Gun Range

Wednesday, July 29, 2020 – Fort Bridger, WY

We were lazy this morning and slept in.  Well at least the kids did.  After lunch we headed out to the shooting range to let the kids try shooting a real gun.  :)  Mike had gone over the safety aspect the day before and taught them the parts of the gun and the range commands he would use while they were shooting.

It is a nice range with a lot of natural back stops.

Tony set Miranda all up for watching.  She even got a fan.  :)

On the way there, Alex said he was not sure he really wanted to shoot a gun.   Once we got there he said he would give it a try.  Once Mike gave Alex information on shooting a gun he took his first couple of shots.  Tony was using another scope on another rifle to see where each shot hit.  

Alex’s first shot hit the X (center of the 10 ring) in the center of the target.  Come to find out, several shots hit close to the bullseye and all were in the black…….outstanding shooting for his very first time.  He saved the target to take it home to show his Mom and Dad.  But now Alex was very excited about shooting and continued to do very well.  Here is a picture of his target.

Avander was up next.  

He did ok.  All 10 of his shots were on the paper and 2 were in the black, but none were near the bulls eye.

It was Ami’s turn next.  She thought it was ok, but didn’t seem real impressed with the idea of shooting a gun.  She only got one of her 10 shots on the paper.

After I shot my pistol a couple of times, Mike let Alex and Avander each have a turn at shooting one round from my revolver.  Neither one really seemed to like the recoil of my .38.  :)

Mike finally got a turn at shooting his gun.

And then Alex and Avander got another turn at shooting the .22 rifle.

Overall, I think they had a good time shooting. 

After dinner we came up with a new game.  We used our pickleball racket as a bat and we played “Pickle Bat”….This is the name Ami came up with.  It is kind of like whiffleball but we used our pickleball paddles as a bat.   We had 3 pine trees on our site that were perfect to use as bases and we used the cement pad as home plate.  Alex did a very good job at catching the fly balls.  While I was pitching he was my outfielder.  :)  Both Alex and Avander did a good job of pitching.  We all had a good time playing!

When we came back inside, I found Alex sitting in the chair and reading my blog.  I asked him what he was doing and he looked up guiltily and said “You wrote a story and I am reading it.  And the story has ME in it.”  I told him yeah, he is in it a lot.  He asked if he could read it at home and I told him yes, but he would have to have his Mom or Dad put the link on his tablet.  He was surprised and intrigued to find out I was writing a blog and he was a part of it.

It was another wonderful day!

Fort Bridger State Historic Site

Tuesday, July 28, 2020 – Fort Bridger, WY

Once everyone was up and moving this morning, Tony and Miranda hopped on my and Mike’s bikes and the kids all hopped on their bikes, while Mike and I walked to Fort Bridger State Historical Site.  It is only a little ways away.  Actually I jogged a little, so I could get ahead of them and take this picture.  :) 

I am not sure the kids really liked seeing the fort again, but I really enjoyed seeing it for the first time.  :)

There is a gift shop at the fort that the kids really wanted to get to because Papa promised they could each have a small bag of jaw breakers.  The jaw breakers in these bags are about pea size.  And Uncle Tony bought each of them a large jaw breaker.  Alex wanted to buy his mom a shot glass, but she did not answer the text message I sent her until much after we left the park.  And he did not want to buy it unless she said it was “Ok”.  :)

When we got back around to the small creek that runs through the property, the kids wanted to wade in the water. 

Van and Ami and Tony and Miranda walked on towards the officer’s quarters and Alex stayed in the water a little longer.  Alex was saying that there were big crawdads in the water and was pointing them out.  Evidently, one of them climbed on his foot.  All of a sudden, he screamed and jumped straight up in the air out of his shoes and tried to run across the top of the water to get to shore.  Once there, he continued jumping up and down yelling that the crawdad had bitten his toe.  He was convinced that it had attacked him.  Mike and I couldn’t hardly talk we were laughing so hard.  After we chased his flipflops down the stream and got them out of the water, we checked his toes but saw no signs of any bites or pinches.  :)  I think the crawdad may have climbed on top of his foot causing him to freak out.  But it was absolutely hilarious to see him jump up in the air and try to run across the top of the water.  He didn’t find any of it funny at all and wouldn’t come near any other crawdads we saw anywhere after that. 

Before we left the park I needed to get a picture of the sign.

As we were headed back to the RV Park we met Dee coming out and she told us the park had no power.  In fact the entire town of Fort Bridger and a couple of other communities had lost power.  She was not sure when it would be back on.  Well it was lunch time and we did not want to open the refrigerator, since we did not know how long power was going to be off.  We called Crazy Ate in Mountain View to see if they were open and they were!  :) We had a nice lunch there. 

Our plan for the afternoon was to go swimming at the Aquatic Center in Lyman.  So after lunch we called the Aquatic Center to see if they had power.  There was no answer…Guess we won’t be swimming today.

After lunch we did run by the grocery store to pick up food for lunch and dinner for the next couple of days. 

Once we got back we just hung out around the trailer for the rest of the afternoon.  Avander brought a couple of plastic badminton rackets and shuttlecocks.  We did not have a net, but that did not stop us from pretending a net was there.  :)

Alex made some brownies for us to eat for dessert for tonight.

While I was cooking dinner I noticed Avander crying.  Tony talked to him and found out one of the badminton rackets had been broken and now he would not be able to play badminton with Papa.  So Mike/Papa went out and talked to him and told him they could play with our pickleball rackets instead.  That perked Van up.  So Mike/Papa pulled out our pickleball rackets and balls and they played with those instead.  That seemed to do the trick to make Avander happy again.  They volleyed the ball back and forth until dinner was ready and had a great time. 

 After dinner we played Uno.  It was a lot of fun.  After playing Uno, Mike got his .22 Henry Mini-Bolt out and spent some time with the kids teaching them about gun safety and the various parts of a bolt action rifle.

It was another wonderful day!

Float Down the Green River

Monday, July 27, 2020 - Fort Bridger, WY

Just before lunch we packed up and headed for Green River, WY to float down the Green River.  Once we arrived we picked up some Taco Bell for lunch and headed over to Expedition Island to eat.  After the kids were done eating, they played on the playground until the rest of us were done.  Even I played on the playground.  :)

Once everyone was done and we cleaned everything up, Tony and Mike checked out the map to see where to park the other car for our out-of-water spot.

We were told it is about a 2 to 4 hour ride down the river.  

Once Tony and Mike headed out to drop the Suburban off, the kids wanted to play in the river.

Then Alex wanted to do an "I Love You" picture for me to send to his Mom and Dad.  :)  Ami is doing the heart, Alex is pointing to the camera and Avander is pointing to himself.

Alex and Avander really enjoyed floating down the river, Ami did not want to try it.  She was fine just wading in the water with me and Miranda.

Soon Tony and Mike returned and it was time to blow up the tubes.  Mike and I bought 7 tubes and Tony brought the big tube from his house.  Well, I am real glad we bought as many tubes as we did since 2 of the tubes had leaks in them.  They didn't even make in the water.  

We finally got all of the tubes blown up and we tied them all to the big tube.  We all climbed aboard and headed down the water.  :)

At one point Alex wanted to untie from the big tube like Uncle Tony.  Mike and I and Ami were on the big tube at the time.  And it just so happened that we came near an eddy and Alex got caught up in it and hauled back upstream.  Alex called to us to come back but we couldn't as we were in the middle and going downriver pretty fast.  Alex really did very well and rose to the challenge.  He couldn't get his tube out of the eddy and backwater and only panicked a little bit, but he got out of the tube and swam out into the current and came downriver.  He left the tube behind and lost a water shoe.  Mike was able to swim to the side of the river and work his way back upriver to get the tube, but the water shoe was lost for good.  In the picture, the eddy is back by the bush that is just to the right of the rock wall.  The current kept us moving and Mike struggled to get the tube but finally got it.  We are just really glad we insisted the kids wear their life jackets.  After Alex was back with the group, he wanted to know why the backwater area was called an "eddy".  Tony told him he wasn't sure, but the opposite of an eddy (the current) is called a "Barbara". LOL!  I didn't get it but everybody laughed at Tony's joke.  :)

We soon arrived at the take-out spot and deflated all the tubes so we could fit them back in the car.  It took us a little over 2 hours to get here.  We all agreed that this river rafting ride was much better than the kayak ride we did in Montana when we went to Glacier in 2016.  The Green River was fairly fast and only had two spots that were shallow enough that we had to walk the tubes through them.  

After dinner the kids wanted to play Wii with Uncle Tony.  

It was another wonderful day!