We're not getting any sympathy for our long 12-hour days!

We've really enjoyed the gloriously cool July weather that we had high in the Bighorn mountains of Wyoming. But we had read about Devil's Canyon National Recreation Area in the basin below us, and we decided to drive there. We left at 9:00 a.m. from our very cool campground and headed west on Highway 14A. Like always, we started seeing wildlife just a few miles away. A herd of elk were grazing at the edge of the forest.

At another pull-out, we scanned the mountain high between the patches of snow. The cell phone picture can barely see the dots . .  .

but with our binoculars we saw a herd of more than 200 elk grazing in the tall mountain prairie. We have never seen so many elk in all our lives!

From the mountain pass, we saw distant views of "the basin" far below us. Then the steep descent begins out of the mountains.

We should stop and explain a little about Highway 14 where we were camped near the red "You are here" arrow in the picture below. That is Burgess Junction, and we were loving our stay in the motor home there. But this large yellow sign is at the junction, and it explains the two highway options. The upper highway on the map that heads straight west--Highway 14A--includes a ten mile section of 10% grade. Trucks and RVs are suggested to take Highway 14 which heads southwesterly at a little less steep grade--only 18 miles of 5-7% grade. When we leave in the motor home, we will depart on Highway 14. But today in the pickup we were driving the steeper Highway 14A.

Signs on the highway warned of this treacherous road. In fact, RVs and trucks were required to stop at the yellow sign pullout so they would know what was ahead. If you chose to take 14A highway, you would have a very steep 10% grade for 10 miles. Yikes!

They had runaway truck lanes that looked like they would just catapult the truck right into outer space.

They also had brake cooling turnouts, and we were glad that we had already decided not to take the motor home this way a few days later. For this day trip in the pickup we got to see Highway 14A and knew that we made the right decision. We had a couple hikes planned in the basin, and the first one required a two-mile drive up a narrow steep road--with no guard rails and no lines.

It's another one of those roads that looked like silly string on the GPS screen.

We started the Five Springs Falls trail in the forest, anxious to see the 100-foot waterfall at the end. We hiked along the creek, swollen with all the recent rain.

But when we got to the end of this half-mile trail, we couldn't see the falls! Mark stood beside the lower falls, but that little waterfall was not what we came to see.

The trees were too thick, and the boulders at the bottom too big to get a view of the whole waterfall. Mark is not one to accept defeat like this, so he did some monumental rock scrambling.

Even though he got quite high in the rocks, he only got a partial view of the Five Springs Falls.

Our best view was actually when hiking down lower, through a hole in the trees. It's a little unsatisfying to go on a waterfall hike that doesn't get you close to the falls. But we're not getting any sympathy for things like that.

It is in the 80's down here in the basin, and we're not used to this heat. But we're not getting any sympathy for highs in the 80's in July either. We planned another hike in "Rainbow Canyon." So we drove to the trailhead and put on our sun screen. Once over the opening bridge, we couldn't even see the trail because it was so overgrown.

It was muddy under all those weeds, and then the mosquitoes found us. We quickly turned around and headed back to the pickup. We saved ourselves a lot of sweating today. We must be snobby hikers but that didn't look like fun at all! But we're not getting any sympathy for hikes that we don't take.

The real reason we came to the basin was to see Devil's Canyon. A ranger told us a week ago that the road was closed, and we could see why. Intense rain had flooded the river basin and washed debris over the only road going into the canyon. But it was cleaned up today, and we were able to cross the state line into Montana for this road trip.

We continued down in elevation to the Devil's Canyon overlook.

The third biggest canyon in the United States, it was quite a sight to see from the rim. We have wandered into another of God's wonders. The water is usually clear, and that would have made a prettier picture. But the recent flooding has turned the water to the color of chocolate milk. We found one boat that was speeding around the canyon curves, hoping not to hit the debris in the dark water. You can see the waves caused by the boat at the bottom of the picture, but we're so far away that the boat itself is just a dot.

We had heard that mountain sheep hang out in this area, so we scanned the horizon. No luck with spotting wildlife. But as we drove out of the viewpoint area, one was standing right beside the road.

She looked ragged with her winter coat still hanging on, but she obviously was used to traffic and picture-takers.

Our other quest was to see the wild horses of the Pryor Mountains. Now that we are out of the Bighorn Mountains, the next range to the west of this basin is the Pryors. A wildlife refuge is home to around 200 wild horses, and we were hoping to see some. A call to the Pryor Wild Horse Centre told us that the bands were now hanging out at a very remote location. But sharp-eyed Mark spotted this one in the sage brush far from the road. It was the only stallion we found, but we're not getting any sympathy for that.

The pictures aren't good because of our old camera and the long distance, but we took them anyway. At the Wild Horse Centre, we found out that this horse was identified as Hidatsa--a bachelor grulle horse born in 2007 with two-tone mane. Even wild horses have people monitoring them and naming them.

We stopped in at the Wild Horse Centre in the town of Lovell, and got more information about the wild horses. The horses hang around together in groups known as bands, that have one stallion and however many females he can attract. It was an interesting stop, and we also got to see the four wild horses that the centre has purchased over the years. The stallion named Stiles had a pen all to himself.

We have visited some larger wild horse programs that have yearly roundups and sales. But the Pryor Mountain group hasn't sold mustangs here since 2005. So these are very unwild horses now. They still wear the tattoos given to identify them.

We learned at the Centre that they also have the features of a wild horse. These horses have more triangular faces with wider eyes and narrower noses than most domesticated horses.

After a stop for lunch at the Mustang Cafe in Lovell, we were ready to get out of the heat and back to our cool home in the Bighorn Mountains. We could see the mountains in front of us as we crossed the Bighorn River.

We went back up those 10% grades and watched the temperatures change from 90 degree to 68 degrees. Ah, that is better! Since we only took one hike so far today, we stopped in at Porcupine Falls on our way home. We had directions to the trail head on the Alltrails app, and they matched the ones in a printed trails brochure we got at the ranger station. But as soon as we got on this very rocky road, something didn't seem right.

Porcupine Falls is a very popular hike, and we couldn't imagine all those people going over this road. It's one of the worst roads we had seen. In fact, Denisa decided to walk it to take these pictures because she could move faster than the pickup as Mark carefully made his way over these big rocks.

It was the longest half-mile ever! Then google had us making a right-hand turn into a grass field where a granite boulder had been placed. We finally figured out that google had made a mistake, and the brochure only copied that mistake. We had to turn around and make that bumpy long half-mile drive back. But we're not getting any sympathy for that bad road. We found the correct way to Porcupine Falls on a very nice forest service road. Along the way we found a mother moose and her tiny baby settled in a lush valley.

The baby never stood up, but we could see its ears sticking above the grass.

The hike to Porcupine Falls was a short 1.2 mile. But we went down a long 446 feet in elevation. It was a steep hike, but the views of the falls were outstanding at the bottom. One waterfall would be pretty, but getting a split falls was twice as nice. We have wandered into another of God's wonders today!

The second falls was formed when mining operations in the area drilled a diversion tunnel to move water to a new location. 

We had the waterfalls all to ourselves until a family of three arrived and offered to take our picture.

Then Mark headed up the trail to take a picture from high above the falls. If you squint your eyes just right, you can see Denisa's arms raised as she stood at the edge of the water.

Likewise, if you squint your eyes just right, you can see Mark with up-raised arms on the side of that tall rocky cliff. Then it was time to make that long steep hike back up to the pickup. But we're not getting any sympathy for that.

For the last four days we have been monitoring the closed forest service roads. We had several hikes that we would like to take, but the dirt roads were closed because of all the rain. We're not getting sympathy for the muddy roads. As we drove to Porcupine Falls, we saw that the road to Bucking Mule Falls just had the barricades removed. We weren't planning on that hike too, but it's just a couple mile's drive down a newly-opened road to get there. Would we be crazy to start another hike today?

Yes, we would be crazy. It's 5:30 p.m., and we were starting the longest hike of the day to Bucking Mules Falls. The good news was that it was a relatively smooth hiking surface, so we could make good time. The other good news is it was in a thick forest with few reasons to stop and takes pictures. Denisa only took one flower picture, and only because it was spot-lighted through the forest canopy by the sun that was lowering in the sky.

It's unusual, but we hiked 2.5 miles with no stops to get to the waterfall viewpoint.

Then we took lots of pictures! You can see Denisa, sitting out on the edge of that rock outcrop high above the falls. She could look down on the power of Bucking Mule Falls, with water falling 550 feet down that granite slot.

We've done three very different waterfall hikes today--one where we couldn't see the whole waterfall, one that ended in two falls, and this one down below us in the distance. All three were evidence of wandering God's wonders. We made our last hike of the day a fast five-mile hike. We only stopped when a snake was in the middle of the trail.

We assessed his head shape, eye formation, and tail and determined he was harmless. So we scampered right along the trail after we hurried him across.

It was almost 8:00 by the time we were driving back on the forest service roads watching the sun sink lower in the sky.

We were hoping to make it back to the lodge to buy a piece of pie this evening, but we still had to drive through the section of Highway 14A where we have seen the most wildlife. The herds of elk were on the hills above the highway, and we had to stop to count them. Between this morning's drive and now the twilight evening drive, we counted over 300 elk in four different groups.

While we spotted a few moose this morning, we had many stops for moose sightings this evening.

The moose were out in force this beautiful evening.

Some were further away and not worth taking pictures. But others were very close.

We only took pictures of the ones that were close to the fence in waning light.

Sometimes it's fun to take a picture that shows the beautiful landscape that these animals live in. In total, we spotted 23 moose today.

We seldom take pictures of the deer, but we tallied 16 deer today.

Add the one wild horse, and one mountain sheep, and we had a great day of wildlife sightings! It was a slow last five miles to our campground, because that is where most of the wildlife live. It took us close to an hour to make the drive home. But we're not getting any sympathy for the slow speed that we were driving.

The restaurant was closing up, but they did let us purchase our third piece of pie for our third night here. They didn't have too many choices at 9:00 at night, but the triple berry pie was stuffed full of yummy berries.

We left home at 9:00 this morning, and we didn't get home until 9:00 this evening. It was a long and tiring and beautiful day! But for some reason, we're not getting any sympathy for the long 12-hour day we were spending having fun!