TRAMPER TRAVELS - JUNE 28 - McCULLOUGH PEAKS

We woke up to a brisk 48 degrees on this day (Friday). As brutally hot as it has been the past few weeks, even this normally cold-natured girl wasn’t about to complain. This was our view of McCullough Peaks while we drank our coffee.

We spent a great majority of the day looking for and photographing the wild horses in the area. Also found some pronghorns as well. Beautiful animals. We found a group of close to 50 horses pretty quickly in the day, which was awesome, but that isn’t all of them.

This pronghorn was out there all alone and was only interested in a side profile portrait But I was happy he was willing to pose at all!

At one point, Mary and I got to doing what Mary and I do (other than photography and quilting) — yacking. The guys were up at the trucks. Apparently, they started yelling to us that a few of the horses were running and coming at us. We didn’t hear the guys because we were talking, of course

When one is behind the viewfinder of a camera, sometimes the view of what is going on all around you outside of the viewfinder isn’t that great. It was so windy that I didn’t hear John and Mike yelling at us. I didn’t realize when I took the shot below of the three horses that two of them were heading directly at us! Thankfully, it didn’t take long to get the shot.

However, I turned around to tell Mary that we needed to move, and . . . Mary was gone. She was already high tailing it through the cactus while I was standing there “getting the shot.” I ask you, who is the REAL photographer here, and what kind of person leaves their friend in harms’s way with a camera while they run away?! LOL. Just kidding. I have to poke some fun at Mary, though. The horses were still a little bit away from us, and we were safe. But it was funny as all get out.

In Mary’s defense, she said she told me the horses were running at us before she fled. She probably did. Like I said, it was hard to hear with the wind! 😉

I guess the real photographer would have also gotten the shot of Mary running through the cactus!

It had been very windy all day, and when we got back to camp, it was really bad. We literally had to hold doors to the campers with our bodies to get in and out.

We decided that since we had over 500 miles to go the following day to get to Kalispell, Montana, and it was so windy we really couldn’t do anything but sit in the campers, we would load it all up and get a couple of hours of drive time in.

We left McCullough Peaks around 8:30 p.m. and drove around 160 miles that night before stopping at a rest area in Greycliff, Montana.

It had been an awesome day for sure, and we were so happy to be given the gift of seeing the wild horses of McCullough Peaks.

It is June 30 as I post this. I am obviously behind on the blog, but know this. We are doing well and having an awesome time.