Big Horn Basin

The Big Horn Basin is a plateau and basin area in northwest Wyoming, about 100 miles wide.  Ten years ago, in 2009, we spent two months volunteering at 7th Ranch in Garryowen, Montana.  When we experienced a long stretch of really hot weather, one of the owners, Sandy, suggested we head south to the Big Horn Mountains in Wyoming on our days off to cool down.  We would drive south to near Sheridan, then head west and enjoy the cooler weather.  At the time, we had no idea that the Big Horn Basin is a major archaeology and paleontology site.

This year we are heading south from Washington, Oregon and Montana through Wyoming to Colorado where we will visit family for nearly two months. After 4 nights in Billings, we spent two nights in Worland.  There we found the Washakie Museum, just down the road from our RV park.  We decided to check it out.

This mastodon statue is a landmark in town--our RV park said to go through town to the Mastodon then look for signs to the park--and it also marks the museum entrance.

Inside we found numerous exhibits of the bones and other fossil remains discovered by paleontologists and archaeologists in the basin.  Dr. George Frison found incredible specimens of the animals that lived there 15,000 years ago.  (He has been given the Society for American Archaeology's Lifetime Achievement Award, the Paleoarchaeologist of the Century Award, and was elected to the Nation Academy of Sciences,  according to Wikipedia.)   Also found was evidence of early human occupation from when the mastodons were hunted,  going forward to the Native Americans that lived in the area and the European settlers who came to raise cattle and sheep.

This is the bird-like foot of the Deinonychus, a dinosaur that shows a link between birds and dinosaurs.

These are some of the bones of mastodons who were driven over a cliff to allow the natives to kill them for food, hides and bones, which they used as tools.

We didn't realize there are lots of petroglyphs in the basin.  The display shown here in part, included lighted examples of the petroglyphs.  We could touch a button next to a description (here a hunter with a shield) to see what it looked like.  Very good idea.

Once settlers discovered that the basin was a good place to raise cows, they came in droves.  This display says that in January 1878 there were no cattle in Big Horn Basin, but by the year's end there was one herd.  Between 1879 and 1882 so many were brought that the number was too large to count.

Next came sheep and the predictable conflict between cattle barons and sheep herders.  This is an example of a sheep herders wagon.  That was interesting since we have seen numerous wagons from afar over the years.

We learned about raising sugar beets in Wyoming, with the Holly Sugar Company of Colorado getting the crop started here.

Since we are Colorado residents and lived most of our life in that state, it was good to learn more about our neighbor to the north. We often pass through here in our RV travels.

Views from the Midwest

I grew up in Denver.  For good views I looked to the Rocky Mountains.  The ocean also provides great views.  But there is a lot to see in the Midwest, where we have been traveling the last couple of months.

I love the patterns in the field.

Campgrounds have grain silos on the horizon.

My dad grew up in the Midwest, in Illinois.  He always said the corn needed to be knee high by the 4th of July.  It isn't even July and this corn is at least waist high. In the second photo that field is only about knee high.

These cattle are huddled together in the shade--at least most of them are.  Cattle really have a go-with-the-heard mentality.

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A farm house and barn surrounded by many acres of field.

The country has been farmed for a couple of centuries.  We often see broken down, abandoned buildings.

Wide open spaces are everywhere.  And straight, straight roads, sometimes with a few hills along the way.

What beautiful scenes as we travel I-80 and I-70 west across the country.

Crossing Missouri

If you combine rain

a lot of green

some limestone walls

and many, many cows

and throw in the giant Mississippi River and it tributaries

you will have a good idea what our trip across Missouri was like this week.

We have seen a lot of cold weather and cold rain over the past week or so. The wind and cold and rain began while we were in Tulsa. We cancelled our plans and reservations to go to Branson because of the threat of more rain and flooding in that area. The rain you see on the first photo above was falling Saturday in Tulsa.

Of course it takes a lot of rain to bring out all the green fields and leaves we saw as we crossed Missouri.  Coming from Colorado and spending our winters in Arizona, all the green is a delightful change.

We had no idea Missouri had so many cattle ranches.  The fields we passed as we drop east on I-44 were full of cows.  Maybe we were driving in Mooosouri!

The limestone hills and walls seen in this part of the country are so picturesque.  Of course the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers get most of their water from snow melt and rain. 

We also saw a farm that had camels as we drove east.  Our GPS doesn't understand that Missouri names county roads with the letters of the alphabet.  When it told us to turn onto Missouri MM we were told to turn on "mo millimeter."  We really laughed at that.

We also saw a sign on the back of a septic tank pump-out truck that read, "Yesterday's Meals on Wheels."

We get most of our weather news from the internet, so we surprised when we saw on the local news while we were in Springfield, MO, that there was a lot of flooding east around St. Louis.  In fact I-44 was closed at Lebanon due to flooding.  When I call the Missouri Department of Transportation on Tuesday morning before leaving Springfield, it was suggested we drive north to I-70 and take that road in to St. Louis.  The detour added about 100 miles to our drive.  We are now just east of the state line and the Mississippi River in Cahokia, Illinois, for a few days.  It rained most of the day and will do so again tomorrow.  We hope we don't have to figure out too many more detours.  But the good news is we haven't been caught in rising water and have traveled safely.

What is Home?

The word "home" can mean many different things. I can go "home" to the physical space I live in; or to my "home" town; or to the state where I live or where I grew up; or to the part of the country or the country where I live.

We have been "home" in the United States since we entered Alaska from Canada on June 29. We have lived this whole time in the RV which is our "home" (except for the 4 nights on the ferry). As we drive south and east from the Seattle, Washington, area, we feel we are getting closer and closer to "home." Why? Because of the cattle in the fields.



And the sagebrush.



And the round wheat and hay fields, growing that way because of the irrigation sprinkler that goes in a circle.



The air is getting drier. We have both lived most of our lives in the higher altitudes of Colorado and, more recently, in the Arizona desert. The humidity we found in much of Alaska is not "home" to us.

I am happy to report that the nights are once again dark. Among other things, that means I can see the moon at night. For many weeks, I was never up when it was dark. As the nights got a little longer, we were often along the ocean and the sky was covered with clouds. But for the last two nights, I actually saw a moon in the sky before I went to bed.

We drove from Ellensburg, Washington, to Pendleton, Oregon, then today to Boise, Idaho. That is three states in three days. If you drive on the East Coast, you can easily pass through three states in one day. Out west, where the states are larger, our trip is pretty amazing, especially for us.

Eastern Washington and Oregon have interesting hills, mostly covered with brown grass.



We also saw lots of vineyards, providing a good dark green contrast to the brown.



There are lots of hills to go up and down. And triple-trailer loads are allowed, leading to this sign on a FedEx truck.



Hay is a major cash crop around Ellensburg, where we saw lots of covered haystacks.



Pendleton, of course, is home to the famous Pendleton Woolen Mills. We didn't tour the mill, but we did check out the mill's outlet store. Of course, there were lots of Pendleton clothes, most made of wool. And we don't need those in Arizona. We did enjoy looking at the shelves of blankets.



And, through a window, we saw stacks of different colored yarn and a bright blanket on the loom.





Our RV park in Pendleton sat on a hill and we could look out over the valley and part of the town. Look above the ground and you can see the thick smoke that blankets the area and got worse, the closer we came to Boise. A number of wildfires are burning in Idaho and have been for several weeks. I read a story said they don't anticipate a major storm that could put the fires out at least until after October 1.



Driving from Ellensburg to Pendleton, we saw two mountains. I hope someone can let us know if this is Mt. St. Helens?



And, is this Mt. Rainier?



They sure are beautiful.