We only got a half-day of exploring, but we have electricity!

We've liked our stay at the campground on Lake DeSmet. But we had planned to have an electric hook-up site for this four-day stay. When the last electric site was taken just 10 minutes before we arrived two days ago, we waited anxiously for someone to leave from one of those 8 coveted electric sites. We stalked those sites, reading the dates of the planned departures on the registration slips at each site. No one left the first day, and only one camper was scheduled to leave the second day. So we had to stay at the campground until they left at noon, so we could slide right into that site before anyone else knew it was available. It's not a fun part of first-come-first-served camping, but we really needed some electricity for our refrigerator. Moving the motor home into its new spot wasted a half-day, so we didn't have time for a long hike or a long drive back into the mountains.

So we headed just 12 miles north into the tiny town of Story, Wyoming. You know it's a little town when the first pedestrian you see on the town street is a deer.

Besides an abundance of deer, we also found that Story has an abundance of poppies--and they are at peak bloom right now. Interesting plant fact: Poppies are toxic to deer, so they know to leave them alone. This is one of the few flowers that can be grown successfully in deer country.

Our destination was the South Piney Creek Trail, and the trail head was on the out-skirts of town. We were getting a later start than usual, but we needed to get some exercise today. We found that the trail follows Piney Creek, and the creek was running higher than usual. We could barely tiptoe on rocks in the water to stay on this trail that was supposed to run along--not in--the water.

Then the trail got steep as we headed up into the foothills. While the skies behind us were blue with puffy white clouds, the skies in front of us were turning an angry gray.

We climbed to the top of the trail when those angry gray clouds started producing thunder. We were feeling a little vulnerable and exposed. When the trail brought us back down for a river view, we decided that was a good turn-around spot. We usually make hikes longer than expected, but this time we shortened our hike and only went 2.1 miles.

After the rain storm blew over, we made another stop in Story. They have a fish hatchery, and we went to feed the brood stock in the pond. Interesting animal fact: These are the mature fish that provide the eggs and sperm that they will milk and then produce the fertilized eggs that they will hatch here. We found that these big fish will splash you when they jump from the water in a race to get to the fish food. We both got surprisingly wet.

We have visited fish hatcheries all over the country, and we always seem to learn something new. When we crossed the Wyoming border we saw the signs that all boats--even inflatable kayaks--must be inspected before they can go into any water in this state. We got our inflatable kayak inspected and we have the permit on board to prove it. This inspection process takes lots of man-power and money. But it looks like it is working for Wyoming. The picture below shows the yellow and green circles where the invasive zebra and quagga mussels are causing problems. So far, the entire state of Wyoming is free of those nasty mussels.

We took a drive out of town to find a couple historical markers. Sometimes the roads we find are just as interesting as the historical site, and we often stumble into some wildlife sighting like this pronghorn. Interesting animal fact: Pronghorns have horns instead of antlers, so they don't shed them every year like moose, elk, and deer. But they do shed the sheath that covers the horn. You can barely see the horn in the picture below, so perhaps it is in the process of regrowing the darker sheath.

This memorial is in the middle of a green pasture, and it commemorates the "Wagon Box Fight." In 1867, 28 soldiers that were cutting wood were attacked by 3,000 Sioux warriors here at an improvised fort made of wooden wagon boxes that were turned onto their sides.

Just a mile away from the memorial site, we saw movement in the tall grass beside the road. It looks like a couple of sand hill cranes are spending their summer in Wyoming. Interesting animal fact: Sandhill cranes live for 20-30 years, and they mate for life. These large birds stand around four feet tall, so they can be spotted even in this tall grass prairie.

We drove further down the dirt roads of Wyoming to another battle memorial in the middle of the sweeping green hills.

A magpie was strutting around the perimeter, talking to us at this lonely site. Interesting animal fact: Magpies are very vocal and can mimic sounds around them. They eat underground invertebrates, and they walk around most of the day until they hear their next meal underground.

The big plaque on the side of the rock obelisk explains that on December 21, 1866, a group of around 1,000 Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho warriors ambushed 81 men in Lt. Colonel Fetterman's command at this site. There were no survivors among the army personnel here on Massacre Hill.

After all this history and animal facts, we headed back to our campground on the lake for a tranquil evening. We had a nice sunset over Lake DeSmet, glad that the motor home was now sitting in a site with power. That's good, because tomorrow we have a full day planned and won't be able to run the generator. We only got a half-day of exploring today, but we have electricity!