The picture above was taken looking across the highway from the old Wapiti School.
Nothing fancy at all - just lots of rocks that were carefully placed on the side of a hill to welcome visitors to Wapiti WY......
We have passed by Wapiti School on drives through the community and on the way to the 2-mile mark near the East gate of Yellowstone and I have often wondered what this school looked like inside.
Since the school was celebrating its 100th birthday this past weekend it seemed like a good opportunity to satisfy my curiosity.
Contrary to my expectation it is not an old fashioned one room school house.
It is a relatively modern small community school that services the area grade school aged children.
We arrived late to the celebration and as we pulled into a parking spot along the highway I watched a group of young boys heavily involved in a bout of tug-of-war.
There were not a lot of people on the grounds by the time we arrived, and we only spent a short while there, but on a late and overcast Saturday afternoon greatly enjoyed being around a group of friendly people enjoying simple activities...........
A view from the highway looking back towards Cody.......
I had noticed a pull-off beside the Shoshone River as we were heading towards Wapiti and on the way back to Cody we pulled off so that I could take pictures of the swollen and fast-flowing river..........
We parked the truck and walked down a long and steep rocky and dirt hill.
Arriving at the river I was delighted when my Mountain Boy excitedly called my name.
I turned to look at him and saw what he was holding in his hand - a deer antler.
We searched the area without success hoping that we would find the second antler........
When we first arrived in Cody the Shoshone was a shallow and slow moving river.
Now it is deep and very fast moving.........
LC and James were up ahead of me and after I took this picture I noticed LC wandering close to the edge of the drop-off looking intently down towards the water.
I was curious what had his attention.........
The carcass of.........something.
What fur remained was pure white and without going down the hill again to take a closer look at it we could only speculate what this animal used to be.
LC wondered if it was a mountain goat. If that is the case the only thing that would make sense would be for it to have washed down the river from the mountains.........
As I was walking along the public access area periodically taking pictures I noticed this rope spanning the width of the river.
As I continued further I finally saw what it was attached to..........
A hand powered way to span the river.........
When we left the public access area LC (instead of remaining on the main highway as I had expected) turned onto a road called the Stagecoach Trail.
It was late in the day but neither of us were in a big rush to head back to town so I was very pleased to be taking the quiet and scenic route home.
This picture was taken on the opposite side of the river and we could get a closer look at the hand-cranked wooden seat-over-the-river...........
This was the first time we had driven the Stagecoach Trail and it is a beautiful and very scenic drive..........
A small portion of a deer herd grazing in a beautiful and green pasture........
During this section of the drive there were deer literally everywhere.
We saw a huge herd of maybe 60 in one field, a hand full grazing in a homeowners' yard, small herds grazing in other fields or along side the road.
Just everywhere and they were gentle and beautiful and skittish and joyful and very sweet...........
Interesting and ancient rock formations in the hills...........
Spring work is going on with joyful enthusiasm.........John Muir
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