A Cold Restless Night.
I got up as soon as the sun warmed the in side of the van. It was a pretty cold night.
As cold as it was last night there were critters running all over Last night several were trying to get into the van and my food box which I left out side to use as a step. I am an experienced enough camper to make sure that nothing smaller than a bear could get into the box but I could here those critters trying trying.
Fortunately the van is tight enough to keep al but the smallest rodents out But they were running all around underneath and along the exhaust pipe and linkages I could here one in the engine box. I know that there is a small access from the engine box into the van so I am hoping that the creature under the hood won’t find the hole or is to big to fit through.
As it turned out, they were too big to fit through the hole. Bob says that they are Marmots. Cute fat little rodents, a little smaller than a cotton tail rabbit. Even so it was a restless night.
Heading for a new camp.
We left this camp around 9:00 taking the back road out.
Eventually we came to the main road and headed north east toward our next camp at Scotts Ranch.
On the way we drove through a couple of neat canyons.
This is entering the first one.
This is going through the second one.
We stopped for water at a spring that Bob Improved a few years ago.
After tanking up with water we continued our journey to the next camp.
We stopped at an abandoned old mining town called Roland.
Scotts Ranch.
At Roland we took a small road that went through some tight brushy areas and across a rickety old bridge.
We entered into a large valley with the river running through it.
The place where we camped is an old cattle ranch. The ranch was sold about 10 years ago to a big hunting organization and none of it is being used at the present .
We are camped on what was once their main lawn under some really nice big shade trees.
After we got settled in Bob took a walk down the “river” I hung around camp and checked out some of the buildings.
The old ranch buildings are still standing but have been vandalized and are pretty torn up in side. It must have been a great place to live in its hay day.
Now, it is a little sad.
I first wandered over to check out the barn.
The barn started life as some thing else. If you look closely you can see where the boards were once nailed to something else.
Inside the lower floor there are some good looking timbers holding the barn up.
I walked up the creepy staircase to the upper floor/hay loft. Bob thinks this was used as a bunk house but I’m not so sure.
You can see by the modern roof trusses that this building was reassembled not too many years ago. The door way on the end accesses a small what could have been a living quarters; or if this was a bunk house it may have a rec-room or many other possibilities.
The Big Blue House.
There is a large two story house that looks like it might have been built in the 1980’s.
I went in side to look around but didn’t go very far. This room was in the best shape,
The place was a mess with animal droppings and trash every where and a very bad smell. I didn’t bother to go up stairs.
The Old white House.
The next building that I visited was the old white house on the hill.
From a distance it looked like a nice little cottage in the trees.
Inside It was even more disgusting than the blue house.
There are several other buildings on the sight that were in just as bad a shape but those were the main ones and after touring them I had had enough of looking at filth so I walked around the grounds for a while to clean some of it off my shoe soles.
A Pleasant Evening.
At dinner time Bob fixed up some stir fried pork tenderloin and fried rice. After dinner we took a walk along the road.
and checked out an old dam.
End of day six.
Nevada Trip Day 7.
This whole trip we have been pestered by fly’s and Scotts Ranch has been the worst.
We both have netting for our doors and windows but some times you have to wait until evening before you can chase out the flys and put up the screen.
In an attempt to get away from the fly’s; this morning we decided to move down the road to a meadow by the river and play around in the river a bit. I needed to get my new boots adjusted and since we were planning to walk the river, this was the perfect opportunity to do so.
We moved to the meadow.
We sat around for a while, had lunch and eventually went to check out the river.
We were looking for some fresh water clams that are supposed to be in the river.
We found a few but not enough to have a real clam feed.
Heading for Bear Paw Mountain.
Around 3:00 we packed up and left the Scotts Ranch and the Brunau River heading for Bear Paw mountain.
It is a steep climbed out of the Brunau Valley. After driving for around 7 miles we took a small track to our left and followed this trail around and up Bear Baw mountain.
We climbed to where there is a spring and a flay carved out on the mountainside with just enough room for the two vans to fit comfortably.
From here we have a commanding view to the north, east and west.
We set up our chairs, I got out my binoculars a camera and we spent most of the rest of the day scanning the distant rolling yellow prairie clear to the horizon.
The clouds were building all day and by evening we were treated to a spectacular sun set.
Bob and I must have taken at least a hundred pictures each during the time it took the sun to set. Here are a couple of my favorites.
It was hard to select only two to show you.
After dark we fixed a couple of steaks and some potatoes for dinner.
The moon has been waxing throughout this trip. It is now about 3/4 full and very bright.
We sat out watching the land in the moonlight until the chill ran us in side.
End of Day 7.
Nevada Trip Day 8
The wind blew most of the night. Not hard but enough to make some brush that the van was parked against scratch continually on the skin of the van. At first I thought it was a critter scratching to get in but after a while i realized that it was just a stick moving in the wind.
I got up a little bleary eyed this morning, got my breakfast done and started working on trying to catch with the blog.
“There, I just did it”.
Window Trouble.
On the way from Scott’s ranch to Bear Baw Mountain the window track broke and the driver side window. the window actually left the track and was hard to get back on.
This morning after breakfast I took a look at the window to see if it could be fixed out here. after a thorough check out we decided that there was nothing I could do for it now. I can ether have the window cranked all the way up and secured or all the way down and secured.
I’ll put this one on the long list of door things to fix next summer.
Windy Day on the Mountain.
The wind blue all night and all day. Even with the wind it was pretty warm and the fly’s were sticking close. We didn’t do much today except sit around, watch the clouds accumulate and speculate on what kind of a sun set we will have and keep an eye out for wildlife.
The Wildlife came First
I saw a black cow below a couple hundred yards at a mud hole getting a drink and called it to bobs attention. Bob got up to have a better look and got very excited.
I got up to see what he was seeing and there was a bull elk walking across the field below us. He was heading for a stand of Aspens to our left.
around sun set I was fixing supper; fried cabbage with bacon and polish sausage.
I got a couple of pictures of the sunset, It wasn’t as spectacular as the one last night but the pictures are a good way to end this post for today.
End of day 8.
Nevada trip day 9.
The First leg of the Journey Home
It was another warm night on the mountain. There was a little breeze in the morning but not bad. There were still clouds in the sky but nothing threatening.
We left our camp on Bear Paw Mountain around 10:00 and instead of going back the way we came here we decided to do a little exploring.
We headed west on a little two track that we had noticed from the camp spot high above. It was a trail that Bob hadn’t been on before.
We bounced along through large tracts of grass lands and the occasional Aspen grove.
We came to a “T” in the road and decided to take the road on the right.
That way took us to a couple of places where we decided to turn around and a nice view into a lush canyon.
We came back to the turnoff and this time took the correct road which eventually took us to the main dirt road Where we headed west toward Maggie’s pass.
Sheep Camp.
Around 3:30 we got to our camp for tonight at Colombia creek In the aspens where we had camped a few nights ago.
We decided that this camp should be designated The Sheep Camp because of all the sheep we encountered here.
We sat around camp for a while, cooked and consumed a couple of steaks and watched the full moon rise. behind the Aspen trees.
I suppose this as good a spot as any to say good night.
End of day 9
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