Day 16- June 8- Horsing Around

We were excited to start our day off horseback riding.  We had stopped in yesterday hoping to do the full day ride to Alpine Lake, but learned that the most they can do right now is their hour and a half ride because all of their longer rides are closed due to snow.  When we arrived at the barn early, we learned that we were the only people on our ride and the cowgirl let the boys start off by feeding the horses grain.  They were in heaven!  

She showed them how to leave their hands open and she let them feed almost every horse with a small handful.

They had a mounting chute to get on the horse easier . The boys both acted like they had done this a thousand times before.

They adjusted our saddles and we were off.  The scenery was beautiful and we saw a fox eating a squirrel, a red squirrel, a mule deer, osprey and several chipmunks.  It was cloudy so we didn't have perfect views of the lake, but it was still pretty impressive.

You can even see the Sawtooth Mountains through the trees.

Partway through the journey, the guide tied up her horse to get this family shot of all of us on our horses.

In this picture, you can see Redfish Lake, but the sun is not shining on it.

Hunter with Walt.

Logan's horse was Skye.  Hunter's horse loved to follow Skye everywhere.  

My horse was Peach-  appropriate given that I am fro Georgia.

David with his palomino- Buck.  

After we were done riding, we headed back to Sunny Gulch Campground, to hook up our camper and leave our beautiful site with the view of the Sawtooth mountains and headed out of Stanley, year round population of 63.  

Once we were hooked up, we headed out and almost our entire drive followed the overflowing Salmon River.  The mountains and the river together have such beautiful chemistry.  Oh, how my soul longs to live in the mountains.  Life feels so much slower out here than it does in Atlanta.  

We also saw this Osprey both in and circling his nest. 

The pictures don't do the drive justice.

We stopped to picnic along the river.  

One of our favorite things to notice out here is signs that we will NEVER see in Atlanta- like the one below.  We did not see Bighorn Sheep- even though we were looking.  

We crossed into Montana, but took both pictures of both state signs on these smaller roads.  When we crossed into Idaho for the first time, we were on a busy interstate and stopping did not work out.  The sign next to the Idaho sign is to measure the snow--- IN FEET!

We also saw the street signs here that always have a slower speed limit at night.  There is usually a truck speed limit sign posted 10 feet later that would read 60 and at night 55.  

From there, we went to Big Hole Battlefield which is such a sad story about the white army treated the Native Americans from this area.  

As we continued driving, we saw this big horn sheep lady friend in the middle of the road.  We were thankful for some wildlife as we had not been seeing any today and we were a little disappointed.  We saw the sign "Game Crossing"  for 200 miles and no game in sight until we found her.  My boys were very excited.

We stopped at a place to eat in Hamilton, MT called Nat's grill.  They had great burgers and the BEST. SWEET. POTATO. FRIES. EVER!  

We stopped to boondock for the night at a Walmart in Missoula.  There are 15 campers here doing the same thing.  It does not get dark here until 10 pm and we saw a rainbow.  Tomorrow, we are headed to Glacier National Park.