Ibex Hunting near Rock Hound State Park

After spending ten days at Rock Hound State Park in June, we decided we liked it so much we would return here during the winter months.  We were fortunate enough to receive a camp ground hosting position, so we will be staying here for the winter and will not have to move every two weeks.

Here is a photo of our camp site.  There is plenty of shade and privacy.

Here is the view from the north end of the trailer.  All the campsites are above us to the East.

This view of the Visitor's Center also shows the Florida Mountains to the south.  We work in the Visitor's Center part of the time, and the rest of the time we serve as Camp Ground Hosts.  We work four days on and four off.  On our off days there is a single man who works four days.

I am going to skip ahead on my posts and feature a successful Ibex hunt.  We met Jack Ellis in September and he told us about the up-coming Ibex hunt.  He promised to let us know if he was successful during the bow hunt in October. 

He was good for his word.  When he came back he was accompanied by his two sons, Caleb and Josh.  They hunted mostly in the Florida mountan range.

Here are some of the Ibex that they were hunting.  They were out of range for the bow in this picture.

Josh and Caleb almost imitated the goats to get a better view.

Their approach to stalking the Ibex was daring and breath taking.

In the long run, it was all worth it.  They had movies on their i-phones they shared with us, but I do not know how to put them on the blog.

Thank you Jack, Caleb, and Josh for sharing your hunting experience with us and allowing us to share it with our blog visitors.

I will close this blog post with another beautiful sunset view from Rock Hound State Park.

Return to New Mexico

We left Roy, Utah around 1:00 pm, which was not our plan, because I went to the shooting range with our son.  It was worth the delay.  Because we got started so late, we hit the rush hour traffic through Salt Lake City.  We arrived in Price, Utah in time to find a spot in the Walmart parking lot.  Dinner was a trip to the in-store Subway.  Do not plan on camping in the Walmart parking lot if you expect quiet.  A Semi refrigeration truck pulled in close to us with his motor running all night.  We moved to another location on their lot, but it did not help much.

This was our first rest stop at Tie Fork.  It is surrounded by some beautiful rock formations.  Behind the building in this view is a nice grassy area with benches and an old re-stored train.

Engine 435, the restored narrow gage train that ran out of Helper, Utah.

As you can see, the engine was restored, or created to be like the original by Original Creations, INC., Helper, Utah.

This interesting rock formation is visible from the parking lot of the visitor's center.

Here is a typical water tower for supplying the water for the steam engine.

We traveled through Moab without a stop and headed for Farmington, New Mexico.  We were hurrying because we wanted to get there before the DMV closed.  We thought we needed to get our new pickup and trailer inspected and licensed.

Before we arrived in Farmington we received a call from an angelic like employee of the New Mexico DMV informing us our pickup was licensed and our registration was being sent to our address.  She also emailed us a copy so we could show proof of registration if necessary.  Because it was for a new vehicle, no vin inspection was necessary.  The same was true for the trailer but it took longer because the dealer took his own sweet time sending the inforation to the DMV.

Our next stop was at Navajo Lake State Park in New Mexico.  It is one of the largest lakes in the state, and it spans the border of New Mexico and Colorado.  I thought it was ironic since we had kayaked Navajo Lake, Utah with our son, Ben.

This photo was taken from the dam across the Colorado River that forms Navajo Lake.

It is a beautiful lake, but we did not spend much time here because we could not find a suitable camp site.  We were able camp for one night in a reserve site.  There was a site we could get into on Friday.  We had arrived on Wednesday, but could not find a site for Thursday so we headed for Heron Lake State Park.

There were no First-Come sites available at Heron so we went on over to El Vado Lake State Park.  We camped there for 10 days, then moved over to Heron on a Sunday morning and found an almost perfect site.  It was a pull-through surrounded by trees and shrubs, affording us privacy and quiet.

At El Vado we were kayaking when we got caught in a thunder storm.  In one cloud burst we got drinched.  It let up, and before we got back to the dock another storm moved in.  Lightening stuck the side of the mountain about a mile from our location.  We were holding our breaths and silently praying we would get back to shore safely.

We took up our hobby of hummingbird watching at Heron.  This time we had our own feeder.  In this view you can see a Roufus hovering by the feeder.  This little guy was very territorial and shelfish.  He fought off as many other hummingbirds as possible.  One time he actually locked feet with another mid-air, and they fell to the ground.  Both got up apparently uninjured and continued to fight for a sip of sugar water. 

New Mexico sun sets are always beautiful, and a good way to bring this blog post to a close.  The next post will take us back to Leisburg, Manzano, and Rock Hound State Parks.

Willard Bay South Marina

Todays post takes us to Willard Bay's South Marina near Roy, Utah.
Willard Bay State Park has two marinas and campgrounds.  We were using our OnStar for directions as we came in from Idaho.  It gave us directions to the North marina.  We missed the turn off and went into the South Marina by mistake.

There was one first-come, first-serve sight available, and we took it.  It turned out to be the right decision because it was closer to our son's apartment in Roy, Utah where we wanted to be.

We enjoyed kayaking in between our trips into Roy to visit with him, but I did not think to take pictures with our camera.  We did get some photos with our phone. 

This picture of a hawk that flew from post-to-post and posed for us also shows the marina in the background.  In the distance to the left of the marina is the campground behind the trees.

This photo was taken at Antelope Island, also near Roy, Utah.  Our son took us on a tour of the island.  We watched these bison for a while, and he played a recording of a bison call over a speaker.  It was a recording he downloaded from the internet.  It must have been part of a mating call because the bull immediately went to the female bison and began sniffing her.  She showed no interest in him.

My next post will be our trip back to New Mexico by way of Navajo Lake State Park, Heron Lake State Park, and Elvado Lake State Park.

Flat Head Lake and Big Fork, Montana

Our adventure continued northward to Montana where we had a short but joyous visit with our daughter, granddaughters, and great grandchildren.

This a view of the marina on the north end of Flathead Lake, Montana. Our daughter, Mary, purchased the use of a pontoon boat for the day, and treated us to a trip on the lake.  We enjoyed a relaxing trip and picnic aboard the boat.

Captain Tony steered us out of the marina onto the lake.

Here is a good view taken as we left the marina.

We went out onto the lake along the Northeast shore.

There are some beautiful homes located on the hillside along the shoreline of the lake.

Right along the shore we spotted some very nice homes.  Our whole family could fit into this one.

It was a very hazy day, but some people were enjoying fishing anyway.

This is an expansive view of the lake as we headed Northwest.

This is an island on the North end of the lake.  It took us about two hours to get this far.

Some folks choose a more primitive way of getting from place to place on the lake.

I always love to capture images of Nature's creatures.  These two are enjoying sun bathing on a private dock.

After our adventure on the lake, we enjoyed pizza with the family and watching the deer mow the grass in the yards surrounding Robyn's house.

This mother had to keep protecting her twins from a yearling doe that was most likely her fawn from the previous year.

We also took some photos of our family.  I hesitate to post them because I don't want the blog to become a family album.  Never-the-less, here are some picture of a couple of our granddaughters and their beautiful children.

Becky, Colton, Wyatt, Robyn, and Scarlett.

Grandma and Sean were added.

Grandpa and Sean joined for the photo-op.

We posed with just the great grandchildren.

Becky joined us for this one.  We greatly enjoyed our visit with all of them.

On the next blog post, I will show a couple of pictures of Antelope Island, Utah, and Willard Bay State Park, Utah.

Big Hole River, Glen, Montana.

We left Cedar City, Utah and headed north to visit with other family members. The Madison River in Montana was our planned destination for a 4th of July campout with Eileen, Jared and Sandy. 

Alas, it was wall-to-wall people along the Madison.  We could not find two canpsites so we headed west.  The first night was spent in a pull off for trucks. As the traffic declined during the night, we were able to get a peaceful night's sleep.


We found two very nice campsites along the Big Hole River.  The fishing was excellent, although I just enjoyed the ride and watched Jared real them in.

This sign marks the entrance to the campground.

The boat launching area is located just down stream from the bridge.  Jared and Eileen launched their raft upstream and took it out here.

This is a view of the river down stream from the launch site.

Although the ground was a little uneven along our campsite, it was a quiet, almost private site.

Jared and Eileen's 5th Wheel was an easy walk from ours.  As one can see, there was plenty of room.  We were using our pickup to transport the raft to the launch site.

We made a side trip to Bannack, MT and enjoyed a guided tour by a gentleman who was a retired history professor.  He filled us in on a lot of the history of how the Idaho-Montana border was determined, and how the mining in the area was carried out.  The food and supplies were shipped in from Salt Lake City, UT.

I did not have my camera along, but took some pictures with our Android phone.  

This is a group photo taken on the stairs of the hotel in Bannack. Sandy was the photographer so she is missing in this photo.

Here is the hotel from the outside.  We took some other pictures, but I am having trouble getting the blog to open them from my downloads.  Here is a link to the Bannack website. A lot of information about the "Ghost Town" can be found on the site, although we were told by our guide Bannack had never really been a ghost town because one lady had continued to live there.


A movie was purchased that had been filmed in Bannack.  Jared rigged up a huge movie screen on the side of his 5th wheel.  We had fun seeing the scenes in the movie we recognized from Bannack.  I'll leave a critique of the movie to others, but I'll suggest that it did not get two thumbs up.

Our Stay in Cedar City, Utah

Cedar City was a very pleasant stop-over on our way north.  We enjpyed our visit with Ben and his family and friends.  Ben took us to Navajo Lake where we kayaked with our grandson, Josh, and two friends of their family.

Josh was surveying the lake after we got my kayaks unloaded.
Ben had another kayak which had been loaded on his car.  It was the kayak I built when I was attending Oregon State University. It is about one year older than Ben.

Ben also took along his pontoon boat from which to fish.

Navajo Lake provides a nice beach for launching the kayaks and pontoon boats.  Margaret and I went all the way across the lake, while Joah kayaked to the east end.  

The fishing was great, but the catching was poor.  However, we all enjoyed ourselves.

Ben is one of the scout leaders in his church, and took his boys to a small lake set aside for youngsters to fish.  He was teaching them how to fly fish.  They had a good time, and the fishing was better than it was at Navajo Lake.

The boys fished from the dam that impounds the water.  You could probably throw a stone clear across the lake.

This boy's father had joined us, and here they proudly displayed their catch.

Of course the trip would not have been successful if the scout leader had not been able to teach them fly fishing without landing a couple himself.

Not all of our time at Ben's was spent fishing and kayaking.

Chrissy came to visit with her three boys while we were there.  This is Logan panning for the camera.

Here are two of the boys and Ben and Chrissy in the background.

This is Haley's new little kitten.  Cute, mischievious and active.  I teased her continually about stealing it and taking it with us.  I'm sure she realized I was only teasing, but played along with me anyway.

The next blog entry will see us at Big Hole River, Montana.