Meanwhile, in Wyoming...and Colorado (aka Scenes from My Hometown and then some...aka photo dump)

So...way back in May my brother called to tell me he'd gotten his plane ticket to go home for his 10 year HS Reunion. He had been thinking and decided he wanted me to come home, too. After much debate and checking the calendar at work I decided I would go. Josh bought my plane ticket for me and we decided we'd surprise the parents and everyone else in WY/CO. No one there knew I'd be tagging along with Josh. It was SO hard or me to keep this exciting secret, but so worth keeping it was well. It was too funny, when the night before I called my Dad to say hi and he was so excited about Josh coming he could hardly contain himself. I had the biggest grin on my face because he was in for a real treat! 

Ezme never likes it when I leave...here she is supervising my packing.

I arrived in Denver (Tues, Aug 6th) about an hour before Josh. The plan was that I would wait for him and then he'd call Dad to come and get him (us). Dad always picks us up at the passenger pick-up when we arrive as parking is crazy at the airport. We planned that Josh would be on the surb and I'd be back behind a pillar up against a wall. Once Dad pulled up he got out to help Josh put his suitcase in the trunk and give him a hug. Josh then pointed over at me and said..."look who I found!" Dad was so surprised and his reaction was great. Makes me smile even now thinking about it.

Smile, Josh!

 We went and had brunch with Dad and then hit the road to head to Casper and the next surprise...

Laramie Peak

When we arrived in  Casper Josh dropped me off a few houses up the street from Mom's so I could walk down and "hide" or at least not be seen until he could have her walk out to the car. I was just around the corner of the garage and gave her a good surprise also.

After unloading the car we headed downtown to a 'farmers market' (they should come to OR to learn about farmers markets-but they are making a good effort, which is way more than when I was living there). I took this picture out the back if the car...only in WY!

The 3 of us downtown. We explored and walked around a bit after eating and walking through the farmers market. It was a nice evening and it was also nice to be walking around downtown not in frigid temperatures, which is what we have to do most of the time when we are home at Christmas.

 The Rialto is one of the refurbished movie theatres downtown.

(Wed, Aug 7th) We had a family dinner to go to (and yet another surprise) so we had a slow start to the day and then went for a drive to see how much the town had changed and grown and yet, remained the same. This is a picture from Outer Drive (aka Wyoming Blvd) with Casper down in the valley.

 Another case of...only in WY!

Long story short: my step-grandmother had adopted out a son (Dan) when she was young, several years ago he found her, his family was in the States (they live in Saudi Arabi on a US compound) and so there was a family dinner scheduled. No one knew I'd pop up here either. So I got to surprise Grandma and then my Aunt Jonna and my twin cousins- Hannah and Rebekah! That was a ton of fun.

Here are the pictures!

Rebekah, Josh, Hannah, me.

 Rebekah, Hannah, David, Carly (David and Carly are Dan and his wife Jackie's kids-2 of the 3 of them anyway).

All of us "kids".

We then relocated so we'd have something classier than a gas station and rental van in the background...hahaha.

Here is the nice family picture...

 (from L to R-ish) Dan, David, Josh. Next row: Jackie, CArly, Hannah (on the railing), me, Linda (mom), Grandma. Next row: Rebekah, Aunt Jonna! We are a good looking group if I do say...

Then we had to do the crazy picture....we kept it pretty low key crazy, though!

(Thurs, Aug 8th)
We decided to head out with deli counter picnic in hand to Ayres Natural Bridge. This is a place that I've seen signage for along I-25 for the 30 years of my life and have never been too. Josh had never been, either. Mom had years ago and then again more recently for a work picnic. I didn't know what to expect and ended up being very impressed. It was beautiful.

Here we are picnicing!

 I loved all the amazing red rock!

 One thing we decided while there (at least Josh and I) is that it's great that they've made this place so accessible and family friendly, but for us it was a little to park-ified. Good nonetheless.

 There were lots of carvings on the rock walls.

Family photo!

 Look at the imenseness of the rocks...and they went higher even than you can see in this picture...

I love my brother, dearly.

 Right as Josh was taking this picture Mom said, "say GRRRR" and the way she said it cracked me up so after the picture I laughed and laughed until I cried.

 Laughing...

 The natural land bridge. How had I never been here before?!

 Josh and I climbed up to be on top of the land bridge.

 Then Mom joined us while she handed my (brand new) camera to a stranger who took our picture and kindly stayed there until I could come get the camera. I always feel a bit unsettled about handing someone something like that if I won't be 5 feet away from them the whole time they have it in their hands. I breathed a sigh of relief when I had it back-one of my quirks.

Nice pictures she got though!

Josh and Mom from down below when I was on my way back up!

 Amazing views from up on top!

 That building is an old powerhouse. Only the shell of it remains.

 Smile!

 Brother pondering...

 These were bushes that had cool seeds on them. (Well-we think they were seeds.)

 I like the different colors....brush, red, green, brush.

 I couldn't take enough pictures of the rocks. I was in awe!

 Swallow nests...

Buffalo on the side of the road on the way back home.

 Oregon Trail marker.

(Fri, Aug 9th)
I tried to walk every day I was in Casper. Most of the time it was at night in the dark, but on Friday I decided to go during daylight to take some pictures. Mom's friend Jane was having a garage sale so Mom headed there and I told her I'd meet her there. This was the day Josh was hanging out with friends and had evening plans so Mom and I were going to have lunch at my friend Christie's restaurant and do some baby shopping for my friend Summer. In the meantime...here are some of the pictures I took that morning on my walk...
Casper from Washington Park (which is right across the street from Mom's house-the house I grew up in). On the horizon on the right you can see the big red roofed building-that is the Events Center; the buildings in the center of the picture are downtown and the green slope in the foreground is the hill we'd sled down in the winter!

 The high school I went to: Natrona County HS. I always loved this building. They are getting ready to add on/redo much of the inside of the building.

 The rest of that day was filled with eating, shopping and then Mom and I went to the movie "We're the Millers." Pretty hilarious. Another thing I'm mentioning for my memory is that we had thunderstorms and rain most afternoons/evenings while there. I loved it. It poured while we were on the way to the movie and in it.

(Sat, Aug 10th)
Josh had reunion events this evening and was going to go to The Lake (Alcova Lake) with some friends. They ended up not going, so we went instead. That morning I went to see my friend Summer and got to meet the newest addition to their family-Kelly, who was just a day or two over 2 weeks old. He was a precious boy and it was good to see Summer and catch-up. Before I left her husband and first born, Penny got home so I saw them for a few moments as well. When I got home and Mom had gotten home from a quick errand we decided we'd have lunch at the Marina at the lake so away we went...

I love the fluffy clouds, blue sky and red rocks!

 Waiting for lunch.

 The three of us with the lake behind.

 I was the only one who got in the water...

 Josh lounging on the beach.

 Mom and Josh!

 I love this picture...my reflection in Josh's sunglass lense.

 Hanging out on the beach.

 One the way home we stopped at the town of Alcova for ice cream from the little market that is tradition to stop at. It was yummy.

(Sun, Aug 11th)
On the road again. Before leaving Casper we went out for brunch and stopped to see one more person and headed home to pack. Josh and I were on the road about 1:30 to head south. We drove through thunderstorm after thunderstorm after thunderstorm. I was glad Josh was driving because at times you couldn't even see the road because of so much water coming down.

 My goal was to capture some of the lightening strikes. I kept striking out (pun intended) so I finally resorted to taking video so I could pause it and copy the still shot. Worked like a charm. All of the lightening was pretty impressive and I'm glad I caught something!

 Back in Denver we had a dinner date with Dad, his friend Ron and Ron's wife Vickie. As we were walking around looking for the  place we came to the huge compass in the ground and I thought these numbers would be good to know...

(Mon, Aug 12th)
Hang out day with Dad. He thought Josh needed to learn how to drive a stick-shift. Since I was the one who'd most recently learned (9 years prior) he thought I'd be a good one to do the teaching. So...we tried. It was a hard car to shift, even for me. But Josh eventually got the hang of parts of it. Enough to drive it out on a mostly non-used road in from of Dad'd shop. I laughed a lot (and also apologized for laughing a lot), Josh got frustrated a lot and the car got killed a lot. We all survived, but were ready for the lesson to be over.

 One of the only things Josh really wanted to do while in Denver was go to a baseball game. So, that evening we went to a Rockies game at Coors Field.

 Again...we experienced thunderstorms and showers almost every day we were there...in this picture you can see the clouds...we hoped for the best.

 The field! I like watching sports live. I love the ambiance and energy you feel when you walk into a stadium or arena. It's exciting.

 Good looking crew, eh?! I love these guys both so much.

 Rockies mascot! Dinger the Dino.

 Sunset from the stadium. I love this. The lighting, the clouds, sunbeams...all of it.

 Same picture...different camera setting- still love it.

 This picture looks foggy or blurry- it's not. Remember those clouds...then the rains came. And it poured and poured. We retreated up to the higher seats to be under cover and the game continued...

 ...for a little while anyway. Eventually the white covering came out and we all knew that that meant the game was basically over. Too much water. I think they called it in the 8th inning...so we plodded through puddles on our way back to the car.

(Tues, Aug 13th)
The only thing I really wanted to do was to go to the Wild Animal Sanctuary. It had been 30 minutes away from Dad all these years and we'd never gone. So we went. It was amazing. There were lions, and tigers, and bears, oh my. There were also sphyx, wolves and a variety of other carnivorous animals. All beautiful, all getting second chances at the semblance of a normal life. At least not in deplorable conditions that they'd all come from. Breaks your heart and makes you happy all at the same time. These grounds are full of God's beautiful creatures.

There is a Tiger house that houses recently rescued Tigers until they've acclimated to the area and surroundings. They were amazing.

 Then we started walking on the raised walkway called "A Mile into the Wild." This was created so that visitors could see the animals from above without their safety and security and comfort being risked. We saw all sorts of animals and they were all wonderful.

 Josh and Dad walking the "Mile into the Wild" walkway...I would guess it was about 2 stories up from the ground.

 It was fun trying to find the animals and also to read the info plaques about them as we walked.

 We were mesmerized by the bears (really, all the animals, but the bears were the most active). There were a ton of them, but three in particular were having fun playing...

 The bears had "dens" that were created by burying big cement piping and these were temperature controlled as winter in CO is cold and this way the bears remain comfortable. There were also lots of other things for them to climb on and play with.

 In this picture you can see the metalwork that raises the walkway...

 There were wolves and wolf hybrids...

 Alpacas (on the safe side of the fencing).

 A Grizzly bear...

 I knew there'd be a plaque like this somewhere...

 This grandpa bear was hanging out in his personal pool. He got out very slowly and carefully. I'm glad he can live out his life in a more comfortable environment than where he'd been rescued from.

 This Lion put on a show and what we heard was not the typical Lion rawr that you'd expect. It was almost more of a grunt. There is a video that is sort of hard to hear, but you can hear some of it. It was really amazing to hear.

 This was a sign at the "end point/turn around point." They continue to add animals, lengthen the walkway and create new opportunities to let animals live in a more realistic environment as much as possible. Someday it would be fun to return and see the changes.

 I had to take this picture because it reminded me of how Ezme, my much smaller cousin of this beautiful animal, naps. Makes you want to cuddle up with her...but I don't know how she'd feel about that...she'd a lot bigger than my cuddly kitty.

 Ditto...love his majestic mane. It looks so soft.

 Feeding time...

 There were also wild feline "jungle gyms" that had been built and it was fun to see them using them as prime summer afternoon napping locations.

 Looking down on the enclosure back at the Tiger house.

 One last glimpse of a strolling bear.

 Camel!!! We love camels in our family.

That there are people in this world cruel enough/uneducated enough to try and keep these wild animals as pets dumbfounds me. That there are people in this world who make it their lifes calling to rescue said animals restores my faith in humanity. So glad we could all go and be wonderfully mesmerized by these remarkable animals living their second chances.