Medora

Yesterday we made our annual trek to Medora for the day.  The kids planned our itinerary: Play at playground, get ice cream, go through shops/buy souveniers and taffy, go through TR park, eat, play at playground, go home.  The souveniers are always a very important part of the trip.  We buy them at the same shop every year, and for the boys, it is always some type of gun.  Eric had a particular gun in mind he was planning on selecting.  He was excited.
What the kids didn't know, was that Don booked us all a trail ride at the Medora stables.  The minimum age is 6, so Megan was finally old enough to go with us.  We did not tell the kids about the trail ride until it was time to leave the playground for our time slot.  Boys were thrilled.  Megan was not.  She didn't exactly cry, but she made it quite clear that she was too scared to ride a horse alone.  Thankfully, she did great.  She had the lead horse (after the trail guide), followed by Eric, Jonathan, myself, and Don, then all the other tourists.  The ride lasted about an hour.  Megan's horse (Poncho) umm, relieved himself several times on the trail, which brought great giggles and disgust from Eric.  Our trail guide, who is also named Megan, told the kids that they needed to hike the Wind Canyon trail in TR Park, as there are some cool sandy dunes.

Next up was TR Park.  We stopped at the Skyline Vista trail as always.

 I gave Megan my Canon Elph for picture taking.  It is hooked on my Disney lanyard and tucked in her pocket.  She took a billion pictures.  I don't know where she gets it from.

 Dramatic tourist pose pointing out a deer in the valley

 Jonathan taking aim at deer with his Medora rifle from a few years ago.  They bring these rifles every trip to 'hunt' while hiking the trails, and to protect our family from the bandits that roam the wild west.  Don had to carry the toy rifles if other people were in eye sight.  The boys were a bit embarassed to have them.  We told them that every man/Dad that would see them would smile because they would remember doing the same thing when they were young.  

 Eric is pretty sure he got the deer

 Their favorite spot in TRNP

 Trying his best to rock climb, dreaming of becoming an American Ninja Warrior

 Don't worry, his feet, at least his tiptotes, are secure beneath him

Next up was the Wind Canyon Trail.  We normally skip this trail, as it it towards the end of the Park (when driving the route counter clockwise).  By the time we get to it, we are all tuckered out.  This time, we turned left instead of right to travel the route clockwise.

 This is the head of the trail that leads down into the sandy dune area.  Don and the kids headed down.  I went the other way to take a few pics of the valley to the other direction.  

 There is a herd of buffalo on the lower right side of this pic.  They were noisy!  There were 2 wild horses between the herd and the river, but I'm not sure if you can see them in this pic.  I had my 50mm lens, which is fixed.  Zoom lens was in the car.

 Then I caught up with Don and the kids.

 This was my view once I got to Don.  This is the sandy slide the trail guide told us about.  It is much steeper than it looks in the picture.  As Megan is sliding down, I asked Don..."How are they going to get back up?"  Hmmm......The kids started crawling up, and would slide right back down.  Don kept directing them to try over here, try over here.  I am not yelling at Don, but perhaps making a few calm comments like "they are not getting up, they should not have gone down there, etc.... I prefer passive/aggressiveness to yelling.

 

 Luckily, off the side there were some stacked rocks.  I could only see from the top, so I had no idea if there were little wild animal homes tucked inside of them.  They boys were able to climb up.  Megan needed her brothers to help her, but she made it up as well.  As soon as they got back to Don and me, they asked if they could do it again.  I said no.  I love being the party pooper.

 Next, we went to the other side of the trail to get a better view of the valley.

 One of of trail guides told us that the yucca plant has edible seeds on the inside of the bulbs that can be used as survival food if need be.  Don picked one and opened it up.  The guide said they taste similar to edamame.  We did not try them.

This was one of the views from the top.  We were standing by a wooden fence barricade.  We had a better view of the wild horses, but Megan's view was blocked by the fence.  Don lifted her up to help her see.  She did not like this, so she just screamed frantically "put me down, put me down, put me down."  She does not use passive aggressive comments like her Mom.  Poor Don.

We were all pretty tired by this point. It was 6:30 central time, and we were getting hungry, so we decided that this would be our last hiking stop and we would just drive through the rest of the trail.  It was neat seeing the Park from the other direction.  There were some pretty views that I tried to take pictures of  out of my window, but Don wouldn't slow down.  In fact, I think he even sped up.   He did slow down for the small group of buffalo that was on the road.  One was right outside my window.

When we got back into Medora, Eric wanted to get his souvenier gun that he had been waiting all day to get, and that he was very excited for.  Don said we would eat first, then get the gun.  We ate at our usual spot at the ChuckWagon buffet.  They had wonderful popcorn shrimp.  We saw Mr. and Mrs. House-both are retired teachers that sub at Lewis and Clark.  The kids all went to talk to them, specifically Mrs. House.  She is the boys' favorite sub.  Megan hasn't had her yet, but she hears all the Mrs. House stories, so was just as excited as the boys were.
We finished up our meal then headed up the block to get our toys.  The sign on the door said "Closed".  They close at 7 mountain time.  It was 7:04.  We could see the staff in the window closing down the till.  I was curious if Don would pull a Clark Griswald at WallyWorld, grab one of the boys' toy rifles, and bombard the place, demanding that they open so he can get his kids souveniers.  Nope.  Reason won out, and we walked and walked to a different souvenier shop that was open (most close at 7 we learned.)  They did not have the gun Eric wanted.  Only junk.
Then, our next fear kicked in....is the taffy store still open?  Will we leave Medora without toy guns and taffy????  Don took the kids back to the playground while I raced to the Taffy store.  They were open.  We gout our pound of salt water taffy.
It was 10:30 when we got home.  We love our Medora trip.  It's fun that the kids have their traditions.  I would someday really like to eat someplace other than the ChuckWagon buffet, but the kids get so excited to eat there.  We always assign personalities to the buffalo and other animals we see.  We always joke about the crabby worker at the Fudge Depot that did not like my "Do you have broccoli ice cream' joke way back during our 2008 visit....Next year, we will plan to go to the musical.  The horses used during our trail ride are a part of the finale, so the kids are motivated to see it.