) and Charlie (pretty brown), our mode of transportation for the morning. The early hours of the day have been chilly, so we dressed in layers and wore gloves to start. By the end of the ride around 1:30 pm, it was gorgeous and I was comfortable in just four layers instead of five and a knit cap.
After the first few clip-clops down the trail, we saw a mule deer bounding around near a creek. The unique calls of two sandhill cranes rang in our ears a couple times as we watched them fly across the valley. And two red tailed hawks worked together high up in the sky, communicating during their search for lunch. Other than few other small birds and the clicking grasshoppers/butterflies (I'm not sure what they are but they're noisy), that was the only wildlife we saw during our 3-4 hour ride.
The landscape was sublime, of course. There was much less smoke/haze today! Yay! I hope it stays away. A bright blue blanket hovered above us, dotted by occasional white, fluffy clouds. Trees, dead trees from the '88 fire, huge rocks, rushing stream, tall grasses, sagebrush (my new fav), and taller mountains surrounded and filled the valley we traipsed through. The horses were apathetic, but I understand. I wouldn't want to carry humans around everyday either! They did like sneaking bites of the grasses and such on each side of the trail, and Luke and I would keep having to pull on the reins a bit and say, "head up" to get them to move along. When we got in areas that had green onions…they really didn't want to listen to us. The horses kept a nice walking pace most of the time, and would break out into an easy trot every once in awhile if they got too far back from the guide horse, making us do a bit of a hop in the saddle. We rode for about an hour and a half, stopped and had lunch (that the guide service provided; just sandwiches), and then rode the same way back to the trailhead.
Luke and his horse Charlie were two peas in a pod. Charlie likes to go at his own pace, and when he was in the back on the walk in, he would often lag behind…doing everything on his time, in his own way. On the walk back, Charlie was in the middle, in front of me and Skip. I'm not sure if it was something he ate, or if it's just natural, but he was a gaseous pony. At one point he broke out in a trot to catch up to the guide horse (which the horses often did on their own; they liked staying together), and he tooted with about every clop of his hooves. It was hilarious. I felt bad for Skip, who liked to walk close to the Charlie so his tail swishes would keep the flies off of his face. Skip was a bit stubborn, and eventually I learned that if I just let him take his bite of grass, he would catch up with the others once his mouth was full. He was very soft, but I don't think he fancied being petted. Our guide, Charles, who rode Cowboy, was very chatty and liked to tell stories about people in Yellowstone history even though we didn't ask for them. Haha…he was very nice and provided us an enjoyable day.
After we said farewell to our new hoofed friends, we went back to the RV to relax a bit and rest our rears. I am sore as if we've been riding our mountain bikes all day, and poor Luke was sore beneath his tailbone. The ride back had made Luke a little sleepy so he took a nap. I took a load of laundry to the resort office where the laundry room is and watched a movie on my computer for an hour while I waited for the load to finish. Sounds pretty lame, but the office is right along the lake and they have a bench in the hallway next to the laundry room that has windows out to the lake. Probably the best view I'll ever have while washing clothes.
At 6 pm we went to the Beaver's Den, which is a small, event building here on the resort property (it used to be the office). Eileen, one of the managers, had organized a pizza party. She is an absolute hoot. She collects beavers, and we were honored with the gift of one (stuffed, of course; we named it Eileen, hehe). We chowed down on local pizza, enjoyed libations, and chatted with the Workampers there and some of the managers' local friends, oh and Eileen's mom who also lives on the property in a fifth wheel (she's 90). We heard many fun stories and met some neat personalities. Plus, likely acquired another new WKN member or two. Woo hoo!
Tomorrow it's back to "work". We'll get up early and take a few pictures around here at Holiday; we don't have any pics yet of the Workampers here "at work". Then we'll make the 1.5 hour+ drive up to Gardiner, MT, which is the North Entrance to Yellowstone. Here, we'll meet with the HR staff at Yellowstone Association plus one of their Workamper couples. I'm hoping after this we'll have quite a bit of time to see more around the Park. Crossing our fingers for more wildlife spotting too!
Here's a video I took on my iPhone while we were riding today.
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