Thursday, June 9, 2011

Meeteetse and Pitchfork Ranch - Part 2

I was standing on the front porch of the house the other afternoon looking out over everything I could see from the front porch of the house.
I could see a very large swath of Bureau of Land Management land from our road in one direction.  The place that is slowly and surely becoming my new personal playground (now if it only had a lake to kayak on).
Looking in the opposite direction I could see pasture land with grazing horses and sheep.
Dogs barking and the two resident sand cranes whooping in the background.
Behind the pastures lay the ever-present Heart Mountain and Carter Mountain, with Rattlesnake Mountain laying less conspicuously in the center.
Canyons from which often come ridiculously strong winds.
Cold and grey clouds coming from the west - possibly bringing snow to the Yellowstone even at this time of year, but definitely bringing the threat and then the promise of rain to Cody. 
Three months ago I knew almost nothing about Wyoming.
Three months ago we boarded a ferry in Juneau.  
When I was done in Juneau I was done absolutely, and could not leave that place fast enough.
We boarded a ferry with only a general idea of where we were going and no idea what our lives would look like.
And now here we are.
In a small house.
In the country a few miles outside of the "Rodeo Capital Of The World".
Still sometimes trying to catch our breathe.
Still sometimes fighting to find and then maintain the emotional balance we have fought so hard to regain.
We are building a new life and life is OK...........
You would think that we lived 50 miles from any town in any direction instead of only four miles outside of town, for all the problems we have had with Internet service since we moved into this house.
The cable company surprisingly does not offer service out of town - meaning we had to get a satellite dish and look for another company to provide Internet.
Verizon provides Internet but could not get service working out here.
We now have service with a company called Qwest. 
When it works it works fine.
But since we had it hooked up in the middle of April it has only worked about half the time.
The guy who services this area has been out to the house and to the area many times on our behalf.
When it went off again yesterday afternoon I woke up this morning psyched to call him immediately at 8am, as we have done a number of times over the past couple of months.
Service was back on.
Some kind of crazy business there - and as much as I love this town some of the businesses here provide service that can be a little suspect.
These are all still pictures taken at the Pitchfork Ranch..............
There is a tourist publication called the Cody Country Visitors Guide that is available for pickup free of charge all over town.
In it is a list of special events and sites-to-see for the entire Yellowstone region (including Cody, Powell, Red Lodge, Jackson Hole, Meeteetse, Greybull and Thermopolis).
There is so much to do and see, so many special events that I want to attend this summer that I keep the visitors guide close at all times.
Last weekend we went to the rodeo for $5 a person here in Cody.  
This weekend we are going to Red Lodge to help celebrate the Beartooth All-American Road 75th Anniversary.
The following weekend is the Cody Plains Indian Powwow.
It is going to be a very fun summer.............
Pitchfork Ranch is an outstandingly beautiful place and LC and I resolved to come back another day to explore further.
Both my Mountain Boy and I were tired by this time.
Tired of being in the truck.  Tired of being too warm.  
We reluctantly turned around, and headed briefly to the beautiful Sunshine Reservoir on the way home.........
We needed to come out this way again.
We had only touched the surface and seen very little when I knew that there was much to see.
We needed to get an earlier start and truly explore it well instead of just skimming the surface of this new and lovely place. 
We needed to drive beyond the reservoir and explore into the mountains.
              A strange day of late starts and false starts, and as it turns out it was also warmest day we have       had so far this summer at 84 degrees.
By the time we headed back I was driving and LC was fighting a headache.  A good day but a too long and too hot day...................
As I pulled into the driveway of the house the first thing I saw was a tiny and way-too-cute baby bunny standing beside the wheel of the wooden wagon.
I stopped the truck, leaned out of the winder and took this picture.
I aimed my camera to take one more picture and never made it.  
He was already gone.
Underneath the wagon and into the pile of logs behind the wagon where a new family of rabbits have made their home....................

No comments:

Post a Comment