We had a short drive to Mill Iron Ranch to meet our new best friends. We were greeted by a cowboy that gave us a brief run down of what to expect. We were all amazed when he told us how high we would be going today, about 2000 vertical feet! The ridge above rocks in the picture below is at about 300 feet. We were all glad we had horses to do the hard work! Dave and I had huge, beautiful work horses that pulled sleighs in the winter.
We were soon underway with our fearless guide in front of us. When the kids heard there were delicious, sweet purple berries on the trail up for grabs they were ready for a mid-morning snack!
These horses worked so hard getting us up to the top and the views along the way were spectacular! Ryan's and Brayden's horses loved to stop to have a snack along the way. Our guide gave Brayden a thin branch to give his horse Cisco some extra motivation on the rear, but he would only barely tap him. I can only imagine how much that was making the horse laugh! My horse Peggy kept him motivated to keep moving by getting all up in his business when he slowed down! We stopped a few times to let the horses catch their breath.
Once we made it to the top we were all amazed by the view. Our guide lined us up for a picture with the Snake Range, Grand Tetons, and Jackson all around us. Here are Laney & Squirrel, Grammie & Rounder, Brayden & Cisco, Ryan & Rango, Jen & Peggy, and Dave & Piggy.
We slowly made our way down and felt all kinds of new muscles aching along the way. The horses took their time and we were able to really take in the view around each bend.
Once we got back and off our horses we realized what kind of pain we were in! We each said goodbye to our horses and thank you to our guide for our wonderful ride. It was time to change and get Dave into town to work for a few hours. But first, we needed to go to Auto & Diesel for a car check. On our way to Jackson my car started making a strange noise whenever the A/C was on. Shortly after that the fan for the front seat stopped working. We knew we would be fine in the areas we were going for the next few weeks but once we hit the Dakotas and went even more south we'd be in trouble. Grammie unhooked and followed us there then we all piled into her RV to head downtown.
After dropping Dave off our first order of business was to find parking - not easy in an RV! The second order of business was to find the photography business that took our rafting photos so we could check them out. The third, and possibly most important, order of business was to find some local ice cream. We walked past Hagen Daz and found Moos. When I saw they had won the award for best dessert in the state with their huckleberry ice cream I knew we were at the right spot. We took our cones to the park and sat down to enjoy. Each of us got the Lola puppy dog eyes for a lick or a bite, but Laney held out the longest. She had a good strategy!
While we were sitting in the park Marilyn and Heather found us to see what we were up to. As we were chatting, Heather got the call from Auto & Diesel about my car. The smile across her face told me I probably was not going to enjoy the answer. Apparently we have a creature obstructing our fan. And they are unable to take it out because the Nissan dealer needs to. And there is no Nissan dealer in this town or on our route until we get into Montana. Oh dear. Time to buy some Febreeze!! We grabbed the photo Grammie bought for us and headed to go pick up my car before picking up Dave. The mechanic laughed at me as I took the keys from him wishing us luck.
We had a date with Pinky G's this night recommended by friends in town as well as the internet! Lola was so patient as we all ate some delicious pizza!
Next we just had to go see the nightly gunfight in the square. It was short, but the kids enjoyed it even with their ears plugged!
On our way home we headed to the store to do a little birthday shopping for someone while he rode to the campground with Grammie. We also purchased a few quilts for the tent sleepers as we were heading into some colder and colder weather! I dropped off the people in my car and headed back to the grocery store as we were going to be in the Tetons and Yellowstone for the next week and we needed to be prepared!
By the time I got home everyone was in bed and it was time for me to start laundry. Unfortunately other people had the same idea so I could only do one load at a time. I do enjoy that part about camping - getting all the laundry done in one hour if you have an industrial or multiple washers and dryers available! It was a good opportunity for me to catch up on the blog before we left a few posts for while we were out there until I could find some coverage. I couldn't sleep after getting back to the cabin because we were excited about getting up before the sun the next morning to hunt for grizzly bears!!
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