I recently made a solo road trip back to Five Springs, Wyoming to do some paragliding. I'm packing the whole trip into one post, so it's quite long.
It was quite a scenic drive - the hillsides were covered with yellow flowers. (yellow sweet-clover?)
I'd been checking the weather forecast, since I didn't want to make the long drive for nothing. It wasn't perfect, but it looked fairly good. Unfortunately, it turned out to be quite bad. There were thunderstorms every day, and even a tornado watch at one point. Needless to say, it wasn't good flying weather. I managed a couple of short flights when the weather cleared temporarily. There were thermals (unstable weather is actually good for that) but there were always clouds and rain nearby. Hard to have an hour long flight when it's going to be raining in half an hour!
Right after one quick flight these mammatus clouds rolled in.
I did manage to fit in a few hikes in between the rain, or in this case in between the clouds.
And of course, I took photographs :-) I actually took quite a few with my phone for a change since I didn't take my camera when I was hiking in hope of flying.
After a few days of camping, I spent a night at the Wyoming High Country Lodge. (high = over 9000 feet) to get a shower and a change from camping food. Driving there, I came across this moose and calf.
There were still lots of wildflowers around up high.
As soon as I pulled into the parking lot I saw these birds on the ground and grabbed my camera.
Later I found there were lots of them around the bird feeder.
It rained most of the time I was there, which was good because I could relax inside out of the rain, but bad because I couldn't explore the area. The moose make themselves at home around the lodge. One young one was sleeping beside the hot tub, and others were wandering between the buildings.
On the way back I spent a night at the Grasslands National Park campground and had fun taking photos of the wildlife.
Usually the hawks take off as soon as you stop the car, but this one stuck around for long enough to get a few photos.
The prairie dogs are always fun to watch. They look a lot like Richardson's Ground Squirrels (aka gophers) except bigger and fatter.
This next prairie dog was obviously nursing.
She probably had offspring like this bunch.
This bison was laying down (sleeping?) quite close to the road when I showed up. He proceeded to roll in the dust before wandering off. (I stayed in the car and photographed out the window.)
There were lots of different birds around. I tried to stop and photograph various ones, but this (Mourning Dove?) was the only one that didn't immediately fly away.
See all 93 photos in this album
It was quite a scenic drive - the hillsides were covered with yellow flowers. (yellow sweet-clover?)
I'd been checking the weather forecast, since I didn't want to make the long drive for nothing. It wasn't perfect, but it looked fairly good. Unfortunately, it turned out to be quite bad. There were thunderstorms every day, and even a tornado watch at one point. Needless to say, it wasn't good flying weather. I managed a couple of short flights when the weather cleared temporarily. There were thermals (unstable weather is actually good for that) but there were always clouds and rain nearby. Hard to have an hour long flight when it's going to be raining in half an hour!
Right after one quick flight these mammatus clouds rolled in.
I did manage to fit in a few hikes in between the rain, or in this case in between the clouds.
And of course, I took photographs :-) I actually took quite a few with my phone for a change since I didn't take my camera when I was hiking in hope of flying.
After a few days of camping, I spent a night at the Wyoming High Country Lodge. (high = over 9000 feet) to get a shower and a change from camping food. Driving there, I came across this moose and calf.
There were still lots of wildflowers around up high.
As soon as I pulled into the parking lot I saw these birds on the ground and grabbed my camera.
Later I found there were lots of them around the bird feeder.
It rained most of the time I was there, which was good because I could relax inside out of the rain, but bad because I couldn't explore the area. The moose make themselves at home around the lodge. One young one was sleeping beside the hot tub, and others were wandering between the buildings.
On the way back I spent a night at the Grasslands National Park campground and had fun taking photos of the wildlife.
Usually the hawks take off as soon as you stop the car, but this one stuck around for long enough to get a few photos.
The prairie dogs are always fun to watch. They look a lot like Richardson's Ground Squirrels (aka gophers) except bigger and fatter.
This next prairie dog was obviously nursing.
She probably had offspring like this bunch.
This bison was laying down (sleeping?) quite close to the road when I showed up. He proceeded to roll in the dust before wandering off. (I stayed in the car and photographed out the window.)
There were lots of different birds around. I tried to stop and photograph various ones, but this (Mourning Dove?) was the only one that didn't immediately fly away.
See all 93 photos in this album
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