These Knees Were Made For Walking

I am better today but still looking forward to getting home. We should be there in about six weeks. I am hoping to be at Coffee on October first.

Jack and I have taken a few hikes around the area and the landscape is stunning. The skies are blue and white, the colors you find in religious paintings or Georgia O’Keefe’s work. Yesterday, we walked along a trail called Hidden Hoot Trail. It is part of a series of trails called Soldier Ridge. We got to the top of a ridge and looked out over the horizon. We could see Purple Mountains in the distance then smaller mountains closer to us. From the ridge, which was desert like, we could see cattails in the valley or gulch. They grow in wetlands so it must have been pretty swampy there. There was very little shade and it was hot. I had thought we could walk/hike at least five miles but only managed about three and a half. Jack certainly felt the heat and I was fatigued pretty easily. I also forgot we were at altitude so that contributed to getting tired easily, I am sure. Sheridan is over 3,700 feet above sea level.

Folks here watch for fires the same way we watch for hurricanes. They watch for smoke in the distance and the weather forecast to see how close the fires might be getting to their house or community. And there are a couple burning in the Big Horn Mountains. I can see the smoke coming from the other side of the mountain range.

As I have said my dad grew up here. A friend is watching “1923” the prequel to “Yellowstone”. My grandparents and my dad and his siblings lived here, I know, from about 1926-1940s. I found the house that my dad was a teenager in before he joined the service in 1943. I have not seen the show, nor Yellowstone but I may have to check them out.

Also close by is Little Big Horn, the scene of Custer’s Last Stand. It seems like we see Custer as a hero or a martyr. He lost the battle and all of his battalion in the fight. But we were the interlopers; in fact, the enemies. Seems like that should be the story. I wonder how the Native Americans talk about that event.

Jack and I are packing up today then going out for dinner with my cousins. We leave tomorrow, for Guernsey, Wyoming.