Never a Wrong Turn (Ever): Cody and mustangs!

Wyoming oil well

Entering Cody

Our trailer from the gulch below

The muddy stream in the gulch

We drove the 80 or so miles to Cody through high desert hills on Saturday morning. We passed several oil wells. I had no idea that there were oil wells in Wyoming, but they were numerous on this route descreetly pumping away non-stop. We have a nice spot in a large campgound and I will be staying here a week while Mike goes back to Seattle for a scheduled medical appointment. ( He tried to go on Monday, and demonstrated that flying standby can be difficult. He left in the early morning and spent the day in Denver, unable to get a flight that would go to Seattle, so her returned in the evening. He successfully got to Seattle on Tuesday.)

Sunday evening, we took a van tour to a nearby preserve for wild mustangs. While we were driving out to the preserve, we could see big rain clouds moving over the preserve and the tour leader warned us that the roads are clay and that we might not be able to drive on them. (He even telephoned and warned the owner.) When we got there, the roads weren't bad and we drove on. At first I was thinking, there is no reason I couldn't drive out here myself. But later, as we were skidding and careening around in mud, I changed my mind. We stopped at one herd of about 30 horses first and watched them from a safe distance. I was impressed by the knowledge of the leader, but he explained that he has been doing this for about 12 years. He has named all the horses, and can tell you the history of them all. We then drove to another group about the same size. We walked through buffalo grass, sage brush and cactus to see the horses better. I saw several huge ant hills along the way. The horses appear healthy. They were very weary of us, but tolerated us from a distance. When we first arrived we saw two stallions on their hind legs playing with each other, but once we got out of the van, the horses were more focused on us. You could see the dominant stallions with their mares and there were also groups of younger stallions without mares on the outsides of the group. We saw a colt that had been born that day according to the guide. He (she) was as sweet as babies can be. I am so glad that we were able to see these horses! They are truly very beautiful! Can you tell how much I enjoyed this by the number of pictures?