kmkat and her kneedles

Wyoming bullets.

Yes, we are in Wyoming on vacation. Bullet post seems appropriate.

• We got a late start. Mechanic didn't deliver mini-mini-motorhome (Rebuild transmission! Make a/c work!) until the day we were supposed to leave.
  .
• A number of things remained for Smokey to do to the m-m-mh. He worked on them. Days passed.
• Eventually we left. Can I get a huzzah!
  .
• Thank you.
  .
• Bed in back of m-m-mh is extremely comfortable, made more so by addition of 4" memory foam mattress on top of existing cushions.
  .
• Comfortable sleeping is essential to a good vacation.
  .
• The green chili at Tom's Diner in Buffalo is so good I could eat it every day.
  .
• Tragically, it was only on the specials board for one day.
  .
• The french fries at the Bozeman Trail Steak House are still the best in world.
  .
• Parts of Wyoming are very empty.
   
  .
• Unlike parts of New York City.
  
  . 
• Although Grand Central Station is not exactly teeming with people at 10:30 on a Monday night.
   
  .
• Yes, I took a short side trip to NYC. More on that later.
  .
• It can be very hot in Wyoming in July.
  .
• It can also be comfortably chilly.
   .
• The correct wardrobe is essential: shorts, jeans, lightweight sweats, heavy sweats, a fleece jacket, short-sleeved t-shirts, long-sleeved t-shirts, a denim shirt, lightweight wool socks, heavy wool socks. That about covers it.
  .
• Except for the dressy black pants, white tank top, short-sleeve sweater, and silk scarf I wore in NYC. More on that later.
  .
• No moose sightings so far. Several deer, many cattle and horses, no antelope. Where are the moose? We came to see the moose, and we shall find them. They can run but they cannot hide.
  .
• Actually, they CAN hide, and remarkably well at that.
  .
• The stream next to the campsite has been running high, apparently due to melting of the 300%-of-normal snowpack in the mountains last winter.
  .
• Businesses next to Clear Creek, which flows through the center of downtown Buffalo, had sandbags lying around.
  .
• No flooding right now.
  .
• This is a good thing. Occasionally I remember the flash flood in the Black Hills in 1972 that killed 238 people, including 11 campers in creekside sites.
  .
• Our campground is in a canyon.
  .
• I remember, and then I force myself to forget.
  .
• Moving on...
  .
• Much knitting and napping and reading and audiobook consumption have been accomplished.
• Life is good, much better here than at home. More on that later, too.
  .
• That's the report from Wyoming. Knitting report to follow.

Vacation, part 6: fails.

Note: I wrote this last summer after we got back from vacation in an effort to gove complete and unbiased reportage. I wouldn't want you to think our life is all unicorns and pixie dust ;-)  Somehow I never managed to publish the post, but I want to get it out there before we leave again so here you go. I gave you a paraphrased version of part of it last week -- feel free to skip over that bit if you want.

In every adventure, there are bits that... fail.

Here is their story.

At 6,000 feet, the weather in June in northern Wyoming can be problematic for camping.

 

Later that same afternoon...

 

That is not snow on the picnic table. That is hail.

 

When it rained, we discovered that the seals around the roof windows had shrunk a bit in 22 years. The leaks could be fixed easily with a tube of silicone rubber... which we didn't happen to have with us.

This worked just fine, however.

 

The scenery in Glacier NP is spectacular.

 

 

The *guard rails* along the edge of the road? Rather less so.

 

That rock wall is perhaps 16" high, just tall enough to ensure that your vehicle flips as it goes over the side of the precipice.

This is actually not a particularly unnerving view out my window. Although I was always edgy when our lane was on the outside of the road rather than next to the cliff wall, it was less frightening if I could see something -- anything! -- between the so-called guard rail and the bottom of the canyon. In this case, the trees and brush on the side of the mountain were just visible over the guard rail Vehicle Tripping Device. When there was nothing but air showing? I found I could not even look out the windows. At all. I had to turn 90˚ in my seat, away from the edge, and knit.

 

EZ's famous quote ("Knit on, with confidence & hope, through all crises") had never meant as much to me as it did on that road.

Happily, Smokey kept our vehicle on the road where it belonged. On another day when we were exploring a deserted back road that had a similar drop-off next to it, he drove in the middle just so I wouldn't be so nervous. Yes, he is a sweetie.

This is what happens when one's US#5 Addi Turbo gets caught under the van seat and one is too impatient to free it carefully, instead yanking it loose with careless abandon.

 

The good news is that the needle still works just fine. I don't know if it affected my gauge, but I'm pretending that it didn't. Note: I am still using that needle, no problem, mon.

In other broken news, we brought along a back scratcher because we both find it inutterably satisfying to scratch that out-of-reach spot in the middle of the back.

 

Some white glue and this one was good to go again.

And then there was the day that a chipmunk in the woods was taunting Lucy, who was inside the screen house with me. The dog, of course, attempted to launch herself through the screen.

I managed to fix that one.

 

One day Smokey was working on the van and had to open a blister pack of something when the scissors slipped. I will spare you any pictures of the gouge he took out of his little finger. You will have to be satisfied with this.

 

That night he woke up to discover that the bandaid had slipped off and he was bleeding. In order not to bleed all over the bedding he improvised with a paper towel and some packing tape.

The finger has since healed fine, probably due to the fact that he had to wash dishes a few times during the trip. Nothing cleans out a wound better than soaking it in dishwater for ten minutes or so.

Street scenes in Buffalo, WY.

 
That mailbox is a model of a Basque sheepherder's wagon.
There was/is a substantial Basque population in Johnson County.

Do  you know the way to...?

Election day. Finally.

I decided to do my own Ten on Tuesday list this week.

Ten Reasons to Vote Today.

1. Nifty sticker to wear on your lapel. "I voted!"
2. Cute election judges... if you are a 70+ year old male.
3. Free coffee and cookies.
4. Opportunity to see your local community center / fire hall / village hall / elementary school full of people with good intentions.
5. A chance to knit (while standing in line).
6. The only time you will see some of these names in print. County coroner? County assessor? Who are these people?
7. Polling place just might be near your LYS. Everyone who votes deserves a yarn treat.
8. Easiest way in the world to be a patriot.
9. Chance to do something that millions would [and have] die[d] for the right to do.
   
   And finally, the very best reason of all...
10. If you don't vote you lose the right to complain about your government.

* * * * *

I'm sick of campaign ads, junk mail, the media buzz, and especially the recorded phone calls. Campaign signs, though, are kinda fun. I first noticed them when we were in Wyoming in June. There were campaign signs everywhere. Didn't notice [m]any in Montana, though. Later in the summer I saw them on the North Shore, plus they started to crop up here at home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

               As they say in Chicago, Vote early! Vote often!                   !

Dogs on vacation.

Dogs don't talk much, so this post is mostly pictures. And smells.

"That is one funny-lookin' dog, guys."

There were dogs everywhere in Buffalo, Wyoming, mostly in the backs of pickup trucks. We spotted these two in the parking lot of the diner where we had breakfast one day.

They spotted us, too.

And then they spotted our dogs in our van.

"Hey, you two dogs in the van there? This is our parking lot!
You can stay, though... for a price."

* * * * *

We met a couple of sweetheart dogs at the private campground where we stayed near Glacier. They belonged to the campground owner, who was a sweetheart of the human kind.

The dogs; meet Pork Chop (white) and Mattie (brown).

I think one was a bull mastiff (perhaps; this is all very hazy in my memory b/c it was (omg!) three months ago). The other was a breed I don't remember. Both of them were big softies, the following photos notwithstanding.

If you ever want to camp near Glacier NP, I cannot recommend this campground highly enough. Unlike nearly every other private campground on the planet, it has sufficient wooded space between and among the sites to afford a bit of privacy and nature. The owner seems to have created that impossibly tiny sweet spot between chaos and a place so highly regulated one feels as though it is 1984. There was an almost complete absence of signs telling the guests what they Could.Not.Do, yet when we complained about the people across the road from us who left their dog inside their RV ALL DAY WHILE THEY WERE GONE and it yapped for 12 HOURS STRAIGHT, the situation was remedied forthwith. If you follow the link to the website you can see the photo that convinced Smokey this was the place where he would be totally comfortable. (Yes, I mean the  photo of the dogs on the couch.)

* * * * *

Now, some more portraits of our dogs on vacation.

"You aren't going to eat all that yourself, are you?"

"I am sure there is a critter out there somewhere..."

All quiet on the Lucy front.

It's a dog's life.

"Look, my job is to worry about you. Don't bother me right now, I'm busy."

(at the rodeo) "Why do those big dogs have men on their back? What are they chasing?
Are those dogs gonna be okay? Can I help? Pleeeeaaassse?"

"You go ahead and nap, Dad. I'll keep watch..."

"...for a little while."

Vacation, part 1: wildlife.

We saw moose.

 

Yeah, you have already seen that one, but it is too good not to use again.

We saw antelope.

That is suburban Buffalo, WY in the far background.

Hey, lady, whatchew lookin' at?

We saw mule deer.

 

This one was grazing in the Big Horn mountains a couple miles above our campground. They are hilarious when they run -- their legs turn into springs and they bounce, stiff-legged, over the ground.

We saw buffalo.

 

Oops. That one was in the Many Glacier lodge.

We saw live buffalo:

 

This was just a small part -- around 500 - 600 -- of the entire herd of 2,500. The rest were in another valley not accessible to us.

See this guy?

 

He was headed toward us. He -- or his identical twin brother -- was shortly thereafter was observed approaching the little road we were on. After we reached the end of the road a few minutes later, turned around, and were driving back, we looked for him again. This time, he was so close we could have reached out of the car and touched him.

But we didn't.

We kept driving and I didn't even get a photo. He was so close we didn't want to alarm him -- he could have done major damage to us if he so chose.

Here is where we saw the buffalo:
 

Can't read the sign? Try this:

 

The buffalo are on Ted Turner's gazillion-acre ranch. We were spending the day with my cousin and wife, who retired near Bozeman, MT. Their property abuts the ranch.

 

But we were not trespassing; we were on the public road that leads to a public campground. Because the latter is on the ranch, Ted has to let the public use the road.

Ted Turner anecdote related to us by my cousin: TT has a lovely house on the ranch but was unhappy with the view; he couldn't see the mountains well enough. So he had the top of a low ridge removed. All better now.

We saw ground animals.

 

Four or five of these were grazing on the lawn at Many Glacier lodge. Anybody want to educate me as to what they were? Prairie dogs*? Whistler swans? Elk?

We saw more unidentified animals outside Many Glacier lodge.

 

Well, upon closer inspection we can probably agree the lower part of the left one is a bear and the right one is a raptor. But in person I was too blown away by the visual even to attempt identification.

* None of the prairie dogs in Wikipedia have stripes on their tails like these.

Drive-by posting.

We have left Wyoming and the Big Horns behind and are now camped just outside Glacier National Park in Montana. When Smokey fixes the computer that shot sparks (of course he has  all the parts he needs with him) I'll be able to catch you all up with photos. TTFN!

We wimp out.

Sometimes the great outdoors is just too... outdoors-ish. After nice weather for the first half of the week, on Thursday it turned rainy and cold.

The last straw was when it snowed on Saturday.

I proposed that we check into the Super 8 motel in Buffalo for one night. Sleep in real beds (one each!) and take showers and enjoy the free wi-fi. After some discussion and a check of the weather forecast -- Sunday looked even worse than Saturday -- we decided to endure Saturday night in the camper in the cold/snow/rain and check into the motel as early as possible on Sunday.

So here I am, sitting in a real chair typing this blog post. Sadly, we managed to break the aged laptop I had been using (bought for Andrew when he went away to college in 2003) -- there were even some sparks! I am typing on Smokey's netbook. Keyboard is too small for effective touch typing -- although I keep trying -- and it doesn't recognize my camera, so no pictures today. But it IS internet access and I won't whine.

Speaking of internet access, we have found a surprising number of *hot spots*, some intentional, like in restaurants, and some not, like in the parking lot of the Family Dollar store. My little iPod Touch is getting a workout :)

Now it is time for me to take advantage of the shower and for Smokey to get out his tools and repair some laptops. Maybe there will be photos tomorrow. Knitting, a rodeo, other notable sights...

Wyoming!

 We are here.The knitting has commenced.

 

Yarn: Valley Superwash DK (100% superwash merino). Navy, plus stripes (from the top) in maroon (no longer available), teal, biscuit, grass, wild rose, forest, misty lilac, and navy.
Needles: Addi Turbo US#5 (3.75mm) circ.
Size: L
Pattern: Pattern? I don' need no steekin' pattern! Cast on 102 st in navy; join. Purl 6 rounds. Knit 4 rounds. Change to lilac; purl 6 rounds. Knit 4 rounds navy. Purl 6 rounds forest. Continue in color pattern as established, end purl 6 rounds maroon. Knit 1 round navy. Decrease for top in usual manner.

That is a chemo hat for a local Relay for Life later this month. The hats will be judged on originality, craftsmanship, overall appeal, etc. Winner(s) will get gift basket(s) from the LYS that is sponsoring the contest. All hats will go into a silent auction, proceeds to the Relay.

I started this hat in April. Why it took me until June 9th to finish it is a total mystery, but it may be related to my inability to count. I will drop the hat into the mail today and hope that it makes it to Wisconsin by the deadline on the 12th.

* * * * *

Others may vacation with/for the wine, women, and song. I do it with/for the wine, books, and yarn.

 

* * * * *

Observe, the majestic moose:

Frankly, this moose is more mangy than majestic. His coat is scraggly because he is shedding his winter coat, his ribs are showing because the grass is just greening up, and he is (I think) a yearling so is gangly and awkward. But he will be majestic...someday.

Enough with the majestic potential. Now for the cute.

Hey, you lookin' at me?

Never mind. I've got another idea...

 

Mama!

Sock projects,

I dug through my sock yarn stash to decide on sock projects to bring along on vacation.

(Photo taken after I had already plucked The Chosen Yarns.)

The first choice is some Mountain Colors Bearfoot, colorway Juniper, that I won in Lisa's snow melt contest last year. This yarn cried out to be knit concurrently with the Noro striped sweater for which you saw the yarn yesterday. Don't you agree that a pair of socks from this lovely stuff would be the perfect accessory for that sweater? Yes, I thought you would.

I wound it into a ball on Saturday, but decided I should swatch and throw the it into the laundry just to be sure it would stand up to my rather careless care of socks. (I don't refuse to hand wash socks.) If it proves to require more tender care than I can provide I'll save it for a lacy scarf, and instead bring along this, purchased here, which would also be great with that sweater and which I swatched and washed last year:

Both of those yarns are dark and thus suitable for daylight knitting. When the light is dim, say, in the car after dark when I am using my headlamp, these aging eyes prefer that I work with light-colored yarn.

Behold:

 

That is Opal Starken Zarkus, colorway 2006, bought somewhere in the past year. This yarn marks my efforts to purchase sock yarns that will produce socks whose colors blend in my wardrobe rather than scream COLOR! FUN! I love Opal yarn for socks; it feels like no nonsense, like it will last forever.

Just in case the Opal socks knit up so quickly that I need a second light-colored sock project, here we have Trekking XXL, colorway "Clown Barf" 156, purchased here and which color marks my inconsistent approach to the color theory mentioned above. Trekking has much the same feel to me as Opal. "This is sock yarn."

2009: That was the year that was.

January.

Well, there was this (bad).

And there was this (good) (from left, Wendy, me, Chris, and Susan).

On the knitting front:


 

February.

Good intentions.

 

Snow and cold.

Knitting:

March.

Winter melted away.

Knitting.

April.

Spring arrived in earnest.

Yarnover.

End of tax season.

Taste of St. Croix.
 

Knitting resumed after tax season.

 

May.

I scored big at Macy's sale racks, I helped Norm go away, I celebrated Mother's Day in an eco-friendly way, the bears and the ticks came out of hibernation, I picked up trash, I enjoyed the Memorial Day weekend, I bid farewell to our local librarian, and Hannibal discovered the joys of catnip.

Knitting was primarily of a stealth nature, but did include scientific swatching and the F'ing of a couple of O's that had been OTN for nearly, and over a year, respectively. (I am rather proud of that sentence -- and its punctuation -- awkward though it may be.)

 

June

June was for knitting and vacation and celebrating that brief magical time that is summer in the north woods.

 

 

Lots of knitting.

 

 

July.

July was for more vacation -- the rest of the one in Wyoming and another on the North Shore.

And summer.
 

And injuries.
 

And knitting.

 

August.

It was a very good month. I turned 60, had a contest, and laughed. We went to a concert.
 

I learned the difference between eagles and turkey vultures, and I had surgery to remove some extra/unneeded bits and pieces and repair that torn cartilage in my knee.
 

Knitknitknit.

 

September.

In September I had lots of cats on the blog, it was my turn to give the prayer at the beginning of the monthly county board meeting, the county budget process blew up, and the most gloriously gorgeous month of the year was here.

 

The knitting, she continued.

 

October.

I became a biker by proxy,

more new-to-me music found its way into my iTunes, and we celebrated 35 years together

by not-camping on Lake Superior.

The kneedles continued to fly.
 
 

November.

The van that took us on some wonderful vacations met up with an unfortunate bear on the road and was replaced by an older but bigger and more customized van.

Cold weather arrived, and once more I cooked and baked.

 

Mostly, though, I knitted.




Apparently I can crank out hats like other knitters crank out... sweaters

December.

I continued to be thankful (there is a lot to be thankful for).

With the help of Matthew and Maggie, I decorated for Christmas. This decorating thing is never a given.

I showed you my ornaments, y'all showed me yours.

 

We ate well.
 

A bit more knitting* for others.

I pretty much finished my Christmas knitting. (Shhh, the Calorimetry is a surprise.)


The medical mittens are still OTN -- stay tuned.

*For someone who doesn't like pink, I sure knit a lot of it lately...

Eye candy Friday.

Just in case you found my other Friday post a bit too disturbing, here is a deer we spotted as we were leaving the campground one evening when we were in Wyoming.

I was not even tempted to kill it.

This 'n' that.

To those of you who commented on how much I knitted while we were on vacation: when one is camping in a place where the only thing to do is hike, and one is not a hiker, knitting -- and napping and reading and occasionally going into town -- is pretty much all there is to do. So that is what I did, most happily.

* * * * *

I have had to drive Da Yeep (shown above in a photo from last December) for the last week (minus the plow) because Smokey is using my car to get to work while his van in the shop awaiting a brake job.

Da Yeep has a little electrical problem that drains the battery if it sits for more than 12 hours or so. More than once in the past week one of us has had to hook it up to the battery charger to get it going.  As a temporary fix until he has time to do a full trouble-shooting exploration, Smokey put in a battery disconnector. Whenever I park the car I have to raise the hood and turn a knob; when I want to use the car I must raise the hood and tighten that knob. It is inconvenient, but better than having a dead battery.

Why, yes, I have gotten some odd looks in parking lots...

Because it has been sitting outside all the time, Da Yeep has also become a bit of a spider mecca. I counted three spiders of various sizes on the inside of the windshield when I drove it today.

Luckily I am not particularly bothered by spiders as long as they keep their distance...

* * * * *

Bear, our senior dog, had surgery again this week. She had something in one paw that was making it increasingly difficult for her to walk. That something turned out to be a tumor that the vet thinks was cancerous. But she is an old dog, and we hope that any recurrence grows as slowly as she walks. The vet found a couple other tumors, too -- one on her tongue and one at her other end -- but those did not look problematic under the microscope.

I emailed Elder Son, who is very, very attached to Bear and he replied:

Hey, this may be a little weird, but could you ask him if he could email me the images?  If they're digital that is, not so easy to send if their microscope isn't hooked up to a computer.  I'm just curious to look at the cellular pathology and see if canine neoplasia looks like the human neoplasia I learned about in pathology... anatomy's so dull that a pathology slide will be absolutely fascinating by comparison.  I really liked pathology, and I'll probably TA for it next year.

* * * * *

I was just reading a 70-page pdf document that summarized the Wisconsin state budget bill that was signed into law a couple weeks ago. (Yes, it was fascinating, thanks for asking.) But besides all the normal budget stuff about money, I also read this:

The budget creates a process for declaring and registering domestic partnerships between two individuals who meet the following criteria: 1) they are at least 18 years old and capable of consenting to the domestic partnership; 2) neither individual is married to, or in a domestic partnership with, another individual; 3) the two individuals share a common residence; 4) the two individuals are not nearer of kin to each other than second cousins; and 5) the individuals are member of the same sex...

...[d]omestic partners will be considered a “member of the family” for purposes of victim notification; receive the same privilege from testifying against one another as husband and wives; be entitled to damages under wrongful death actions; receive Crime Victim Compensation Program funds; be able to title assets in joint tenancy; domestic partners will be subject to the same inheritance law provisions as spouses; have the same rights of access to individuals in care facilities as spouses; have the same rights of consent to medical treatment and access to medical records as spouses; have access to insurance provided by fraternal organizations; be exempt from the real estate transfer and manufactured home title transfer fees for transfers between partners; be entitled to worker’s compensation death benefits; receive the same coverage for Family and Medical Leave as spouses; be subject to the same procedures for transferring a motor vehicle title at the time of a partner’s death as for spouses.
 
The budget also allows domestic partners who are public employees to qualify for
Wisconsin Retirement System benefits, including health insurance and survivor benefits.

A couple years ago Wisconsin voters passed a constitutional amendment that banned same-sex marriages and civil unions:

Only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state. A legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized in this state.

There will certainly be court challenges to this budget provision, but for now I am happy, even though it is kinda sneaky to put something like this in a budget bill.

* * * * *

On Smokey's cousin's porch in Laramie, on our way home from vacation:

 

Camping food.

Now that I have completely trashed Nebraska, let me tell you about how well we ate on our vacation.

I considered bringing my espresso machine along (shut up, I am SO a rugged camper) but decided that without a microwave to warm the milk, my latte would be [whining] too haaarrrd. So instead I opted for tea in the mornings.

The first morning:

That's an immersion heater plugged into the cigarette lighter of the van. Fine and good, but one cup of tea is not enough.

Day two:

 

That's better. I'm a four-shot-latte-in-the-morning girl; I need my caffeine.

Breakfast and lunch, if eaten at the campground, were often whatever either of us felt like scrounging up from the grub box -- my choice was usually cheese and crackers, Smokey's was canned corned beef (yuck!) on crackers with pickles. S ometimes we drove into Buffalo and ate at Tom's Diner on Main Street. Mmmmm. One day Tom's was closed and we went to Pistol Pete's out by the freeway; okay, more spacious and western, complete with stuffed heads on the walls, but the food was not as good as Tom's.

From what we could tell, Tom is the owner and fry cook and his wife is the waitress. There was also a guy in the dish room, didn't get his CV. The fun part -- beside the food -- was that every time I looked at Tom I saw Walter Sobchak from The Big Lebowski. Well, okay, Tom resembled Walter only in the vaguest way imaginable -- and as far as I could tell he wasn't armed -- but still. Going to Tom's Diner and watching Tom/Walter cook my breakfast was definitely a high point of my trip.

Something I have found only at a supermarket in Buffalo, WY are these:

Basque sausage (scroll down). Spicy and very tasty. We cooked them on the grill a couple times and brought these home to recreate the vacation experience. Mmmm redux.

Buffalo has a walk-up scoop shop on Main Street with about a gazillion flavors. Smokey had the black licorice; I had mint chocolate chip. It had the biggest hunks of chocolate I had even had in that flavor. Mmmm (x3).

Even if we didn't go to the scoop shop, we still managed to have our ice cream.

 

That's Ben & Jerry's Everything but the...™. Mmmm.

One night we grilled New York strip steaks purchased at a store in Buffalo, and I want to tell you: they were the best steaks either of us had had in a looonnng time.  They were tender and tasty and juicy but not greasy. Maybe that's because they were local, grass-fed beef? I don't know, but I'd sure like to have a few of those in the freezer.

Okay, now I am gonna make you laugh. Ever seen one of these?

 

That little toaster oven could run off our baby generator (set up at the end of a 125' extension cord so the noise didn't bother anyone) and allowed us to have these for breakfast a couple times:

 

Those are Pillsbury cinnamon rolls with cream cheese frosting. Pretty danged tasty in the morning, especially once I figured out how to use the toaster oven (duh).

And there you have it: how to go camping without really roughing it :-)

Animals.

Friday it rained. A rainy day during a camping vacation means just one thing: time to go into town. Smokey dropped me off at the library and went to do the laundry. (I love this guy.) When the laundry was done he joined me; we checked  email and I read blogs and generally had internet fun.

Dinner was at a gourmet feast at Taco John’s. While that was tasty (anything with as many fat grams as Taco John’s food HAS to be tasty.), it was not nearly as much fun as what we found when we drove around the building to leave. Right next door was an old farmstead with horses.

 

The white horses were big, not as big as Percherons or Belgians, but definitely larger than the others. The male has apparently been bugging the females in the herd; whenever he started toward any of them they ran away. “Dammit, can’t you think of anything else, you big brute?!”

And here is Lucy, watching them.

This was definitely the high point of her day.

After dinner we drove back to the campground, but realized before we got there that this was the time of day when the wildlife comes out. The sky had cleared, so we continued up the mountain and drove through several other national forest areas. It was indeed the perfect time of day, both for the lighting conditions, and when those got too dark for really good photographs, for animals.

 

There were animal sounds emanating from the pine forest in the background. It sounded like seals barking, but we agreed that it was probably moose talk.

 

At one point we were turning around -- I can see why a person living in this area might want to have a four-wheel-drive vehicle with high ground clearance; some of these forest roads get mighty rutted and rocky -- we looked out the windshield as the van was completely crosswise in the road, and guess what we saw?

Lucy missed that one.

We even saw The Majestic Moose.

 

What, you can't see him? How about now?

 

Cursingmama, this one's for you :-)

Mile-high posting.

Here we are in Wyoming; Buffalo, where I am wi-fi-ing in the library, is at a bit less than 5,000 feet elevation, and the campground where we are living is at something like 6,000 feet. So, on average, I am a mile high. No comments from the peanut gallery, please.

We had a bit of a late departure from home -- 24+ hours late, to be truthful. Car trouble, Smokey not feeling well enough to fix it, our eternal optimism about how long it would take to pack. But our good buddy Lennie came to the rescue and did all the tire mounting and oil changing and other stuff that needed to be done before we set out on this adventure.

A couple little giggles from Lennie's shop:

Twenty hours after we left the lake -- and one dead deer* later -- we pulled into the Middle Fork Creek campground.

 

That's Middle Fork creek viewed from my knitting chair.

 

Note the handy cup of tea and iPod. I'm on my second audio book already and have finished a pair of socks and the skinny cotton Clapotis.

 

No photo of the Clap until I get home and block it.

I am half done with another chemo hat, this one for one of Smokey's co-workers. This hat is from the same lace-edged hat pattern that I, er, *modified* for my friend Mary. Raydean's hat, however, looks exactly like the pattern photo. Yay, me! I can conquer a four-row lace pattern that has two plain knit rows! Photo of that one will be forthcoming after I get home and block the lace edging. I am feeling quite triumphant.

This is a dog that has just seen a squirrel/other dog/leaf twitch:

 

She practically went nuts when this pretty girl crossed the campground (sorry for the blurry photo; the subject is in the middle of the creek, crossing from right to left):

* Smokey hit a deer twenty miles from home.

The bumper is sad but the car was still drivable. He plans to putz with it while we are here and make it prettier.