Winding Down In Kaycee Wyoming

 

Things are winding down here in Kaycee Wyoming. We finished up on July 4th and now we will be headed back west a little ways to Landers Wyoming. There is a lot of area to work over there and they anticipate it will take about six weeks.

Wyoming is such a wide open and beautiful state, and we are fortunate to be able to see things most people can not get to. Part of our work area included the Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch’s hide out at the “Hole In The Wall”.

The outlaw period in Western History lasted only about 30 years (1875-1905), but the cattle rustlers, horse thieves and train robbers of this era still capture my imagination.  Between escapades, the Wild West outlaws fled to hideouts to plan their next move. The Hole-in-the-Wall in Johnson County, was one of the major hideaways.The Hole-In-The-Wall refers to both the  valley where gang members pastured stolen livestock, and to the narrow trail up over the red wall, the only way into the valley from the east.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Historians claim as many as 30 or 40 bandits hung out in six log cabins here, although the cabin foundations have slowly been covered as the years passed.  There’s no record that Cassidy ever killed anyone, and many tales about his cunning and kindness persist.

This is the red wall and the valley.

This is looking straight into the “Hole”, it just has a narrow trail that leads up and over the back.

Here are a few pictures from the area.

Steamboat Rock

We have to be really careful about driving up over a hill because we could drop straight off in a lot of places!

One of the perks of being out where hardly anyone else goes is that sometimes you get lucky enough to find one of these!

Elk Antler

And have a herd of wild horse come up to us.

We even spotted this beautiful Pheasant.

We also took a weekend and went back to Custer SD with Steve and Joan, and met Phil and Rudee. They are also from Indiana and have been traveling for several years. We have followed their blog for years and now we were able to meet them. They are currently working at the Crazy Horse Memorial where Steve and Joan worked last year as well. They were gracious enough to open up their home so we could spend the night. Thanks Phil and Rudee for letting us stay with you. Steve and Joan know the area really well and was able to lead us on some real pretty drives through the Black Hills.

Mount Rushmore

Crazy Horse

Devils Tower

Needles Highway

It was a fast pace weekend but a fun one. We were also able to sneak in a rodeo. They have one  here in Kaycee every other Friday night. It was a small one but still very entertaining for a mere $5.00 admission price.

Kaycee has been fun but after a couple of weeks we are ready to move to the next place. Kaycee has a population of 263 and we will be moving to Landers which has a population of almost 8,000. We may feel a little crowded with that many people!

Enjoy Your Day!