The Brinton Museum & Quarter Circle A Ranch

The Brinton Museum

Friday's trip with Jenny & Craig was to the Brinton Museum &  Quarter Circle A Ranch just outside Big Horn, WY.  We were able to take advantage of a tour of the farm house in addition to walking through the Brinton Museum.  

Brinton was a business man who used the ranch as a get-away location from his businesses.  Once he and his sister died, his collection of artifacts, antiques and paintings were gifted to the museum.  When we visited, the museum was hosting a showing of carved saddles and Native American ceremonial clothing.  Here's a few pictures to give a feel of what we saw.

The Brinton Farm House

A small example of the hundreds of books and unpublished manuscripts 

View of the Little Goose River from the ranch's nature trail

 

Buffalo, WY & the Big Horn Mountain Range

We're currently in Buffalo, WY for a couple of weeks.  Jenny & Craig are nearby in Sheridan, and we're using them as tour guides for this area.

People have asked us why we're in Buffalo.  We're here to visit the Big Horn Mountain Range.  We've stopped in Buffalo before and like the area.  We just haven't toured the Big Horns.  So far we've gotten out and drove up US 16 and took Crazy Woman Canyon back down.  Today Jenny & Craig introduced us to the Tongue River Canyon.  Still got more sightseeing to do, though.

Here's a taste of what we've seen so far:

Big Horn Mtn Range (US 16 looking West)

Crazy Woman Canyon

Crazy Woman Canyon

Crazy Woman Canyon

Tongue River Canyon

Tongue River Canyon

Tongue River Canyon

Tongue River Canyon

Tongue River Canyon

Tongue River Canyon

Spearfish, SD & Spearfish Canyon

Getting the blog up to date.  We spent the week of May 16-23 near Spearfish, SD.  We'd gotten out of the Sioux Falls area the morning of the bad winds & weather on May 15th and headed west to just the western edge of the bad weather warnings for the night.  Made it to Spearfish the next day.  We traveled in some stiff 30-40 mph headwinds and got the worst fuel mileage we'd ever gotten (high 5s).

First time for us to spend anytime in Spearfish, and we found we love the area.  Foul weather still found us though, and we lost about three days of sightseeing.  Still made it to Spearfish Canyon, though.

We left Spearfish on May 23rd and headed west to Buffalo, WY (intersect of the north end of I-29 its junction with I-90).

Here's some pics from our walk in Spearfish Canyon.

Roughlock Falls

Roughlock Falls

Spearfish Falls

Mid-May Update

 

We're fine and continuing our way westward.  Since our last post, we've made stops in DeForest, WI; Albert Lea, MN; Sioux Falls, SD; and we're currently near Interior, SD just south of the Badlands NP. 

We were fortunate in that we left Sioux Falls the morning of the bad weather this past week (Thursday).  We made it to the western edge (Presho, SD) of the predicted severe weather for South Dakota that day.  We got high winds and some of the rain, but nothing of the 100+ mph straight line winds that hit southeastern South Dakota.  

Friday we had a leisurely trip over to the Badlands with a stop at the Minuteman NHP where we heard a ranger lead program from one of the former missile silo commanders.  The silo tours are currently closed, but the ranger program was excellent and (we're told) gave us the same information - just with pictures.  

Badlands is...well... badlands.  We first came here in 2002 and have stopped for an overnight at least twice since that time.  This time we stayed for the weekend.  Unlike our experiences of the past years with Grand Tetons and Yellowstone, this park is not busy.  And the campgrounds are not full.  

We move on westward tomorrow to Spearfish, SD for a week, then on to Buffalo, WY for two weeks.  That's the plan, anyway.

Thanks for dropping by and checking up on us. More pics of the Badlands below. Until next time, David