Moving South

Before leaving Buffalo, we spent a fun evening with our RV park neighbors, Guy and Marie. 

We left the Bagley Pack and their two schnauzers at home and attended a fund-raiser for a local family with some overwhelming medical bills.  There was a silent auction, and a live auction that went on for a couple of hours.  We managed to keep our hands in our pockets when they auctioned off the larger items, but we couldn't resist the pies that had been lovingly baked and donated by members of the community.  Auction proceeds went directly to the family, and the dozens of pies sold for anywhere from $40 to over $200.  John and I took home this beauty...an apple-cranberry delight that we snacked on for a couple of days to make it last as long as possible.

And to make the evening even more special, our ticket was drawn for the door prize...this lovely "honey basket" donated by Stingers of Buffalo.  Thanks to them for this contribution, and to whoever baked our beautiful pie.  

It was a rewarding evening, and the community really turned out to support one of their own.

On Saturday, we had our first-of-this-trip rainy day.  Then, with a monster early-fall storm sweeping south from Montana, on Sunday we took the dogs for one last walk around our lovely Deer Park RV Campground…

and headed south.  Cody is enjoying his two new girlfriends, but I'm looking forward to working him when we get back to Texas.  There are even a couple of fall trials we may try to enter if all goes well and we get home in time.

We took one last look at our Beautiful Bighorns...

And the numerous bands of pronghorns gathered on the range.  This is breeding season for the pronghorns, and each buck does his best to round up a harem of females, or does.  It's a struggle, because other bucks are always lurking nearby in hopes of stealing some of the does for himself. 

And speaking of roundups, as we drove south we spied a man on a four-wheeler moving his small herd of bison.  I guess you can't use a dog like we do to move cattle and sheep.

The trip from Buffalo to Laramie gave us some anxious moments.  There were wind warnings, with gusts of up to 60 mph expected.  Fortunately, we were ahead of the worst of it and only have winds in the 40s.  That’s above what we prefer for pulling our rig, but the truck and trailer handled it well and we are now parked in our favorite spot at the Albany County Fairgrounds.  The scenery isn’t great, but we do have acres and acres for dog-walking (complete with bunnies).  

The dogs are having a fine time.  Cody has graduated to being off-leash with the girls while we are in the fairgrounds.  It's not as much fun as working sheep, but that will come soon.

We’ll be here until Saturday or Sunday.  John flew to East Texas this morning to attend the funeral of his cousin and dear friend, Gilbert Kalinec, of Union Grove, near Gladewater.  Gilbert was a respected teacher, football and baseball coach, and high school principal.  He was also a beloved husband, father, grandfather, cousin and friend, and a pillar of strength in the family and the community.  He will be sorely missed.