Friday June 29, 2012

Today Dave made blueberry pancakes for breakfast – yum!  We clean up and headed to the Wildlife Loop.  We saw several white-tailed deep and prong horned antelope (the Ranger told us that they are the second fastest animal on earth), but the big find was the wild burros.  We were told last night that the burros are the only animals in the park you are allowed to feed (anything except Cheetoes as their lips get stained orange!).  We came prepared with a bag of apples that we had brought from home.  After rattling around in the truck for a week, they were not too appetizing.  The boys (and Dave) enjoyed feeding the cut-up apple to the donkeys.  There were several babies with the herd and we got to pat a few of them – very soft.  One of the donkeys followed Dave around begging for more apples – he had to shoo her away several times so that the others could be fed.  At our next stop, we found the buffalo.  There must have been a herd of 500 or so!  There were also many babies here too.  Of course, this time we stayed in the car, but we opened the windows so we could hear them snorting.  The boys were fascinated!  They couldn’t get over the size!  We learned last night that they can run up to 40 miles per hour and turn on a dime.  The boys were appalled by how the babies head-butt the moms to get milk – they thought it was cruel to the mom.  We finished the loop at Prairie Dog town, but didn’t hear any of them barking which was a disappointment.  We got back on the road and stopped for lunch at a picnic area near Jewel Cave.  We continued on into Wyoming and visited Devil’s Tower.  Everyone was impressed with the size.  Dan was interested in the climbing so he and the boys went into the climbing permit office and found that they could climb up the boulder scree zone, but no higher without a permit.  I told them they could climb as far as they were comfortable.  Theo climbing up about 12 feet, Alex ended up going about half way, but he said his shoes were starting to slip on the rocks.  Dan, the monkey, made it to the top.  I took some pictures, but he may look like a fly spec in them.  We stopped at the Visitor’s Center and Theo bought himself a book on the constellations.  On the way back to camp, we took a wrong turn and drove for miles without seeing any signs of human habitation, but finally came to the town of Upton and figured out from there how to get back to camp.  Dan cooks the parmesan chicken tonight while I made the rice.  We had to skip the vegetable as we put new ice in the cooler today and the carrots must have migrated to the bottom and no one could find them.  I turned on the phone to find we had a voice mail from Laura and Nick.  Dan’s great-grandmother was in the hospital and not expected to live so we had him call home.  We spent some time talking about what a great life she has had and while Dan was sad, he was happy that he had just gotten a chance to visit with her recently.  We have been reading “Tucket’s Travels” each night and find it interesting as the main character is now in the Black Hills.  After brushing our teeth, Dan, Theo and I went to the Ranger talk on the constellations and their myths (how appropriate for Theo).  We sat around the campfire for a few more minutes and then went to bed.