Monday, July 13, 2009

WJRA

no, its not a radio station or a tv station.. its the letters for the Wyoming Junior Rodeo Assoc. which was held in Ralston earlier today (which by the time stamp, means yesterday). We got there after it started and left before it was done because of needing to go to Cody to get some groceries and stuff for Sierra. We saw the girls events. I would have prefered the bull riding, but thats okay, it was still fun watching Sierra go nuts with all the horses and dogs in teh area. She really wants a horse lol. She was pointing and squealing, it was cute. She got to pet two cute lil dogs.. a puppy named Reba, and a "sister" from another litter, Cedar. Cedar was super friendly.. which kinda surprised me since she only had one eye. She gave Sierra lots of kisses and didn't mind that she was trying to pet her a lil on the rough side. Reba was just all sorts of cuteness, but didn't stand a chance of getting attention after I said hi to Cedar lol.
At this stage... if Sierra chooses to want to get into rodeo when she's old enough, it could be lots of fun, because, neither Randal or I know much about rodeo, or even taking care of horses lol.

Friday, July 10, 2009

lions, tigers and bears?? No... deer, elk and.... cows..Oh My!

We headed to the geyser basin for our usual Thursday trip. It started out with an erruption of Riverside, which is always a fun one to watch. From there we tried heading to another basin to see if we couldn't catch great fountain for the first time. nope... already gone. *sigh*. So, we decided it had been a while since we lookde for animals in teh Lamar valley...and the geyser basins were gonna be quiet most of the rest of the time we'd be in the park. So off we headed to Lamar. We saw several areas that appeared to be animal jams, but couldn't see anything. One area was definetely a wolf jam.. but people were already double parked, and the biologist was packing up.. which isn't a good sign if you want to see the wolves. Then there was a spot where people were hitting their breaks ahead of us.. I scanned the area.. bear..wait.. no.. charred tree stump...wait.. noo....it's MOVING! It IS a bear! I finally got the chance to get good pics of a black bear! It was eating plants in the field. You could even hear it huff and chomp.. crazyness! That alone made the night completely worth it. We headed out of the park and went to cooke city to get food. Our favorite deli was closed.. we peeked at the bistro next to it, but dinner prices were a bit steep, so we went to teh saloon that is family friendly. They were out of pizza dough and steak sandwhiches which limited you to burgers, chicken sandwhiches or fish taco. I've never been brave enough to try a fish taco, so I went with a burger. It was pretty good, and the price wasn't bad... teh other deli is way better for burgers, but their pizza and steak sandwhich looked amazing!
It was dark when we got done. We headed down the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway to get home.. I spotted a couple deer, thankfully none of them tried jumping out in teh road. As we got farther into teh mountain road, I saw something on the side of the road that freaked me out.. 3 black cows...NOT behind a fence.. right next to the road. It was open grazing land.. ugh! A lil bit farther down the road I saw a brown and white cow a lil farther off the road.. I couldnt wait to get out of open range! Of course when we finally got out of that there was an elk on the side of the road. Thankfully nothing jumped out at us.. but I saw way too much wildlife within 3 feet of the road in teh dark on teh way home!!! A good trip though... no matter how you look at it! (...and the cows really add something to thoughts of having to pee so bad you are willing to go on the side of the road... they definetely make a person think a lot harder on that one lol...not that grizzley country wouldn't anyway lol)

thar' she blows!!!!!!

Okay, so this is a lil late.... but I'm trying to catch up. Tuesday I was roaming the streets with Sierra in the stroller, running some errands, with the goal of walking at least 3 miles. I walked down to Powell Drug, because I have a 3 dollar coupon for there, and they have an old fashioned soda fountain, and, well... it just sounds good. So I went inside to check it out. There was an elderly woman sitting in teh booth who must own part of the store, and she started chatting ...I have no idea how long I was there, but I know it was over an hour! I never did order anything lol. ...which means at some point I have to go back lol. She was really friendly and adored Sierra. She even offered me a free cup of coffee...something I never expected. I politely declined since I'm not really a fan of coffee. After telling her I had to go about 5 times, I finally escaped...yes, at that point it was an escape!
From there, I went to the college to turn in my non-trad orientation paperwork. I ended up talking to the records and registration specialist for quite a long time as well, because she absolutely adored Sierra as well. I also was amused because Sierra was able to play with a 2 and 3 yr old for a little while their mom registered for classes, and she seemed to really enjoy chasing the boys down. I discovered after the fall semester I will only need about 3 classes to graduate! ...unfortunately unless my parents move out for the winter semester, it's not gonna happen, because I need to be on campus for at least one of them... and Sierra is too young for the day care. Very exciting stuff though!
When I left the school, I looked at the time and realized I couldn't finish my last errand because I was already pushing missing Randal for lunch. We booked it home and found a note on teh computer telling me to push play on teh video on the computer and then flip the index card over. Giantess was errupting.. one of the geysers that only errupts about 2-3 times a year. I had instructions to be ready to go to teh park by 3:30. Normally that wouldn't be an issue, but I didn't have anything to make dinner on the run...you know.. things like bread so I could make our normal peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches. As I was getting Sierras stuff together a HUGE storm blew in... Rain came busting through the screen a good 4 feet into the apt! I quickly shut the windows! I wondered if we were still going, but the radar looked clear once this got past us.
Randal got home around 3, and we were out the door about 3:15. We grabbed quiznos for dinner.. mmmmm... mostly healthy, and super good! We got to teh basin and he took Sierra and went ahead while I putz a bit. ..I mean, its just a geyser....right? ...yeah.. no..
I am the type of person who gets excited by all geysers...even the little 1-2 feet tall ones. Typically I will skip by a HUGE one for a chance to see one I've never seen before... so I was figuring this one wouldn't really make me any more excited than seeing Grand or Riverside for the first time.. even if it is rare. I took a couple wrong turns trying to get to geyser hill...I never realized how many paths you could take on the board walk before that! I got fairly close and Giantess errupted with a series of "minors"...I got goosebumps! It was this amazing feeling. I'm not sure why, other than I guess I realized this was something really impressive.. and these weren't even the big show it put on when it first errupted that morning. Close to 12 hours later and it was still putting on a show that was simply amazing!
From there I saw so many geysers for the first time.. Infant, Lion, pump-- shooting higher than I'd ever saw, Aurum...I'm sure the list goes on. I was in geyser heaven. Giant was acting different than I'd ever saw too, which could have been a minor hot period...it didn't errupt.. that would have just been far too amazing! It's been since the late 1800's since anyone has saw both Giant and Giantess errupt on teh same day... I wasn't that lucky, but you know.. I didn't really feel let down. It was a great day at the basin!