Farewell Estes Park ,CO. onto Wheatland,WY

Welcome to Timber Life! We are about to set off on another early morning to get us Road Warriors headed in the right direction ; darkness still encircled us as I made my way to the hotel office to checkout,even awakening the managers to leave our key at 6:15. We had decided that waiting to see if the fog conditions would improve over the mountains in the Rocky Mountain National Park wouldn't be a benefit to us.

Our route for the morning took us back through Big Thompson Canyon to Loveland, heading up North on rt.287 to Wheatland,WY.

As you can see my camera eyes were all over the place. I had to pick and choose which images I would share today.I know, that's everyday! 😊

There were groups and single Pronghorn Antelope in the mountainous and valley terrains along the road. Too many to count in a hurry!

We saw some horse riders getting prepared to do some back-country riding and I can only speculate if they would be checking grazing cattle or sheep as the day was wet and cold.

Our first encounter with Buffalo on this trip was on a hillside at the Sybille Wildlife Research Center, that provided holding pens close to the Visitor Center for viewing of various types of the indigenous species. We passed by our opportunity to stop but I managed to get a series of shots with the Buffalo as the subjects.

The main picture in this collage is the Jesus Rocks! Rock we found. I believe it possibly had become full of graffiti that carried negative messages so someone wanted to change the words and thoughts. I Love the message myself. I did a little more editing on the rock to help take off some telephone numbers that really don't need to be advertised.

I did promise pictures of Goshen Hole,WY in one of my last posts. Guess we'll get there soon!

In the mean time...Have a Great Day!

Scheel's Rapid City, SD

Corey and I  rambled around the Scheel's store for a few minutes to get us out of the car to look over their 8 year old location at 1225 Eglin St.,Rapid City , SD.  Please take note of the bronze statues placed around the entrance of the building - made by Mark Lundeen of Loveland,CO.

In September 2007, the same time we were looking over Cabela's new building site, we discovered Scheel's had decided to relocate away from Rushmore Mall, opening their new store in 2009. In 2014 Scheel's  added another addition, bringing the total square footage to 118,000 -  giving them ample space to increase their sportsman's supply inventory once again.

During our visit I asked a sales associate about the difference between Mountain Lion paw prints and Bears. He said "what do you want to know?" He had first hand experience with Mountain Lions since they spend a lot of time in his front yard. He went onto explain the toe structure and the claw differences. I wish I  could have seen some pictures of paw prints associated with the Mountain Lions  he spoke about inhabiting the Black Hills area.

We visit our local Scheel's in West Des Moines on occasion to keep us tuned in to the outdoors and the hearing amplifiers used to catch all of nature's little nuances.

If you're ever out to Rapid City and need some hunting or fishing equipment there are two wonderful stores not far apart to get you setup.

Here's wishing you... Have a Great Day!

(Just a note...I'm posting some events out of order in case you should wonder why dates or events seem mixed-up)