It's beautiful in Wyoming

Hi again everyone and apologies it's been so long since we had an update to the Blog. We've been very busy over here with visitors which has been great. Wyoming has really turned on the weather, it's a beautiful 26C outside at the moment, and after the long cold winter it really makes you want to get outdoors; we've even managed time to go to the Harley Davidson shop, just for a look !!!

Both mum and dad and Jack and Kerry Blinkhorn have been here in the last few weeks and because we went to some of the same places I've only included a selection of photos for the album at the end.

Mum and dad arrived about 3 weeks ago and it was great to catch up with them. In keeping with the Lawrence's travel plans they were delayed 4 hours in Denver; first with mechanical problems then Denver airport was closed with a tornado warning.
Anyway they made it safely and it was great to see them. They had flown Melbourne - Sydney - Narita (Japan) - San Francisco and spent a few days in SF before coming to Gillette.

On their first weekend here we went west across to Cody via the battlefield where the indians had a win at Little Bighorn. On the way to Little Bighorn we stopped at a place called Wagon Box Fight; it's where 40 soldiers and settlers held off 600 indians by circling their wagons and was the first place that the repeating rifle was used in the west.





The Little Bighorn battle field was a really interesting place and the national parks have it all laid out so you can see where the various battles were fought and who died where. That's General Custer's grave in black in the photo.





From Little Bighorn we went across to Cody (home of Buffalo Bill Cody) and stayed at the Irma hotel. We then took mum and dad through the wild west museum there which they enjoyed.
It was then back to Gillette for the week and while I worked, Gae showed them the sites of mid west Wyoming and took them out to Devils Tower for the day.




The next weekend we went east to Deadwood but unfortunately the weather wasn't kind to us and it rained the whole weekend. We did our best with what we could do in the rain and managed to get to Crazy Horse, Mount Rushmore and Custer State Park which was good if not a bit damp.

Mum and dad took off for Denver on Tuesday and then caught the train across to New York. At the minute they are up on the east coast of Canada, just north east of Niagra Falls. We will go and meet them in Denver when they return next Friday.

On the Thursday after mum and dad had gone Jack and Kerry arrived and there was plenty of ctching up to do.




They were only here for a week so we went east to Deadwood again. The weather was great this time and we visited Crazy Horse, Mt Rushmore and Custer State Park once more.
Just a tip for anyone else thinking of coming over; we have probably seen those attractions enough so we'll point you in the right direction but you're on your own.
Just kidding!! When we'd been there previously it had either been snowing or raining so it was nice to do it on a couple of beautiful days.

At Crazy Horse we caught the bus to the base of the mountain which was great; it was there that we saw our first beaver dam. Unfortunately the beavers were asleep.





In Custer state park this guy got out of his car to photograph a bison. He was standing about 5 feet from my open window when the bison charged and we thought him and the bison were both coming into the car. Luckily it stopped but it sure gave us a fright.



Saturday night was spent in the No 10 Saloon in Deadwood (where Wild Bill Hickock was shot) listening to some great music and talking with the No 7 bull riding champion in the world. Poor kid was only 24 and spent his life travelling around the US and Sth America visiting rodeos and putting on a show; he only made $700,000.00 US last year.

On Sunday we drove across to Rapid City and went to Bear County USA. It's a wildlife park where you can drive around and the animals are all wandering around. It was very hot and they all seemed to be feeling the heat but it was still good fun.

We managed to catch a great photo of a bear sitting in a pool of water; he looked very content. There were also about 10 baby bears in one enclosure - very cute.





Jack and Kez left us on Thursday so we are on our own this weekend and will be putting our feet up. We had some wonderful news during the week that the project has been extended and it now looks like April 2008 before we come home. We will be home for a visit at christmas but we'll have to survive one more Wyoming winter.

I've put another link to quite a few more photos so please have a look through tht and we'll be in touch in a week or two.

Cheers

Visitors at last