Finally, A Practical Use for One of My Shooting Trophies

Just want to share this photo:  here's my 2011 Buffalo Stampede Top Cowgirl Trophy.  Noah found a practical use for it:  bra-drying rack.  Very handy!  Thanks for the great idea, Noah!

See ya!

Buckskin



Welcome to the Family, Trace!

Noah & I would like to welcome the newest member of our family.  This is Trace Watkins...just came home from the dog pound today.  We're very happy to have him (all of us except Alfie who wants us to take him back right now).

See ya later!
Buckskin & Trace

Luke & Roger Visit from CA

Roger & Luke came to visit for a few days of antelope & deer hunting.  Unfortunately, Noah didn't take any photos for me.  However, I was present for Luke's first horseback riding lesson with grandpa.  Here he is on Roxie with grandpa on the lead line.  Luke & Roxie were doing so well, though, that Luke was able to take the reins himself:

Since Roger & Luke happened to be here on Halloween, we all went downtown for Trick or Treating on Sheridan Ave.  This was our first time to attend the event, since Noah & I are a little old to go ourselves.  Here are Roger & Luke, I mean Mario, in the middle of the street before the Trick or Treating got started:

Well, that's all I have for photos of Roger & Luke's visit.  Maybe next time they come Noah will take some more pictures, so I'll have more to blog about.  Guess that's about it for today...I'm ready to hit the sack.

Talk to you soon,
Buckskin

Buckskin Turns 52! Boo!

Don't know when I got so old, but here I am with my birthday cake (I baked it myself)...can't do cake mixes because of my allergies, so cakes need to be made from scratch & that's not one of Noah's strong points...so I bake my own--cause I LOVE cake!  As you can guess, I wasn't too overly excited about my birthday this year, that's why I'm posting this about a month & a half late.  But I guess better late than never, huh?

Too bad you weren't here to have a piece, but if you come by next year, I'll make another one & you can have some then. 

Noah Rides the Thorofare (sic)

Yesterday, Noah headed up to the Deer Creek Trail at the end of the Southfork Hwy. to ride his (loaner) horse into the Thorofare (yes, that's how they spell it!)  Wanda came by the house at about 8 a.m., they loaded up Roxie, and off they went.

They were on the trail by 9 a.m. heading up Deer Creek.  The trail was extremely narrow, steep, and precipitous with sheer drops of up to 1,000 feet.  Noah took a few shots (when he could), but he says they don't really do the trail justice...but he couldn't take any photos at the worst places, because he was afraid for his life.

Noah & Wanda were on the trail almost non-stop for nearly 10 hours.  Here's a shot of them stopping around lunch time:

They were really enjoying the scenic portion of the ride through the trees...

...until they realized they were not alone:

Those are VERY fresh grizzly bear tracks, in case you didn't know it.  (Most likely belonging to a sow & her cub).
 
After a long ride, they finally made it to the top of Deer Creek Pass where they could view the Washakie Wilderness & the Thorofare.  The Thorofare is a fantastic elk hunting location.   If they'd kept going, they could have ridden through Yellowstone National Park and eventually ended up in Teton National Park.
 

Here's the sign marking the entrance to the Washakie Wilderness (it was a mite windy--look at Roxie's hair!)

And here's the Thorofare & that's Yellowstone National Park just ahead.

After enjoying the view, they turned around & headed back down the trail:

Noah took this shot when they were about halfway back down the trail.  Still a long way to go....!

Hope you enjoyed reading about Noah's Exciting Ride.  He says Roxie is really a GOOD horse...but I think I'll wait until they widen the road & open it to quad runners!  Until next time...

Love,
Noah & Roxie (as told to Buckskin Lily)



Critters We Saw in Yellowstone

 Well, we drove up to Chico Hot Springs for our anniversary again this year (it was our 10th one, if you can believe that!)  And we went through Yellowstone again, but this year we spotted some different critters:  we had our first ever wolf sighting.  Now, I apologize ahead of time for the poor quality photo, but he was really moving out & he was pretty far away when we spotted him.  I also wasted precious time switching out lenses on my camera, but it's a good thing I did that, because this shot was taken with my telephoto lens just before he disappeared over the top of the hill:

Kinda looks like somebody's German Shepherd got loose, but there was a geek, I mean a guy, from the Wolf Patrol there & he assured us it was a real wolf.

After lunch, when we were almost to the North Gate at Gardiner, MT, we spotted a pair of young, female Big Horn Sheep grazing (actually attacking a tree) alongside the road.  I was able to get some really nice photos of them...I still had my telephoto lens attached to my camera...and they were much better subjects than Mr. Wolf.

Well, that pretty much brings things up to the present.  I just finished my third week of school & things are going along just fine.  There may not be too much of interest happening for awhile...though Noah & I have birthdays coming up soon, AND we are planning to go REAL dogsledding up in Montana after Thanksgiving...which reminds me...I need to call & make reservations before it's too late.  I will definitely have a story on that.  Take care & talk to you all soon.

Love,
Buckskin Lily

Four-Wheeling in Clark's Canyon

On Sunday, August 14th, we took our four-wheelers up to Clark's Canyon for a ride.  It's a beautiful site we discovered when we were shooting with the Colter's Hell Club at the sheep pens up the road earlier in the summer.  It was an very hot, but clear & sunny day about a week before the Hole in the Wall fire started up there, so I was able to get some really pretty shots.  It's hard to do the epic scenery up there justice, but I did my best:

The river running through the canyon is the Clark's Fork of the Yellowstone.  It runs straight out of Yellowstone National Park & is named for William Clark of Lewis & Clark.  Clark traveled down this river with Sacajawea on the return trip of the Corps of Discovery's expedition to the northwest.  Lewis took a different route back, so they could explore more territory, before meeting back up with Clark at Rendevous Point...OK, enough with the history lesson...!

Basically, we had a really great time (despite the extremely rocky trail) & we hope we can get back up there for another ride before the snow falls.

Bye for now from Noah & Buckskin,

Legend Rock Petroglyphs

On August 10th, the day before I had to report back to work for the first part of a 5-day in-service, Noah & I headed down to Thermopolis for one last hurrah.  I soaked in the outdoor hot pool at the State Bath House down in Thermop for a bit while Noah had lunch at Taco John's & got directions to Legend Rock.  We'd been meaning to visit for quite awhile.

So after my bath was over we drove to Legend Rock which is located about 25 miles north of Thermopolis & 60 or so south of Cody.  When we arrived, clouds were starting to roll in, so we set off walking to see the petroglyphs right away.  The overcast day was actually a good thing, as it allowed me to get better photos of the carvings. 

About halfway through our visit, the sky opened up & it began raining and then hailing with a lot of thunder and lightening.  We ran back to the truck to sit out the storm & Waldo tried to hide under the back seat to little avail as he weighs as much as I do...The storm passed after about 20 minutes, and we were able to go back and finish our tour. 

The caretaker told us this is a vision quest site & that the petroglyphs are allegedly some of the oldest in the US...that's all I know about them, but they're cool to look at.  Here are some of my favorites:

Shooting Video

OK...When we went on a cruise in December 2009, our dinner tablemates wanted to know if I had any video of myself shooting posted here on the blog.  I said I didn't, but it sounded like a good idea.  Anyway, when Noah & I got off the ship, we bought a video camera at the first Best Buy we came to.  That was over a year and a half ago!  We took a little video at a shoot in March or April of 2010, and that's as far as I ever got in relation to posting video to the blog.

So...this morning, I sat myself down and loaded the video software onto the computer, imported all the videos that were worth saving, edited a couple, and am finally ready to post a little video here.  Don't know if it's going to work or not...I'm keeping my fingers crossed...I was able to get a clip up on Facebook, so this can't be any more difficult. 

P.S.  This is NOT video of my finest shooting, it's just video of some shooting.  If this goes well, I'll try to get some better stuff up sometime in the near future.

Enjoy!!

Love,
Buckskin

Alaskan Cruise July 1-8, 2011

Right after the Buffalo Stampede, we headed home to start preparations for our Alaskan cruise.  Noah's sister & brother-in-law drove up from Texas to go on the cruise with us...however, you won't be seeing any photos of them here, because they're really camera shy!

Our cruise sailed from Seattle on July 1st, but we took a few days to drive there instead of flying.  On our first day out, we toured Yellowstone yet again (can't get enough of that place) & saw some of the sights:  Old Faithful, some pools (including my favorite, Sapphire Pool, at Biscuit Basin), and luckily, lots of great wildlife.  Here are a few highlights for you to enjoy:

These are bacteria mats near some of the hot pools in Biscuit Basin.  Love the colors!  It was an extremely windy day, so taking photos was extra challenging.  Here's my best shot of Sapphire Pool.  The wind actually helped me with this one, as it blew all the steam away just long enough for me to get a picture of the water:

After we left the Biscuit Basin area, we came upon a huge herd of buffalo...including a lot of calves.  We spent quite a while watching & photographing them.  Most of them were still losing their winter coats & were in various states of molt.  Here's my favorite shot from this sighting:

After leaving Yellowstone, we headed north out of the park & stopped for dinner at Chico Hot Springs.  We spent the next day driving through Montana, Idaho & Washington, arriving in Seattle in the evening.  The next morning, we  headed for the cruise dock & boarded the ship:

Here's Noah & I up in the dining room after having lunch.  There's the Space Needle behind us.

Our first port of call was Ketchikan, Alaska:

Ketchikan is in a temperate rain forest & averages 137 inches of rain per year, so...of course, it was raining the day we visited.  Surprise!!  Noah & I went canoeing on Ward Lake in the Tongass National Forest.  Here are our canoes waiting for us to climb aboard:

And here we are IN our canoes:

After we canoed across the lake, we had some hot chocolate & wandered around in the forest for a bit.  It was REALLY wet & green, especially compared to Wyoming:

The next day, our ship cruised up the Tracy Arm Fjord, so we could get a look at the Tracy Arm Glacier.  Here is my best photo of the glacier taken from the front of the ship:

Equally fascinating to me, were all the little icebergs that were floating everywhere.  They were the most incredible shade of blue & many of them had the coolest shapes and patterns.  I tooks lots of photos trying to capture their beauty.  This is the best I was able to do:

Later that day, we docked in Juneau and headed up to a summer dogsledding camp.  The camp was run by four Iditarod hopefuls.  They run tours to keep their dogs in condition during the snowless months AND to raise money for racing.  When we got to camp, we boarded a 6-person wheeled golf cart hitched to team of 16 Alaskan huskies:

After the dogs pulled us around for awhile, we had a few tutorials on dog care & the Iditarod race.  Then we got to hold some 13-day-old puppies.  Mine never woke up!

Our next port of call was Skagway & I think we saved our best outing for last.  Once off the ship, we took the ferry from Skagway to Haines.

From Haines, we drove up into the Tongass National Forest (again) to go river rafting through the Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve.  Here we are right before boarding our rafts:

We rafted the river for about an hour and a half and saw LOTS and LOTS of bald eagles.  However, getting photos of them was NOT easy.  Here's my best effort:

This guy was sitting by the river fishing. 

The Chilkat River was really beautiful and peaceful.  This was one of the best days of the cruise by far.  Don't know if I can capture it in a photo, but here goes:

Skagway was the last stop on the cruise.  We had a day at sea & then it was back to dry land.  We drove back via Oregon, Idaho & Jackson, Wyoming, so Judy and Dale (Noah's sister & brother-in-law) could see the Tetons.  On our way out of Yellowstone, we were lucky enough to stumble upon a great grizzly bear sighting.  A large boar was out in plain view digging for grubs on an open hillside.  Here's my best shot of him:

Our trip was great, but I was happy to be back home.  We've still got more adventures in store before I have to go back to work next month...so stay tuned.  I promise, the best is yet to come.  Thanks for reading my humble blog...hope you enjoyed it & come back again soon.  Talk to you again REALLY soon...I PROMISE.  Until then...

Love,

Buckskin Lily