What a Combination: Polo, Art, and Red Grade Road

This was our last day in our camping spot in Sheridan, Wyoming, and the plan was to explore the area south of town. We had a very mixed itinerary, with something for the athlete, the artist, and the outdoorsman; we saw polo, art, and the Red Grade Trail here in the mountains near Sheridan Wyoming. 

We found out that the tiny town of Bighorn, Wyoming, is known for polo. That sounds interesting, and we wanted to find out more. They have not one, but two polo clubs in Bighorn. According to the internet, the Flying H Polo Club hosts players and horses from all over the world in matches that start next month. This day the front gate was locked and we could only see the fancy barns and fields from a distance. But the second polo club--the Bighorn Equestrian Center--was open on a week-day morning. The trainers and riders were out exercising the polo ponies.

We had never watched anyone strike a little white ball with a 52-inch mallet (that has a head that is less than two-inches in diameter) while galloping on a horse. That takes an athlete with good coordination!

It was so much fun to see the horses and their riders at work--or were they at play?!?

The green playing field has a backdrop of the Bighorn Mountains, and it was a lovely place to watch a little polo. Even though it was fun watching practice, we're sad that we were too early to watch some games!

We drove through the tiny town of Bighorn, which has stolen the hearts of some of the rich and famous. Mansions on large acreages are sprouting up all around Bighorn, many of them with horse barns. We also spotted some fine feathered residents. This family of sandhill cranes were parading their two babies through the tall grass of one of the horse pastures.

One of the rich citizens of Bighorn is Forrest Mars, heir to the Mars candy fortune. This family is the M in M&Ms candy. They donated an ice skating rink in the town of Sheridan--the M&M's Center. Another rich Bighorn citizen is Bradford Brinton. Mr. Brinton had homes in Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles, and other cities. But it was his Quarter Circle A ranch near Bighorn, Wyoming, that he claimed to love the most.

Mr. Brinton was a collector of Western art, and Mr. Mars paid for the museum building to showcase that art. We visited the Brinton Museum, which includes art in every medium from watercolors to oils to inks. They all are of cowboys or indians or animals found in the west. Of all the pieces, Denisa picked the ink drawings as her favorites. Edward Borein was one of Mr. Brinton's favorite artists, so we found several of his pen and ink pieces done in the early 1900's. This one was titled "Trail Head."

 It's just amazing that an artist can use different lengths and thicknesses of black ink lines to make the shading in these pictures. We zoomed in to see the detail.

Tours were available to go into the house where Bradford Brinton once lived. But we were content to walk the grounds. While it looks like it has been snowing, that's just a thick layer of cotton dropping from the surrounding cottonwood trees.

We talked to the gardener, who has a full-time job just dead-heading all the peonies this time of the year. They have rows and rows of peonies in every color available. It seems that Mr. Brinton was also a collector of plants.

They had gotten rain every day in the month of June, so the gardener hadn't spent any time watering the gardens. All the native Wyoming residents are telling us that this was an unusually snowy winter, and now an unusually rainy spring and summer. That's why it was so beautifully green this year, and the roses seem to like it. 

The gardener invited us to even walk through the vegetable garden, where they grow some of the food sold in the museum's bistro. Those bright red vegetable stems make a lovely picture in front of that mountain backdrop.

Just a few miles away from the museum was the beginning of Red Grade Road. One of our camping neighbors brought an ATV to explore the mountains surrounding this road. He assured us that our 4x4 pickup would be fine, so we headed up the very steep and narrow gravel Red Grade Road.

While it was steep, it got us to some lovely mountain meadows very quickly. The wildflowers on the mountain were at their peak!

We drove about four miles up Red Grade Road to the trail head for the Brink Trail. A new trail within the Red Grade Recreation Area, it was specifically made for mountain bikes. That's why the curves are banked. While we aren't slow hikers, we don't usually need banked curves to keep us on the trail when we are walking.

We were making this into a loop hike, and most of it was through the woods with a heavy canopy of leaves. It was during this darkened tree section that we scared up this ruffed grouse. Perhaps we should say that this grouse scared us. These large birds are generally pretty friendly, and she settled onto a nearby tree branch and let us take pictures.

Similar in size to a chicken, it would be hard for a bird this size to fly in this thick foliage. That's probably why it was easier to just smile for the camera and stay right where she was.

During these long hiking sections, Denisa can keep herself busy taking pictures of the unusual flowers blooming along the trail.

The butterflies were loving all the blooms, but they were too fast for pictures. Only this tattered moth would stay on one bloom long enough for a photo.

After a mile in the forest, we came out to find a field of dark purple flowers. While it was a beautiful sight to see a sea of purple  . .

we found that each little flower face was a thing of beauty as well.

After 3.5 miles of hiking, we made it to the high point of the hike. From here we got the best views over the valley.

As far as we could see, Wyoming was lush and green.

From our perch at the top of the Brink Trail, we could see that we have wandered into more of God's wonders.

If you look toward the upper left hand corner, you can see Mark on the edge of the cliff overlooking the valley. From there he can see a dirt parking lot far below. Our pickup was at that same level, but three miles behind us. This hike gained 928 feet in elevation, so we had a long ways to hike down.

While we hiked up on the Brinks Trail, we hiked back on the Bear Knuckles Trail to make this a loop. 

We found no bear on the Bear Knuckles trail, just more wildflowers. The locals are telling us that the extra moisture is making for the best and longest wildflower season they can remember. By the time we got back to the pickup, we had hiked 6.9 miles . . .

and Denisa finally got her butterfly picture.

That made for a full day of exploring for our last day near Sheridan. Who knew that you could watch polo, visit an art museum, and hike among the wildflowers on Red Grade Road near Sheridan, Wyoming--all in one day?

Montana Road Trip to Little Bighorn Battlefield

In our travels, we would never miss a nearby national park, and we seldom miss a national monument. So even though it's an hour's drive from our campground in Sheridan, Wyoming, we spent the day at the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in Montana. We made the road trip by driving north through the green hills of northern Wyoming on I-80.

We crossed into Montana, so we had another state sign this summer.

The Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument visitor center includes a fine museum, and we watched the film to refresh our junior high history lesson on this battle. But the best part of our history lesson was a live lecture on the myths of the battle and the situation that brought Custer and his men here that day. The lecture was given by two volunteer rangers who enjoy spending their summers in Montana, and have a passion for history. One was a retired coach, and the other was a college art professor. The art professor had spent 32 summers here at the Little Bighorn Battlefield giving presentations like this. Their passion for the subject matter and their teaching experience kept us entertained and enthralled for their hour-long lecture. Kudos to the summer rangers, who got a rousing ovation at the end of their presentation! So we were well-educated by the time we got to the driving and walking tour of the battlefield. We started at the monument on the top of the hill known as "Custer's Last Stand."

It overlooked the grounds were Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and most of the men in his regiment died on June 25, 1876.

Of the cluster of white tombstone's on that hill, Custer's is easy to spot since it includes a large black seal. The tombstone of his brother was beside his.

The driving tour took us 4.5 miles into the park, with more views of the battles that happened that day in 1876. We could see the muddy Little Bighorn River at the bottom of the hill, where the battle got its name. When Denisa visited this park as a child, it was called the Custer Battlefield National Monument. The name was changed to Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in 1991, to be representative of both sides of the conflict.

The national monument has recorded audio descriptions that follow the driving trail. By calling the posted phone number, we could listen to detailed information as we drove or walked the trails. For example, it explained that some of the plain white tombstones simply say, "U.S. Soldier" because the surviving soldiers that returned three days later to bury the 260 corpses could not identify all of them. 

We hadn't gotten any exercise for the day, so we walked several of the trails in the park. We can testify that it's getting warm out here in the plains of Montana.

We can also testify that the milkweed is ready to burst forth in bloom.

The blooms look like summer fireworks, and the leaves are a favorite of monarch butterfly caterpillars.

In conjunction with the name-change of the national monument, new head stones were also placed where the Indian warriors probably died.

A short walk from the "Last Stand" monument, a new Indian memorial has been given a place in the park.

In front of the visitor center and at the foot of battlefield hill, a national cemetery is the final resting place for soldiers from more recent battles.

The cemetery was completely full or reserved. The day we were visiting they had a rare burial ceremony for a person that had long ago reserved a burial plot here.

After a somber day of battle talks and tomb stones, we were hungry for lunch. The Custer Battlefield Trading Post has been around a long time, and didn't choose to make the name change like the national monument.

Oprah Winfrey once featured their Indian Tacos on her list of favorite things, and the trading post has become a bit of a legend. We gave them a big thumbs up, especially when our waitress brought us honey to eat with the fry bread on the edges.

We have blogged about the road-side signs that South Dakota and Wyoming display at the scene of fatal automobile accidents. In our drive into Montana, we saw that they also display simple white crosses for the same reason.

While we are comparing random facts about these two states that we are zig-zagging through this summer, we should mention milk. Milk that was bottled for distribution in both Wyoming and Montana, has two different dates stamped on the carton. Montana requires a "sell by" date that is a week before Wyoming's "best by" date. The things we learn as we travel about this country!

It was a long drive back to Sheridan, Wyoming. But this Montana road trip to Little Bighorn Battlefield allowed us to check another national monument off our list.

Good job, Sheridan, Wyoming!

It was just a 30-mile drive to move the motor home to our next destination in Sheridan, Wyoming. We have a full-hookup site at Peter D's Campground, so we needed to catch up on laundry. We also checked out this very nice college town that sits close to the Montana border on the north, and enjoys views of the Bighorn Mountains to the west. We had read about the sculptures in downtown Sheridan, so we strolled down Main Street on our first evening.

In 2001, the city of Sheridan passed a 1% optional sales tax that helped to fund public art throughout the city. They started with funding a few pieces in a plaza downtown, and now they have more than 100 pieces of art. 

The program also pays sculptors to display their work downtown for a year. The pieces are for sale to the public while Sheridan enjoys them. The city and private donors buy some of the bigger pieces to stay in Sheridan forever.

We've walked through many different sculpture gardens throughout the country, and we have to say that downtown Sheridan had some of the best we've ever seen. This one is titled "Bigger Flies for Tired Eyes," and we certainly can sympathize with that fisherman that is having some problems seeing the little things.

Most of the sculptures are western or animal themed--two of our favorite subjects.

That saddle was close to a favorite western store on Main Street--King's Saddlery and Ropes. Mark loves the smell of leather, and this store had a fragrant inventory. They also make and sell ropes of all kinds. If a cowboy can't find his new favorite rope here, he can't find it anywhere. 

We walked through the western store and rope inventory to get to the Don King Museum, that is actually across the alley. Who knew this was back there?

Mr. King was a maker and collector of saddles. He collected western memorabilia for thirty years, and displayed hundreds of saddles in this museum.

He was a leather artist, and the saddles he made were works of art. This little museum was a fun find in Sheridan!

We also drove by the Sheridan Inn. Built in 1893, Buffalo Bill Cody was part-owner and a resident here from 1894-1902. It seems like we have been stalking Buffalo Bill all summer, and we've found another town that claims a piece of this western legend.

Buffalo Bill sat on that front porch and watched as people auditioned for his Wild West Show. Now the only people on the front lawn are the bronze dancers, with Mark trying to cut in.

Sheridan has a nice park, with a biking trail and shade trees. A pasture adjoining the park was home to the city's bison herd. The newest member of the herd was snuggled into the grass in the center of the picture below.

A chain link fence kept the bison out of the residential areas that surround the park. That chain link fence was the only thing between Mark and the biggest bull bison.

The same pasture park was also home to elk, but we only found this one female.

We also drove around the university campus, and through most of the little city of Sheridan. We were within easy driving of more fun things to do in the area, so we're glad we're staying for several days. We have to say that this was one of the prettiest and most interesting towns we've visited. Good job, Sheridan, Wyoming!