Memorial Weekend Ramble

The Saturday before Memorial Day Clark and I decided to take a little day trip. We were going to go to Brown's Park and check out the old swinging bridge. As we headed up Highway 191 the weather went from windy to rainy to snowy. Boo. So we made our first plan change of the day. We decided to drive to Rock Springs, WY, and have lunch at Long John Silvers Seafood Shoppe. It was my absolute favorite place to eat when we lived in Midland, TX. For some reason it has a hard time keeping a shop open in Utah. It was a great treat on a stormy day.

We took the dogs with us and that proved to be an interesting addition to the adventure. Our first (of many) stop to let them out of the kennel for a stretch was at Antelope Flats, a few miles north of Dutch John. When Clark was a scoutmaster in 1990, a major boy scout camp was held in this location. Hundreds of scouts and their leaders cleared acres and acres of cactus and other stuff. Now there is a forest service campground, boat dock, and other amenities. We saw this nest in a tree and while the dogs were off chasing antelope (on antelope flats, go figure) we tried to get close enough to see what was in it. Thanks to a telephoto lens, we were able to see several baby ravens in their nest. The parents were in a nearby tree expressing their displeasure at us being so close to their babies.

We had lunch and then decided on a different route home. We went through Irish Canyon on our way to Maybell, CO. Then a road to Brown's Park appeared, and voila' another change in our itinerary appeared. These were some very interesting trees near Brown's Park. I called them the Orca trees. The old swinging bridge is now closed to vehicle travel. I'm not sure people could even cross it. The weather was so windy and cold we didn't try. We stopped at the John Jarvie Ranch. Of course, it was just after 5 pm so all the buildings were closed, but we did get to see all the outside stuff. The water wheel was pretty cool. We hope to go back during the summer and see if it really works.

Then we did some geocaching. If you are not familiar with this it is a hide and seek game you play off of the internet. It is pretty fun to do if you have a GPS. This one was kind of hard to find. I kept looking on the ground, under rocks or bushes. It was wired to a tree branch. Tricky. After that we found our way back to the house. I do have to say I was very, very glad to get home and let those smelly wet dogs out of the kennel. We had fun with them, but we probably need to take the pickup next time. We left the windows down in the suburban all weekend to air it out.

After we got the pets settled at home, we went to the airport and took a sunset flight over the valley.

Thanks, Clark for a really great day.