Fire, Wine, listening to Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring

Our last night was lovely, crisp cool evening - the result of a spectacular lightning storm and subsequent downpour. Philip started a fire and we reminisced about the week and previous trips. 

It was initially hard to be without our leader, Butch. Our gang is scattered. We had Lil, Sundance, Preacher Lady, Gateman, Swivel and Last Frame. Eagle Eye and Time Peace are in Chicago. SakeBomb is in Maine, Pyro in Santa Barbara, Dunker in Franklin and Ice bucket in Florida. Riders have to earn their name by something stupid or heroic. Our feats are pretty evenly divided.

Considering renaming Gateman to Preacher Man as he saved our bacon by getting us on today's American flight. Using the privilege of his 2,000,000 million miles he managed to bypass American's 4 hr wait time and got our flight changed to today, convincing them to drop the $512 fee. 

Met an interesting woman; Ada Gates Potter. Lily's aunt, daughter of the Queen Mother, less affectionately known as Margi's mother-in-law. We met Mrs Gates in '86 when Margi begged Phil and I to sit at a table with Flora, Mrs Gates and Millie. 20+ years later; I'm still holding Margi's feet to the fire - you continue to owe me; a few missed dates don't begin to make up for that evening. 

Pauline and her beau, Travis, arrived Tuesday. She is a charmer. Both are working in Chicago.

0/100 to 50/50 to Well Yah!

Remember? This is our farewell trip, swan song, sayonara, last time ever.

48 hrs later, weeellll, let's think about it. Why not come? We can reserve and cancel. 

Another 48 hrs and we're reserving - apparently we're malleable. This time, MC made the reservations for all of us and Margi printed off identical copies for each of us.

This year's scheduling snafu was caused by the pandemic. When we cancelled 2020, told the office to keep our deposit for 2021; same time. Didn't think to adjust the actual date. Thus the off day of arrival.

Bronco and Botsy arrived. In typical Bronco style I hired a private jet so United couldn't fuck  me over and then the private company fucked me.

Mary had a Mai Tai party after John's ashes were buried. John would have loved it. A favorite memory is John's egg trick; pull out the table cloth without breaking the eggs. Or the horse race in Timothy's Meadow. That's a classic.

When we were in Cody, happened to notice the HFBar brand was owned by someone unfamiliar. Googling the name led to more searching, discovered a new, updated history on the HFBar website site. More unfamiliar names and more googling. I spent most of the week sifting thru books and people's memories; trying to separate fact and fiction. Edgar was born and raised in Buffalo and was a wealth of information. He has a file of letters and pictures he shared.

There was trepedation on the part of one of us who wants to eat every meal outside? What about the bugs? The dining porch is fantastic. This year is the best Hasher year ever. Whoever is running the kitchen nailed it!

The corral? Not so good. Philip sat on Landau 45 mins before the rest of the gang was saddled and ready to go. That's a no-no. All the horses in a group are saddled and mounted at the same time. The head wrangler and 4 others are hurt. Kevin was called back in but he's dealing with Hashers-would-be-Wranglers who don't know the horses. Even Gus pulled Wrangler duty. Turner's working in Sheridan. Lily's been in Mexico since last October.

Michael aka Gateman went to the emergency room Sunday night. Entering Timothy's Meadow, horse took off on him. Michael got him turned to go uphill to slow him, thought he had him stopped and the horse took off again. Michael went off onto the rocks, 12 stitches in his head. Lots of horrified dudes as several groups were behind. 

Whata' Week!

Walk into the office; Cara smiles and says "Hi! We weren't expecting you until tomorrow. But that's OK; give us 30 mins and Misty Moon will be ready." 

I'm looking at Philip, askance, and he mumbles "this time I KNOW, I'm RIGHT!" Margi meets us and explains to one and all that she's used to the French's arrival dates as they once arrived a week early. (Not only did we arrive a week early; the ranch did such a good job of covering; it took us almost an hour to figure out why our friends seemed so surprised to see us.)

I'm still giving PB the Askance Look.

Edgar and Tina are next to us in Rodeo. We meet and greet and make plans.

Heading to the dining porch; meet the Guastella/Chandor crew back from the Buffalo booze run. PB immediately goes into the Office Mixup saga. By now I'm on the Oh Whatever Eye Rolling stage.

Lovely, warm afternoon settling in. I hear the sounds of.the creek and the view of the Big Horns and I know peace.

It seems so very odd not to have Steb, aka Butch, with us. A few weeks ago Steb decided the trip was too much for him; too confusing. Steb2 also isn't here as he went to Santa Barbara to stay with his Dad. Somehow it feels like the gang is falling apart. I keep telling myself our job is done. The range is Federale Free. MC is lonely and a little teary in Brookside. Pauline and her beau, Trevor, will stay with her.

Dan and Leslie (George's daughter; MC's niece) Rodgers are at our table with their 4 - Nelson/Princeton, Henry/Rensselaer Polytech, George/Sr and Mia/soph. Fantastic, fun family. 

Mary arrived for the start of several bittersweet moments as we pause to remember John Sutherland. Some of his ashes will be buried between Bad Manners and Bandit. His daughters and family are coming from New Hampshire and Hawaii.

Mary, being Mary, breathes new life into a group of us waiting to exhale. Come on everybody; I'm buying the DuckFarts. Turned out the  bartender has no idea how to make a DuckFart so Margi and Mary helped out. Somehow, we ended up drinking Kahlua and coffee. I never followed the dots on that one and I was one of the dots. Mary, Margi, Roselle and I sat around for several hours laughing and talking.

I meet the most unusual people. Roselle is 70ish; raised by a Choctaw father and colonial mother. Last year had a DNA test - not a drop of Choctaw or any other Native. Whoaaa! Her 2 sisters and brother are Native but knew she wasn't. I'm sitting there with my mouth open.

Bronco and Botsy arrive from NYC tomorrow via private plane. Even our hardcore's are muttering private plane? 

That's was the 1st 10 hrs. Oh ... did I mention my broken left wrist?

We're in Wyoming, guess we're not going to see a Prius here.

Jackson is a village of 9800 people. Much of the land is owned by the Feds and is protected. So everyone is crammed between mountains. This time of year, 50,000 ( that's not a typo) pass thru this village. Our lodge was just north of Jackson. Our dining spot was 1.6 miles south. Took us 48 mins to reach the restaurant and that's with Ms Google Map trying to route us around traffic.

Jackson scenes:

Driving into Jackson

Snake River

What a Difference a Day Makes

Arriving at the Tetons, Tuesday, this was our view. There were moments we couldn't distinguish between clouds and mountains.

Wednesday view

Driving to or among these mountains is like driving into a postcard. It's almost surreal. Directly east is an almost flat high desert. The mountains come from the desert floor; upwards to 10,000-12,000'.

Yellowstone

Every mile of this park requires more superlatives than my vocabulary contains. According to PB, 1/2 of America must agree with me, as they're all here. Took us 45 mins to go 2 miles past the geyser basin and Old Faithful.

Be that as it be - this park is breath taking. We can't remember how many times we've visited - 4-5 x's - I'm so glad we came back.

The road to the park from Cody has the most fantastic formations.

Yellowstone River and fireweed:

Lots of buffalo

Yellowstone Falls - back in the day, with 2 teenagers in tow; we hiked the trail to the falls. The return hike; all uphill, remains a "What we're we thinking???" This time we settled for peering over the top.

Yellowstone Canyon is 20 miles long.

We notice the smoke isn't as bad in the early morning. By 11am, we are peering thru a smokey haze; eyes burning and feeling as if there isn't quite enough air to breathe.

Early morning also meant the park isn't as crowded. We found parking and the trails and lookouts are easily accessible. A big % of our fellow park visitors are Seniors.

Found a lovely picnic area.

Starting the southern part of our planned loop, there were more creeks, geyser basins and many people. Decided 1-2pm is a good time to call it a day.

Our next stop is The Tetons, just south of the park. As we approached, so much smoke it was hard to distinguish between mountains and clouds.

Buffalo Bill Day

It was Buffalo Bill all day. We spent the morning at two of the 5 museum's in the museum complex. Lots of changes in the 30 yrs since we last visited. Besides being a large western museum; it's now affiliated with the Smithsonian. The Plains Indian Museum was interesting; a wonderful integration of old and today.

intriqued by this barb wire sculpture:

We took a break and went to their Raptor Talk. This was a short-eared ground owl. It can hear a mouse a football field away.

A fun exhibit 1959

For lunch we picked up sandwiches, driving out to Buffalo Bill Lake and dam. Kept a careful eye out for snakes.

Returning to our dismal Moose Creek Lodge room - the only thing going for it was very, very clean and walking distance to downtown. It had one view, of the alley and a HVAC that could freeze meat. We were desperate for warmth, opened the door to let 90*+ air in.

We walked a few blocks to Irma's for one of the best prime ribs ever! The building is a hotel built by BB and named for his daughter. Why I didn't take a pic of the elaborate bar, given to BB by Queen Victoria is beyond me; guess i was so dazzled by the Harley Boys - who dominated the bar. Sturgis rally is in a couple of weeks.

Cody is about 9800 people, situated on the bluffs above the Shoshone river.

Goodbye Cody