Coop's Corner: Royal Enfield Himalayan - Snowy Mtns Wyoming

Saturday, December 28, 2019

Royal Enfield Himalayan - Snowy Mtns Wyoming - July 2019

Here's Week #2 of my July/August 2019 trip west. The first week was covered a few blog Posts ago, detailing my time in the Black Hills here.

The video

Earlier Posts from the trip I made while actually out West, posted from coffee shops and libraries....

People and Food

Weather

It was a very enjoyable 2 weeks; my Base Camp style of National Forest Campground camping worked well was both affordable and convenient. Luxurious accommodations in the minivan, a tarp, a large camp stove, a cooler, the laptop....plenty of amenities present to return to each evening.

I'd wrap things up by saying that my favorite part about Week 1 in the Black Hills was the riding. The best part about Week 2 in the Snowy Mountain Range was simply being there; I rode less, stopped and walked more with emphasis on simply enjoying breathing the thinner high mountain air and wide open spaces.

Speaking of thinner air, it dawned on me only later that my first week spent in the Black Hill elevations must have prepared me for being even higher the following week. We live at 650 ft. above sea level, the Black Hills exposed me to 5000 - 7000 ft and the Wyoming elevations were 9000 - almost 11,000 ft. I never experienced shortage of breath or even noticed the higher altitudes.

This coming season's trips are still being thought about; real planning has not yet started but there are some stronger possibilities being focused upon. More when I know.

8 comments:

RichardMDecember 28, 2019 at 10:22 PM
Very cool video… “Need WiFi”.
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Coop a.k.a. CoopdwayDecember 29, 2019 at 8:12 AM
Thank you Richard. I really needed online access.....but not for entertainment. Through dumb luck and inattention, it was the 2nd month in a row that my automatic Bill Pay for Verizon, a very essential service in my position didn't get made. Their nasty gram got me very anxious during a time that online banking became nigh impossible. The coffee shop finally opened and the attendant eventually managed to get their WiFi fired up and running.

It was a long coffee stop, luckily I had time.
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motormikeDecember 29, 2019 at 5:29 PM
Stun'n scenery …. brings back many memories…
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VStar LadyDecember 29, 2019 at 7:05 PM
Cooper, I missed so much this year, how did that happen. Lo e your use of the camera carrying drone. Luxury to have a van to carry the camp g equipment. Smart. Happy New Year.
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AnonymousJanuary 12, 2020 at 10:41 AM
Great video, Doug. Thanks for sharing. Drones give us such a new and unique view of our surroundings. I use mine to record changes an the vegetation at our place in WI. Too bad so many folks get so weirded out about them...Chip
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Others say....

"it was auspicious to approach any situation from a deferential, inquisitive place. Conceding that there is much to learn is the best blueprint for discovering something new." ----B. Fuller

The Man straightened stiffly above the block of salt fixed to the stake and looked at the young cattle ringed about him. The pasture was holding out well and the stock was looking good. This bunch would be ready to sell in another month, maybe sooner if the market was right.

A stir among the cattle down near the river brought him round to face the swinging bridge he'd built years before. Someone was coming toward him from the bridge. Someone in breeches, but it didn't look like a man, somehow. What was a woman doing in his pasture this time of night?

He bent over the salt again; maybe if he paid her no heed she'd go on past and let him mind his own business. He heard her footsteps come nearer and stop. "Good evening," she said.

Her voice was smooth with book learning but friendlier than most, and somehow almost shy. When he made no answer she went on, "I've been sitting on your swinging bridge....I thought I'd like to say thank-you...." Her voice stumbled a little, then she tried once more.

"You are Mr. ____". His name sounded strange in her voice, but she went on to tell her own.

"That's what they've called me the last sixty-eight years," he said, looking past her face to the hills fast darkening under a single star. "I reckon the woods are free for those that like to walk there."

The unfamiliar voice laughed a little. "That's what Emerson said: the grove belongs to the man who walks in it with an open heart....On that basis I guess I've owned part of your woods for a good many years.....". She made a final effort. "I've always wanted to thank you....."

Something deeply hidden stirred in him. "There's a stump up there, in the notch of the woods", he said slowly, "that before the timber grew so tall you could stand on it and see all over this country."

He kept still a minute, remembering, then, "I used to stand up there an' look at things, an' wonder how they come to be like they was, an' how the hills was created, an' all the things in Nature.... I told my wife I guessed all the religion I ever had I got standin' on that old stump, a-wonderin'..." He turned his face away from her.

She helped him out. "I know about that, a little. This afternoon I saw......." Her account of a thing she had really taken time to look at eased him, and he answered with telling of the badger den at the foot of the swinging bridge.

When she had gone, he turned to watch her. After a moment she stood clear and unmoving against the sky. You could hear the sounds of the river where she stood. She was one that could stand still long enough, he thought, really to hear what a body was saying, or a river.

Then she walked down the farther side of the slope and was gone. ------Margaret Snyder from A Chosen Valley

Fall was the end of harvest, end of the growing season, a burst of color and sun-warmth before killing frost turned the land gray and cold. Fall was a moody time, full of both life and death, a time when we were reminded of the power outside of us, reminded that the seasons happen to us. We do not invite the change to come.-------Ben Logan, from The Land Remembers

When you get those rare moments of clarity, those flashes when the universe makes sense, you try desperately to hold onto them. They are the lifeboats for the darker times, when the vastness of it all, the incomprehensible nature of life is completely elusive. So the question becomes or should have been all along, what would you do if you knew you only had one day, or one week, or one month to live. What lifeboat would you grab onto? What secret would you tell? What band would you see? What person would you declare your love to? What wish would you fulfill? What exotic locale would you fly to for coffee? What book would you write? ------- Ben Tyler

We were also cautioned about journeying far from home. As an example of the dangers, the town had a badly crippled lady named Lucy, who as a girl had traveled to New York City. As she traveled along a sidewalk, sightseeing, she was struck by the outstretched hand of a suicide who had leapt from high above. Her spine had been shattered and for the rest of her life, she was to walk bent forward at the waist, tapping the sidewalk with two black canes. Whenever the subject of travel to a big city was raised, someone would say, "Just remember what happened to Miss Tripp." ---- Ted Kooser, from Local Wonders

"Steamboats are like wedding cakes without the complications...." ----Mark Twain

"It's not about having lots of money, it's about having lots of options......." -----Chris Rock

As the very proud father of three former ponytail wearers, hopefully I can get away with this....."For the past few years it's been fashionable for young women to wear ball caps and to snap the strap on the back under their ponytails. I like the looks of that, their shiny ponytails jauntily swinging, but it's hard not to think of the rear ends of horses. There's a piece of harness called the crupper that goes just under a horse's tail to keep its nose down. If the horse lifts its head to look for a way out of whatever predicament it's in, the crupper tightens and hurts the horse. But it's foolish for parents to think that a ball cap might keep a young woman from running away. Anybody can see they're made for running." ------Ted Kooser, Local Wonders

"I tell the guy's girlfriend that the only difference between the book's main character Phaedrus and myself is that I am neither brilliant, tortured or insane, she looks at my bike and there is an uncomfortable silence." --------ahendepe (a.k.a. Vermin)