Mini Vacation to Laramie, Wyoming

It was time to show the boys our 40 acres in Laramie, Wyoming. They've been asking about it for so long. We got into Denver, rented a car, and headed off to Laramie. We got in about 9p local time. We had been traveling all day, so we all hit the hay. That morning we got breakfast and headed off to see our ranch. Yes, right now, it's just wide open ranch land, but someday we plan to build on it. We jumped in our rented jeep and journeyed the 20 minutes to the property. The boys loved running around checking everything out. We spent a few hours there, before our planned meeting with one of my storm chasing partners (Paul) and his girl friend. Paul wanted to see the land, so he followed me to our destination. After the ranch, Paul promised the boys he would take them fishing.

We grabbed his equipment and went fishing along the Laramie river that runs right through town. This was the boys first try at fishing. I thought they would be bored after the first hour. But, they couldn't get enough. Zack caught his first fish that day. I had to pull the plug on our fishing expedition about 4 hours later. They just couldn't get enough fishing. Paul thinks they have fishing in their blood. The next morning was a busy one. After breakfast, we visited the beautiful University Of Wyoming campus. It was truly a site to see. We had planned to go fishing again with Paul before he left. Once again, we met up at the river and fished for while. Zack caught 2 more fish(rainbow and brown trout.) They were not big enough to keep, but they really enjoyed the excitement. Since we didn't have any sun lotion, and it was almost mid-day, we decided to get out of the sun. We said good bye to Paul and got in the car headed on long driving loop around the County. We headed up to the ski resort area of Centennial. Before reaching Centennial, we stopped at one of the Overland Trail Markers. These markers help settlers get across the plains before the Trans Continental Railroad was built. This was some of the prettiest areas I have seen. Once in the mountains, there were plenty of rivers and lakes to fish in. We fished for about 15 minutes at two lakes at 12,000 feet of elevation. The wind was blowing and it was pretty cold. We tried our luck at some more fishing for a while, but then decided to move on to the rest of our adventure. We headed down the other side of the mountain towards Saratoga, where they have the natural hot springs. We witnesses a lot of the Wyoming countryside, which as you can imagine was green, open and very hilly. We all really wanted to see the dinosaur museum at Como Bluffs. Como Bluffs is a National site that claims to have one of the largest dinosaur grave yards in the world. It also has a house made out of dinosaur bones. (Believe it or not) When we got out there, 1.5 hours later, we found the site to be closed and for sale. We looked around the property for a while, but nothing was open and not a whole lot to see. At least we got to see the house of bones. We headed back home. On the way we stopped at a old town called Bosler. It's a town mostly deserted with old houses that somehow stay standing in the big Laramie winds. When we got back into town we decided to head back to the ranch. The boys spent the next 3 or 4 hours having a blast on the ranch. There are thousands of different types rocks to sift though. We continued to build the Mowers large rock formation. (Top picture) The boys built their own rock formations. We played around the ranch until sunset. What a day! The next day we had to start heading back to Denver. On the way back we stopped and saw the Ames Monument. These two brothers were instrumental in creating and building the Trans Continental Railroad. Right across the road from the Ames Monument was the highlight of our day, Vedauwoo National Park. This is a beautiful camp ground with hiking trails and huge rock formations. We spent about 3 or 4 hours hiking through the trails and bouldering on some huge rocks. The trail eventually led us to a large pond covered with green reeds, tall pine trees and tall grass. We travelled on, looking at all the beautiful sites for a while, but then had to turn back. Some of these rock formations were 80-100 feet tall. Some even taller. We had a lot of fun on our hike, but now it was time for our journey home. We got back to Denver with out any problems. We all had a fun trip.

To see my photo show, please click on the following link: http://www.dotphoto.com/Go.asp?l=jackmowers&P=&SID=225068&Show=Y Or you can go to my "My Picture Shows" on the top right of this blog, and click on "Laramie, Wyoming Mini-Trip."


Check out a couple video clips:

Vedauwoo:

Lot 87: Wild Horse Ranch

Santiago Peak Hike

August 16th, 2008--Zack and I got on the trail to the top of Saddleback Mountain at 8am. A few months back Zack, Trent, and I made it to the upper Holy Jim Trail head. At the time, Zack wanted to summit. I told him, we didn't have enough food or water. He continued to ask about the peak, so we planned a bid for the top. We brought along enough energy bars and energy gels for a bid and half. The problem, for me, was the all important fluid. We each brought a water pack full of water and couple extra large bottles. I was also bringing along a back pack for all the food and extra water. With everything we were taking, the packs were very heavy, especially for Zack. Although the Holy Jim trail is very beautiful, I would have preferred the Maple Springs trail up Silverado Canyon, but it's still closed due to October 2007 fires. I also, would have preferred to get on the trail earlier, but since I knew we would be hiking pretty slowly, we would be hiking during the heat day anyway. It took us about 3 hours to arrive at the upper Holy Jim trail head on the main divide. We took a little break and then we're off up the main divide. This trail, up the Main Divide, is a wide fire road climbing steeply in places. While hiking up, we occasionally benefit from the forest canopy. As we were hiking in the heat of the day, we would often take short breaks in the shade of the mountain. Often we would benefit from cool pockets of air that felt wonderful against our sweating t-shirts. At time I felt my steps becoming shorter and more difficult. This was mostly due to the steep grade and the thinning air. As we started to head over the mountain, we could see over into the Corona area. We could see Lake Matthews and good part of the Inland Empire. It wasn't a totally clear day, but we could make out a lot of land marks like the 15 freeway. It seemed as though we had our second wind by now. The repeaters on the top of the mountain were close now. The air was much cooler now. Finally, we rounded what ended up being the last switch back. Somehow out of the corner of my eye, I spotted something in the road moving. I looked up and saw a snake. In fact, it was a rattlesnake dragging it's lunch to it's lair. As we walked by, giving it a wide berth, the snake looked at us just to be sure we were not interested in it's meal. That was cool to see. Another 300 yards and we were at the top. It was just like I remembered. It took me a second to get my bearing and I took Zack over to the point over-looking Orange County and I snapped a few photos. We took a break in some shade under one of the repeater towers. We filled up the last of our water, and we were off down the mountain. It had taken us 5 hours to reach Santiago Peak, so we wanted to get moving. We blazed down the mountain, but our quads were screaming with each pounding step down the mountain. We reached the upper Holy Jim Trail head in little more than an hour. Now down Holy Jim trail to the car. By this time, this 43 year old Dad was having difficulty keeping up with 8 year old. We were both really tired, but it seemed like he could have climbed the whole thing again. Finally, we got to the trail head and back to the car. It took us 5 hours to get up, 3 hours down, and almost 1 hour at the top. Now the dirt road back to the paved road. Before we even got to the paved road Zack was asleep. I guess he was tired after all. We made the successful summit of Santiago Peak. Now it's time for this old man to recover.

Our Reserved Adopted Puppy

Well, we finally decided to start looking for a puppy. This time I did a lot of online research and found a couple of shelters that had puppies. The shelter we decided on is called the Friends of Orange County's Homeless Pets. In the beginning, I was looking at a couple of pups, but they were quickly adopted out. The person in charge informed me that she just got a momma in with 5 pups. The only problem was they were only 2 weeks old. She said at 5 weeks, we could come take a look and put in a reservation on one that we liked. So yesterday we went over to see the pups. The fostered pups were conveniently housed a stones throw from my Mom's house in Tustin. When we walked in the back yard, 5 of the smallest little puppies you've ever seen came to greet us. I don't ever remember seeing pups so young. You can imagine how hard it was, at 5 weeks, to try and decide on one. They were all so cute. The Momma is an American Staffordshire Terrier, and we don't know what the dad was. The great thing about this foster home is that both humans are animal control officers, so they have a lot of experience working with animals and especially dogs. They have a young child and they have adopted other American Staffordshire Terriers. The benefit of this is the puppies are socialized with other dogs and children. This breed is already great with children, families, and other dogs...as long as you bring them up right. Here is a link to the breed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Staffordshire_Terrier Anyway, the foster home is going to deliver our pup in about 3 weeks. She will have most all of her shots, spayed, and microchiped. We don't have a name yet, but we are working on that. We are all really excited!