Temple pauses long enough for a few shutter clicks as she checks on half of the band that have already moved into a lower open area.
Fun fact: Temple is Piedra’s daughter. They’re not in the same band, but Temple’s adult daughter is still with her. 🙂
Well, yesterday, I mistakenly published two posts; Corazon was meant to go yesterday, and then Skywalker was meant to go today. Ah, well, call it a bonus for sticking through all the flooding pix with me.
Today, two pix of Piedra. The pix were taken the night (was that about two-some weeks ago now? three??) before the first round of rain and flooding, but I was in the same area last night, so it all works out.
Pretty Piedra.
And because the background was also so beautiful, the focus on Utah’s La Sal Mountains, well beyond Disappointment Valley.
You’re welcome. 🙂
*****
Before I realized that Skywalker was going to publish early, I found this link to a donation site for people affected by the southwestern Colorado flooding. Before I could add it to that post, it published, so here it is on this post:
Help SW Colorado Recover From Devastating Flooding, sponsored by the Colorado Gives Foundation.
I think this might be the last of these types of pix; they’re a little harder to compile than I thought they’d be when I had the great idea (and I think it WAS a pretty good idea!). Well, not actually *hard* as just taking a fair bit of time. 🙂
These before-and-after pix are going to be of down-valley Disappointment Creek and Spring Creek where it runs under Disappointment Road north of the aforementioned spot on Disappointment Creek that also runs under the road. These “down-valley” creek sections refer to what’s locally known as the Daddy Williams bridge (?) over Disappointment Creek, just south of Road K20E (the road that goes from Disappointment Road (also called 19Q on the San Miguel County side)), and north of Road K20E where Spring Creek runs under Disappointment Road. Give or take, Spring Creek runs under the road about three miles (I’m going by the distance of K20E between 19Q and the western Spring Creek Basin boundary) outside/west of Spring Creek Basin. (Reminder, Spring Creek is not an abbreviation of Spring Creek Basin, which is not abbreviate-able; Spring Creek and its tributary arroyos drain Spring Creek Basin … never so obviously as times like these!)
I’m sure that if you’re not local and/or have never been here, that’s just about as clear as our muddy creek water. The biggest takeaway is that these pix of the flooding at Disappointment Creek are at a different bridge from the earlier pix – downstream and west of those pix.
(I finally got into Spring Creek Basin yesterday afternoon/evening, but I got distracted and didn’t actually make it to even the first Spring Creek crossing. 🙂 I’ll get there … but also, it is MUDDY, and there has been significant road erosion. … The hunters are coming into the valley, of course, but those folks have been uncharacteristically cautious about K20E (thankfully). Third rifle season (the busiest/worst) starts Saturday and runs through the following Sunday.)
Let’s talk water. Well, I’ll show; you gasp appropriately. 🙂
Here we are Oct. 23 at the Daddy Williams bridge looking upstream/east (you can see Temple Butte just about dead center in the way, way background). This is a fairly narrow creek bed at this point. Other than knowing you’re crossing a bridge, it’s easy to drive right across and not realize there’s water flowing, even when it’s flowing normally (in the spring, say). To jog your memories (and mine), the first big rains started Wednesday, Oct. 21 and continued through Thursday, Oct. 22; the above was taken Oct. 23 (for various reasons, I went up-valley first (Oct. 22) and didn’t make it down-valley to this point and Spring Creek until the 23rd).
And on the other side of the bridge, looking downstream/west.
Now we jump to Nov. 2, the day after the all-day rain Nov. 1 and into the morning of Nov. 2. Apparently, with the creek “down” after Oct. 26, I didn’t think it warranted any more pix there. The creek’s flow HAD dropped significantly between that rain and this rain. The above is looking at the same side of the creek as two pix above: This is the upstream side, but I’m at the south end of the bridge where earlier, I was at the north side looking southish. But surely you see the MORE, the GREATER amount of water?? The lower right corner of the pic shows a fence corner; you can see about a foot of two of the corner H-brace posts. When Larry W had passed this spot on his way up-valley earlier that morning, before I talked to him, he said there was only about 6 inches of the posts showing, so the water level was already down a bit at this point.
The *usual* middle of the creek flows under the bridge section farthest from me; the water was not super far below the bottom of the bridge. A neighbor said that farther downstream, the water had actually flowed over another bridge.
Just another wide view, still looking upstream. … Lake Disappointment looked like a gentle pond compared to this complete overflow of Disappointment Creek’s banks here.
And another view; the fence corner at lower right might be a bit more visible in this image. This area is NOT usually under water … like, AT ALL.
And now on the west side of the bridge, looking west/downstream.
I will admit that standing there, I kinda lost track of where the actual creek bed was.
The sheer volume of water was … jaw-dropping and gobsmacking. And while the first pix were after two days of rain (and the level was down by the time I got there to see it), these pix, from Nov. 2, were after about 24 hours of rain. Crazy, crazy.
Now let’s head north/down-valley to the Spring Creek bridge:
And back to Oct. 23: This is Spring Creek, flowing toward us out of Spring Creek Basin; Filly Peak and Temple Butte are at far right … and you can see the rimrocks that form the basin’s western boundary. Look along the far bank of the creek. See how far the water level had come down from high flow? By step-measurement (on the bridge), I figured it was about 15 feet from the edge of the current water flow to the high-water mark.
Looking way back east upstream to Spring Creek canyon where all the water collected in all the arroyos in Spring Creek Basin LEAVES Spring Creek Basin. The dark ridge is the basin’s northeastish boundary; the ridge that meets the sky is outside/beyond the basin. You can also see the way the water carves the bed of the creek in this pic; that’s all waterflow, but the main channel is to the left, while a shallower layer of water comes straight toward us over a bit of a “beach.”
And rolling on away west toward its confluence with Disappointment Creek. The creek bed for Spring Creek here is much wider than that of Disappointment Creek … and I’m sure the water wasn’t nearly as deep because it’s so broad (also, the watershed is much more limited than what feeds Disappointment Creek).
The view of Spring Creek upstream on Oct. 26.
The downstream view.
Now heading back up-valley, still Oct. 26:
Looking east/southeast at Road K20E from Disappointment Road/19Q. … On the left side, closest to us, the owner of those ruts was a couple of inches from the ditch (which is at least a foot deep). Beyond that? Yeah, they went into the ditch. I’m not sure whether those tracks/ruts were going east or coming west, but good grief. … They get worse for the first mile or so. Oh yeah, and at least one vehicle (there had to be at least two) had chains on its tires. K20E is NOT an all-weather gravel road like Disappointment Road; it’s basically a dirt path through the greasewood. It. Is. A. MESS. When. Wet. … Somebody had some “fun”; I’ll be wobbling through those ruts for the foreseeable future.
Cutie. I found this little critter under the right side of the above cattle guard. That’s water beyond it, reflecting the cattle-guard pipes and the sky above.
Now fast-forward to Nov. 2, after the one-day rain:
Yikes. Lemme tell you, when the mud in Disappointment Valley looks like that, you do NOT want to test it. That’s what I think of as “pillowy” mud. I’m sure there’s some technical term, but it is soft, it is deep, and it will suck your tires into a quagmire you will be hard pressed to get out of (without help; with help, heaven help your helper). See the line of cottonwoods at left? The down-valley Disappointment Creek bridge – aka the Daddy Williams bridge – is about 100 yards to my right. As in a couple of pix above, I am standing on Disappointment Road/19Q looking east/southeast at the start (or end) of Road K20E toward Spring Creek Basin; you can see McKenna Peak and Brumley Point in the far distance, but Temple Butte has its head in the clouds (heh).
I think water overflowed Road K20E, and if you look at the standing water at left, I think that’s where a good bit of it came from, though there was also water to the right, between the road and Disappointment Creek. That standing water extends far north on the east side of Disappointment Road – still, now, Nov. 6.
See the water at lower left? That’s part of the water from the pic above. Spring Creek Basin beyond the rimrocks in the background. As I was driving north, I scared up three mallard ducks, if you can believe it! I don’t know what kind of birds were in the flock, but you can see the ducks in the center.
Lake Disappointment may have to shift locations; I still haven’t seen ducks on that “body” of water. 🙂
And on that uplifting note, I’m going to end the post here, the flooding having been pretty well documented at this part of the valley now, as well as farther up-valley.
But … in honor of only my second visit to the interior of Spring Creek Basin in … ugh, I don’t wanna think about it, but WEEKS! … If you have read this far, thank you, and here are a few more, from last evening:
Ponies. 🙂 You’ll think I’m crazy (I am), but I have *missed* them terribly. The landscape doesn’t look particularly green in this direction, but I’ll tell you, in some other directions, the green is nearly electric. Note the snow, still up high-ish, at far right.
Even Mother Nature celebrated my return to Spring Creek Basin! OK, OK, maybe not, but I was sure happy to see her celebrating another spin of the planet as another day headed toward another night. 🙂
Laaaaaaaaaast light on Temple Butte.
Snow once again on Utah’s La Sal Mountains, far beyond Spring Creek Basin and Spring Creek canyon. … And now you know where Spring Creek runs and what it looks like from the outside looking … toward Spring Creek Basin. 🙂
Thanks for coming along. I’m glad to share the journey(s) with ya’ll.
Let’s get back to it! There’s too much to do to be editing pix. I’d rather be out taking them … but the more I take, the more I want to share!
Yesterday in the post, I had made my way up-valley and shared what the erosion spot at Lake Disappointment looked like pre-fix, post-fix and post-more rain (!). More kudos go out to Denny and the San Miguel County crew; Denny at least was out with the grader. I don’t have a *current* post-yesterday’s fix, but I may slip that in at a later point. If you can believe it, more rain is due as I’m drafting this Wednesday afternoon.
I had gotten to a point overlooking a very flooded stretch of Disappointment Creek and was marveling at the astounding amount of water rampaging through the willows and tamarisk and cottonwoods, including adjacent areas that don’t usually carry regular creek water. Again, words like “regular” and “normal” are just out the window currently, let alone the last many years.
So let’s pick it up at the bridge over Disappointment Creek just below and west of the point where the southwestern corner of Spring Creek Basin meets Disappointment Road.
This is looking at downstream-rolling (running to the left) Disappointment Creek on Thursday, Oct. 22. The treed hill at farthest right and the ridge at far left are southwestern Spring Creek Basin. Foreground is private land.
From the south side of the same bridge, looking upstream at the creek water barreling toward us and under the bridge. The land on this side is BLM but not part of Spring Creek Basin.
By Monday, Oct. 26, this was the view looking downstream. The green cottonwood in the middle of the water two pix above is the one at right.
By Monday, Nov. 2, after a full day of rain, Disappointment Creek was swollen again. This was the same day as the panorama view in yesterday’s post – completely over any and all banks.
And the view looking upstream from the other side of that bridge. There’s a bend there, and there’s another bend upstream of it, so when the water hits that bend under the old pipe (from the irrigation-ditch days), the water was absolutely boiling. It’s hard to tell, but the flooding was more widespread this day than the first pix of this area, though I didn’t capture it very well with these pix.
And by the next day, Tuesday, Nov. 3, the water had dropped significantly again.
Hey, look at me, out in the middle of the muddy-water creek! Ha. That brown around the cottonwood is just mud again.
And up-valley we go.
On the way, still Nov. 3, I don’t think I’ve shown this view in any of these posts. Lone Cone, 12,618 feet, is the snow-covered peak in the distance. Brumley Point is the broad-based, flattish topped hill in the middle ground. Temple Butte, of course, is the promontory behind it. I’m on Disappointment road looking … I guess this is more eastish than anything … and on the other side of the fence is Spring Creek Basin. Brumley Point is on the basin’s southeastern boundary.
I’ve shared this view before. Note the snow in the pines atop the ridges on either side of Temple Butte. When I talked to Larry W, the Dolores County road-maintenance guy, he said that on Monday, Nov. 2, there was about 3 inches of snow at the T where Disappointment Road meets Dolores-Norwood Road. That’s only another 14 or so (?) miles up-valley from this point. But it’s why we say UP-valley is southeast: The elevation rises to the south/southeast/east in this neck of the high-desert-to-mountainous region.
In this case, the above pic is the “before” to the “after” above this one. This was Nov. 2, just a couple of hours after the rain stopped. The clouds were still heavy over parts of Disappointment Valley – including the eastern/northeastern ridges. Temple Butte is under that cloud. Note the snow at sort of mid-right. Inside the fence is Spring Creek Basin. Black Snag Road (and Disappointment Creek) is behind me to the south.
Now that we’re there, let’s check out the rise and fall of Disappointment Creek over Black Snag Road (nope, it’s still not there, no matter the water level).
And back to Oct. 22. This is Black Snag Road; the creek is ahead of me, and Disappointment Road is behind me. This is before Dolores County closed the road. (I think Mother Nature did rather a good job of closing the road (uh, “road”) at the creek crossing, whether the road was muddy, as pictured, or dry.)
This was my first view of Disappointment Creek there, and I was amazed then (Oct. 22).
By Oct. 26, the county had closed the road (or at least put up the sign), but people were still checking it out. None of those tire tracks are mine; I wisely parked at Disappointment Road and walked the 100 or so yards to the creek.
The water level was down to peaceful levels, and plenty of rocks of all sizes were exposed – right in the middle of where the road used to be. Upstream is behind me to the left, and downstream is on to the right.
Oct. 31 – Halloween. People were attempting to cross below the old road. Directly across the water is a great slab of bedrock before the dirt of the road goes uphill to the right.
It rained all day Nov. 1 and into the morning of Nov. 2.
I was awed by the creek in various places before I even got to Black Snag Road, but for the sake of simplicity (and photo-editing), I’m going to stick to the point where Disappointment Creek crosses what used to be (and will be again) Black Snag Road.
The morning of Nov. 2, after the steady, daylong rain. Where are all those rocks? Under all that water. This was more water than the previous flooding.
Nov. 3: Ah, right, there are the rocks. If you think they’re different rocks and/or moved, you’re right. Such is the power of flooding water. Notice the debris on the far side; that was high water.
Two more pix because I love this cottonwood tree:
Nov. 2: Rollin’ like a river. This is just upstream of the crossing formerly known as Black Snag Road. 🙂
And Nov. 3. Note the snow on the mountain in the far distance.
Disappointment Valley got another brief rainstorm (lightning, yes; thunder, yes) yesterday. No more super flooding. I’d like to show ya’ll some before/after pix of Spring Creek rolling under Disappointment Road down-valley, but my brain is tired, so that’ll be a phase 3 post. I’ve been to the interior of Spring Creek Basin to see and cross Spring Creek just once recently (in the last two weeks?!), and it wasn’t much changed except for a LOT more rock at the approach (southish side). I’m guessing it will be much more changed by the time I’m able to get in next … and I can’t wait to see the mesteños! I’m going through withdrawals!
We have needed this moisture all year (at least). It’s a little rough getting it all at once, but I am nothing if not GRATEFUL. It hopefully will put us in a little better situation than before the rains.
We didn’t have the damage of many, many other places in the Four Corners region (neither do we have the population). After 2 historic floods, southwestern Colorado now assessing damage.
Grab a cuppa (of your favorite beverage) and settle in; this is going to be another photo-heavy post.
By now, it seems impossible that anyone could NOT know about the flooding in the Southwest/Four Corners region. Most of southern Colorado, it seems, has been affected, from the southwestern-most corner all the way to southern (?) San Louis Valley. All of the Four Corners states have been inundated to varying degrees with absolutely gallons and acre-feet and massive cubic-meters-per-second water from rain. I think we’ve been through hurricanes Polo and Rachel and are up to Trudy? Including the four days of rain a week ago, Sunday’s all-day rain added enough to give us about 5 inches in this part of Disappointment Valley. I’m sure people think I’m being evasive when they ask about our “normal” rainfall and I just can’t answer. Nothing is normal anymore. I started coming to Disappointment Valley 24 years ago, and I’m now coming to the close of my 15th year of living here. I don’t often (OK, ever) say that on the blog, but if you haven’t figure it out by now … I live here. 🙂
Damage in various places has been extreme: homes destroyed, highways to forest roads damaged to gone, bridges damaged and gone. You can read about it and hear about it, but SEEING it brings it home. This Colorado Sun article includes several video clips from people showing their views of the flooding in their towns and neighborhoods. That kind of water and flood-related damage makes the flooding in Disappointment Valley look tame. Everything is relative, eh? We didn’t lose any bridges (that I know of), but apparently, there are a couple of Disappointment Creek culverts that are either somewhere between Black Snag Road and the Dolores River … or already washed down the Dolores. (Wouldn’t it be fun to know where they ended up?!)
Let me back up a bit to provide some context. After the rain (well, the aftermath) that I documented in photos here previously last week, resulting in 3.66 inches, it rained all day this past Sunday until almost 8 a.m. Monday. That gave us another 1.39 inches. More rain on top of already-saturated soil … and every creek bed and arroyo and ditch and crack started carrying water. If the ground was “flat” in an area, ponds formed. Lake Disappointment formed again. It flowed over the road again. Sorry, Denny and county guys: It eroded the north side of the road again, just a couple of days after they fixed it (!). I talked to Larry (county to the south) twice in the last two days; he was out checking. Not much they can do yet while the roads are so wet.
Tuesday, water is STILL running, still standing, still everywhere. Even in pictures, I don’t know quite how to convey just how much water is still running through Disappointment Valley.
I went up and down Disappointment Road on Monday, taking about a billion pix (OK, 441). Tuesday morning, I went back down and up the valley. Because I had no time to do anything about those pix last night when I finally returned to the house, I thought I might use this post do do a bit of before (Monday, hours-post-rain-and-flooding) and after (Tuesday morning in the sunshine). So where that works, I’ll do that.
Now … where to start?
Let’s start with the erosion spot that started last week with THAT rain. You’ll remember that Denny and drivers for San Miguel County had been checking that for a few days, then came in with 10-plus dump-truck loads of material to fill it and pack it. At that point, Lake Disappointment (that’s a joke, by the way) had dwindled to Disappointment Pond … and then to just a puddle (which is still saying something as normally, of course, there’s not a spot of water there).
This above was Thursday, Oct. 22, between rain waves. Lake Disappointment, at left/south, was still trickling water across the road to the north side, which was starting to erode.
This was Sunday, Oct. 25, as the fog was clearing. Lake Disappointment had receded and was no longer trickling water over the road, but the erosion cut was encroaching even more into the road.
Wednesday, Oct. 28, Denny was working the front-end loader after at least 10 loads of “pit run” (big rocks mixed with dirt).
By the time I took this pic Saturday, Oct. 31, the road was looking great. Not only fixed but with more “pit run” with smaller, 3-inch rocks in the dirt to raise the level of the road.
Lake Disappointment, to the right/south of the pic above this one, was down to a bit of a puddle and a lotta mud.
And then it rained from 7:30 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 1, to almost 8 a.m. Monday, Nov. 2.
Uh oh. Lake Disappointment refilled overnight (and through the previous day), and this time (Monday, Nov. 2), it really ran over the road (not just trickling), and you’ll notice by the cones in this pic, compared with their locations two pix above, the extent of the erosion already.
I’ll be the first to tell you to think about a billion times before crossing water over a road, but you know I crossed that water. I COULD see the road under the road, and, well, I had things to look at up the valley.
And by Tuesday morning, Nov. 3. Denny was out Monday afternoon to check it, and you’ll notice that he repositioned the cones. I brought the one that washed down back up to the level of the road. (Those are not my truck tracks yet. It was gushy but OK.) Also notice that Lake Disappointment is down a bit again.
Continuing up-valley on Disappointment Road …
Can you see Disappointment Creek? Of course you can. IT WAS FLOODING!!!!!!
Lemme tell you somethin’: Even when there’s water in Disappointment Creek – even when it’s actually running, a “normal” amount of water, which is usually low compared with what most people think of as a flowing creek – you can’t see the water from here. “Here” is just on the north side of Disappointment Road (the road is to my right, and it continues down the hill and is on the right, outside this image). As wide a view as my phone can capture, this is two images merged together. At leftish are the rimrocks that create the western boundary of Spring Creek Basin. Above/beyond the rimrocks is Filly Peak, inside Spring Creek Basin. At farthest right is Brumley Point, which sits on the basin’s eastern/southeastern boundary. What you can’t see: McKenna Peak and Temple Butte, which are to the left of Brumley, under that low cloud. The rain had stopped about an hourish ago in this pic. Another couple of notes about the image: Disappointment Creek is flowing from far right to far left (southeastish to westish-northwestish), and that clump of cottonwoods at sort of right stands in a big bend of the creek, usually on ground above the flow of the creek. Can you tell that water is running straight through their trunks? Forget the bend in the creek; there was no bend, other than to sort of corral the flow of the water against the high bank; it was all water.
My jaw might have been left on the ground at that point. Pretty sure I left it there for the rest of the trip.
Zoomed-in of that cottonwood cluster (one of my favorites along the whole creek). Oh yeah, and imagine noise. Loud, rushing-water noise. Loud. Normally, you know, it’s pretty quiet in Disappointment Valley.
This looks like another nice little bend in the creek, eh? Except that that is NOT part of the actual creek bed!
The above three pix were taken Monday, shortly after the rain stopped that morning. Before we move on, here are two pix of the same places, taken Tuesday (yesterday):
Admittedly, this was taken from the road level, not my previous hilltop-lookout. You can see the water in Disappointment Creek – its normal, regular bed. The water has receded from the ground where the cottonwoods are growing.
And this is the area shown in the pic above the one above. … What, you don’t recognize it? Look at right – see the mud? Look at left – see the mud? I told you: That was NOT normal creek!
I had plans of going all the way through the befores and afters on my way up-valley … and then Disappointment Creek and Spring Creek down-valley where they flow under Disappointment Road farther west. … But there are a lot of places, and there are a lot of pix, and they’re in different folders (according to date), so I’m going back and forth … and it’s slow-going, and I am not the world’s fastest or most enthusiastic photo editor (technicalities). 🙂 So please hold that thought, and join me again for … let’s call it phase two, and I’ll see how far I get with photo-selecting and -editing to continue on! (Also, I’m mudded out of Spring Creek Basin again for another little while … )
First, happy, happy birthday to my mom, Nancy! This is a bit of a different post, but it’s been a different few days. 🙂 Happy birthday, Mama! I love you!
By now, you ought to recognize this spot. … What? You don’t? Visualize it – all those rocks – COVERED in deep, brown, rolling, cresting water. Now do you recognize it? 🙂 The water in Disappointment Creek is still running, but it’s MUCH lower now.
The road (Black Snag Road) is, um, gone. It’s also closed by Dolores County (as is Ryman Creek Road farther up-valley). That may not stop hunters from trying to get across.
It’s still fun to see that rushing water and realize that if I stood a few days ago where I was able to stand to take this pic, I’d have been chest or deeper (probably deeper) in absolutely raging water.
Next, I’m going to move on to a much tinier stream …
Now we’re in an arroyo in southern Spring Creek Basin, and that is water … STILL trickling!
A couple of different critters, at different times, walked along and likely drank from the trickle. I think those on the left were from a coyote, and they didn’t have any detail anymore. At right, a deer, I think (and I saw two groups of does and their fawns of the year on my way down the valley road).
A little step of bedrock created a tiny little waterfall in the trickle.
My favorite pic of the series. I mean … WATER! Fresh, live water! 🙂 Singing its own sweet little song in the back of beyond.
But … look who else I found:
Misters Maiku and Corazon. 🙂
Happy. 🙂
In yesterday’s post, I promised for today’s post pix of a fairly stunning storm system that blew up over Disappointment Valley in the mid-or-so afternoon through sunset. This will be a photo-heavy (heavy on the heavy) post. The pix also are all from my phone. The immense scale simply wasn’t possible to capture with my long lens and narrow range of view. A few times, I wished I’d gone to the effort of getting my camera out of my backpack … but most of the time, I was too afraid to miss one second of what was happening, and, again, the sheer width of scale of the storm’s coverage across the horizon(s) was just too, well, wide.
I hate to be one of those telling you to “read through till the end” for the best part, but … well, let me know whether the final pix, of sunset light in the EAST, were worth waiting for.
Onward!
As wide a field of view as my phone can capture, it took four images, stitched into a panorama, to produce this image, looking from southeast at right to north-northeast at left. So if possible, imagine the scene not as a flat, two-dimensional view but as a curved (?) view. The storm definitely was coming from the southeast and moving north (left) … and around/beyond the basin, across the north, to the west? I sat for a long time at the main/original catchment watching it and taking pix as the sky evolved – in sunshine the entire time.
This was the first pic I actually took. There’s a pretty obvious downpour straight ahead, which is basically east-northeastish. It was not raining over Spring Creek Basin at this point, but the clouds were definitely shading the far, whole eastern horizon. Thunder was rumbling now and then, but I never saw lightning. The vast majority of the basin was under sunlight. There ARE mustangs way, way out, at the leftish side of the image.
A little more detail of the rain running across the landscape from near/over (?) Benchmark Lookout (at the leftish side of the dark hump of “hill” at far right) across upper Disappointment Valley and beyond Temple Butte (the edge of the promontory is just spotlit by a bit of sunlight).
And swinging a bit more to look east.
Meanwhile, a lighter rain system was moving north to the northWEST. You might be able to make out Utah’s La Sal Mountains through the curtain of rain (way) beyond Spring Creek canyon.
This is roughly what that looked like on the radar (a little delayed, I think). The blue dot was me, in the middle, in the sunshine. 🙂
There are the mountains; see ’em? I think the rain was moving across lower Disappointment Valley and maybe/probably not quite as far west as Utah. I’ve been in the same place taking all these pix (I sat there for quite a long time): at the road by the fenced-enclosed aprons that catch rain (and snow in the winter) and direct that water down to the 12,000-gallon green steel tank … and from there to the main water trough you can see downhill and to the right of the tank. (The farther, smaller, black trough is wired off because it’s a lot smaller, and darker, and the horses don’t prefer it. The big trough is the main trough. You can’t quite tell from this distance, but it has a triangular metal cover over it that enables the horses to get to the water and also helps prevent evaporation (or better than it would be if uncovered).)
And looking southeastish again. Apologies (not really) for the redundant pix … but this is one of my favorite views in the whole, great, wide and wild world … especially when it includes rain!
See how DARK it got to the northeast? Again, that’s beyond Spring Creek Basin – at least at this point (spoiler alert). But see that lit “column” of rain? Wild? I spent a lot of time and phone space taking pix of that cool thing as it moved with the storm system across the northern horizon toward the west (and I was in sunshine all the while).
Checking the progress of the rain to the east-southeast again. At this point, I think it was getting closer to Temple Butte – the rain, not just the shade of the rain clouds.
Another look up to the northeastish at that remarkable flame of spotlit rain. Notice, too, that we’re starting to get a great shadow of clouds over a great portion of the basin now. (I promise there were mustangs out there; I was watching about five bands way, way out while I watched the spectacular sky-show.)
I mean …
… it was …
… just soooooo …
… COOL!
Checking northwest again, over the canyon. That’s the north side at right, and you can just see part of the south side at far left. It’s not that wide; it curves a lot.
Ah! Rain has made it far enough west to cover Temple Butte (the promontory), at least, and maybe reaching McKenna Peak (the pyramid) and the eastern part of Spring Creek Basin. But note how sunny it still is.
Another very wide-angle view (just one frame). At farthest right, definitely getting rained on now: Temple Butte and McKenna Peak. At left, the remnants of that crazy … I don’t even know what to call that?! Looking like someone was shining a gigantic spotlight from the ground to the heavens. And still, I’m sitting in the sunshine.
At that point, I decided to head out. I wasn’t sure about crossing the V-arroyo (it gets pretty pillowy-muddy in heavy rain and is difficult to impossible to cross in that state), and most of the horses were well north of that point – and that’s before you even get to the first Spring Creek crossing. While thunder had been rumbling like a slightly disgruntled giant, I hadn’t seen any lightning, but in the wide open, I have a healthy respect for it (and a recent encounter of a near-simultaneous lightning-strike-thunder-CRACK is pretty close to front of mind lately).
Now I’m at Chrome’s Point in the far western part of Spring Creek Basin, and rain definitely is falling within the basin’s boundaries to the east. If you zoom in on Temple Butte and McKenna Peak, below the left base of McKenna in the golden-landscape area, you’ll see the fenced-in water-catchment aprons (looks a bit like a tennis court). On the road, just left of the far side of the fence corner is where I sat to take all the photos above this one.
And from Chrome’s Point looking northish (leftish is almost directly northish). Can you tell that the storm was moving across our north to the west (left)? I know that if you’re not familiar with the area, it’s hard!
So I left the basin thinking “what a great show put on by Mother Nature!” And also that at least the eastern-northeastern part of the basin looked to be getting some of the good wet stuff (which was not in the forecast, by the way). …
Yowza! That’s RAIN. Over SPRING CREEK BASIN! This is looking east while heading south on Disappointment Road, well west of the basin. …
Wait. What is that … ?
What that, you ask? THAT that!
It’s a DUST DEVIL. … With pouring rain in the background! Just like the weird rain column seen earlier from inside Spring Creek Basin, this dust devil was illuminated by the sunlight hitting that part of Disappointment Valley west of Spring Creek Basin (the ridge topped by rimrock at far right is part of the basin’s western boundary). See the far-far ridgeline curtained by rain? That’s the very same northeastern ridge that meets the sky in the previous pix taken within Spring Creek Basin.
I was so wowed that I was standing in the middle of the road holding my phone up and out in the classic pose as a truck was approaching. Fortunately, it was someone who knows me and knows my photo-centricity, and he kindly did not run me over. 🙂
Kinda great for zilch on the rain front in the forecast, eh? 🙂 And I will tell you that the ground was still satisfyingly damp out in the basin last night (as you read this), and now we have another day or three or five (who really knows?!) of rain chances in the forecast.
See the rainbow prism? That’s directly over Filly Peak in Spring Creek Basin.
Did I mention there’s snow again on the mountains on our northwestern horizon (Utah’s La Sals)? As a point of interest, Mount Peale is the highest peak in the range at “12,721 to 12,726 feet.” Moab is on the other side.
There was just about every bit of light imaginable during the time I watched the storm pass: glorious sunlight to dappled light to ominous rain-darkness. Something else interesting? I never got so much as sprinkled on, no matter where I was.
Oh yeah, and the light that produced multi-colored rainbow prisms (can you call it a rainbow if it doesn’t form a bow?). I think there were at least five, maybe six of these prisms. None formed a complete rainbow (if you can believe it), and none of them lasted very long … except this next one:
See the rainbow forming at upper left? (And check out that spotlight at farthest right!) Unfortunately, the prism was faint while the spotlight was on Buck Knob and its vibrant redrock layers, but, um, WOW.
It’s getting a little more visible …
The. Light. Was. Phenomenal.
The cottonwoods along the bottom of this pic line Disappointment Creek. Spring Creek is farther north, running out of Spring Creek Basin, which is to the right/east. They both run westish; Spring Creek runs into Disappointment Creek, and, eventually, FARTHER west, Disappointment Creek carries all its salt and sediment into the Dolores River. This view is looking purty near north. The shorter, yellow-y-er (that’s a word, creatively speaking) vegetation is willow and maybe some rabbitbrush/chamisa, too. The cottonwoods at this elevation are just starting to go gold.
Do you start to see why there are so many pix in this post?! The light KEPT CHANGING. What the heck are those beams right of center?! I never did figure it out.
Wide-wide view for perspective. The road runs straight east here.
And on I went up-valley (to the southeast). I mean, who knew what else Mother Nature had in store?
Disappointment Creek. Picture NO water here, and that’s what it usually looks like. This was when I first realized how heavy the rain must have been that I’d seen earlier … remember the very first pix at the top of this post? Spring Creek Basin is across the road (that I’m on) to the left.
It’s really hard to understand how this is such an astounding view if you don’t know what it usually looks like, but for one thing, there are usually giant rocks visible in the creek bed there.
This is Black Snag Road; Disappointment Road is about 100 yards behind me. … Actually, this is Disappointment Creek – err, river – making fun of the idea of there being a road under that rollin’ water (let alone a culvert … ha ha ha!?). This is where I wish I was adept at video and/or even knowing how to insert it. Because the sheer volume of NOISE (let alone water) was INCREDIBLE. Larry W. is the Dolores County road guy for this part of Disappointment Road; I couldn’t help but think of him while I watched this; it will fall to him to fix this … eventually.
That pile of dark dirt is sort of the edge of … well … where the water shouldn’t have gone around?! Seriously, do not mess with Mother Nature. She makes her own paths.
I’m not entirely sure where those rocks would have come from. I hadn’t been down to look at the crossing for quite a while until this moment, but the road is sort of … there.
It was hard to take a still pic that conveyed the noise and just sheer quantity of water rolling through the *ahem* creek bed. You see the rocks … and up to the right is a WAVE of mud-water. I think the culvert is sort of in that area? And/or rocks meant to stabilize it and the edge of the road.
Disappointment River. 🙂 Seriously.
Meanwhile, this was happening behind me (as I looked at the river, err, creek crossing); looking in this direction, the creek is behind me. Disappointment Road runs across the base of the pic; down-valley (northwestish) is left, and up-valley (southeastish) is right. The fence along the road – the boundary of Spring Creek Basin – is visible at left and right. The foreground is part of Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, but Temple Butte – lit up at right – is outside the basin, as is McKenna Peak, the tip and eroded slopes of which are visible at left.
Nope, it was not over!
Disappointment Creek flowing downstream from just upstream of the Black Snag Road crossing.
It was *this* close to sunset. 🙂
Mother Nature wasn’t close to done for the day.
I mean … can you die of absolute, heart-bursting joy at the gorgeousity of the world?! Hopefully not; too much yet to see. I hope you’ve stuck with me. … Really, it gets BETTER.
Are you sitting down? You might want to sit down.
As I went back down-valley, THAT was happening behind me. Ahead of me (behind me as I take these pix), to the west, the clouds were nearly gone, the sky nearly clear again. The color was all back to the east. (Note: These horses are not in Spring Creek Basin. I’ve never crossed over here, but this sunset was too amazing not to share, and this is where I was when I saw it.)
My jaw might have been on the ground. I hope you find these colors and cloud shapes impressive. … The pix don’t really do it justice; it was one of the top most spectacular sunsets I’ve seen in my life.
I might finally have run out of words.
Was it worth it? 🙂
WHAT. A. DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mama Nature, I never cease to be amazed. Keep on rockin’, Lady.
Thanks for coming along. 🙂
If these kids are representative of the country’s young folks, we’re all gonna be OK. 🙂
Earlier this week, Disappointment Valley and Spring Creek Basin – and one mustang band! – played host to a group of eighth-graders from Boulder’s Watershed School and three of their teachers. They got to see Buckeye’s band after a long drive from Meeker, where they’d camped after a great visit to the Wild Horse Refuge near Craig. Then they camped above Disappointment Creek, just outside Spring Creek Basin. In the morning, BLM range specialist and herd manager Anton Rambur and range tech Laura Heaton arrived to lead the students in a vegetation-monitoring project up the same hill. Tres Rios Field Office Manager Derek Padilla also came out to see and talk to the kids about the variety of land management that happens throughout BLM public lands in Southwest Colorado.
The kids spread out in small groups and pairs to conduct their utilization (grazed/ungrazed bits of galleta (a native, warm-season grass that’s growing after the recent rains) along lines of five steps at a time) under the watchful eye of Buckeye and the band.
And then, while they listened to Laura and Anton guide them about how to fill out their sheets with the information they’d gathered, Buckeye decided that he and the band were ready for their morning drink … which meant ambling up the trail … and giving the kids a good check-over … before heading down the other side of the hill to the water catchment.
Top THAT, any other school trip ever, anywhere! 🙂
We stayed up top to listen to Derek and give the horses a chance to get down the hill, to the catchment to drink the lovely fresh rainwater in the trough … and they came up a different trail back to the top of the hill, checked us out again and returned to grazing.
Oh, my lovely, wonderful, awesome and amazing mustangs. 🙂 You do me SO proud!
Then back down to the corrals and buses, where Anton and Laura helped them do the math involved in figuring out how much the horses are grazing in that area of the basin. At the end, I heard numbers ranging anywhere from 7 percent to 50 percent use/grazed plants, so even in our drought, we’re in good shape for the horses not eating everything in their paths. And the students learned a little bit about what BLM folks are looking at to manage the rangelands that support wild horses – and other grazing/browsing wildlife like elk, deer and pronghorns.
I got to talk more about PZP and show off my darting rifle and let some of the kids see how light it is and how quiet (no darts involved!). And I marveled the whole time at the insightful, curious questions the kids asked and the answers Anton and Laura gave to provide the kids with a well-rounded picture of what it takes to manage a herd of wild horses on public land in Colorado.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-mazing!
Here follow a load of pix of Watershed School students and teachers Amy, Diana and Pete, BLM’ers Laura, Anton and Derek … and the mustangs they got to see:
Laura points out characteristics of grasses to students. We saw past-prime cheat grass, and they concentrated on newly growing galleta. (We also saw Indian ricegrass, grama grass, alkali sacaton and/or sand dropseed (my hat is off to you if you can look at the latter two and tell them apart!)
Students examine a clump of grass that shows last year’s growth as well as recent growth.
Laura and Anton talk about how to measure clumps of grass. The idea was that the students walked five steps in a line, measured galleta at their toe or within reach … then another five steps … until they’d measured 10 samples. Teacher Amy is in the foreground (this is the second time she has brought one of her eighth-grade humanities classes to Spring Creek Basin; the last time, it poured rain! as you can see in these pix, they lucked out with spectacular October weather), and teacher Pete is in the brown hoodie and camp. … Start to notice the “little white dots” in the distance.
Teacher Diana is at right while the students watch Laura measure the grass clump. For a little perspective, I’m facing nearly directly north toward the main, west-ish part of Spring Creek Basin.
No mistaking that horizon. 🙂 Laura helps one of the small groups of students with their monitoring while two other groups walk their lines in the background.
Boys walk their line with the basin’s south-facing rimrocks in the near distance and Utah’s La Sal Mountains in the far distance.
It’s hard to get a whole lot farther from Boulder than Disappointment Valley (OK, we’re not the *farthest* southwest corner of the state), but students were focused on the vegetation and their project. How cool is it that they’re able to take trips like this instead of learning from books only, only in a classroom?
Another pair walking their line with other groups in the distance. See that GREEN grass? Yeah, thank you, RAIN! A little goes a long way in this high desert.
Diana follows the boys back up the hill after they finished their line. Can’t get enough of that scenery.
All gathered again to ensure they’d filled out their sheets well. … There was math to come!
These city students were not afraid to drop to the ground among the grasses and shadscale and four-wing saltbush – and cacti!
Laura, left, and teachers Amy and Diana helped the kids with their utilization sheets (these are the same that BLM employees use while out monitoring rangelands). They’re a little hard to see (wide-angle lens, not my big gun), but look straight out over the kids’ heads. …
We were being watched!
Just like the evening before, Buckeye’s band was over the top of this hill, down toward the north. Here, they’re a little east of where they’d been previously. The previous evening, after they arrived, I hiked the kids out to the trees – there’s a little arroyo that starts there – and we picked up the trail to the west, which we took a bit farther left of where the horses are seen here.
I’m not sure how long we’d been on the hill, but we weren’t in a hurry, and the students were absorbed in their project. While they worked, I took pix and kept an eye on Buckeye’s band to gauge their comfort level (they were at least a few hundred yards away from us). By about this time, as the students were nearing the completion of the monitoring part of their project, I started to notice that the full band was appearing, and Buckeye was inching a bit closer. … And then it hit me: They want to make a trip up and over the hill and down to the catchment trough for their morning drink. Sure enough, they walked on up the trail, but where I thought they’d veer off more to the west and go down the trail I brought the kids up the evening before, those curious ponies came right up the trail to where the students were gathered! I cautioned everybody to just sit tight and stay fairly quiet and let the horses explore this mass of humanity on their usual empty route to water.
And the gathered group of students and adults got the mustang sighting of their lives. 🙂
Pretty amazing, eh? 🙂
While we were watching Buckeye’s band watching US, Tres Rios Field Office Manager Derek Padilla hiked up the hill to join us. He talked to the students about the variety of jobs available with the Bureau of Land Management (and U.S. Forest Service, where he spent the first 27 years of his 30-year land-management career) and the variety of ways BLM’ers manage the multiples uses that happen on public lands.
He and Buckeye might have worked it out between themselves because the band had plenty of time to head down the hill to water, drink and then return up a different trail.
After one last farewell to the ponies, the group returned down the hill to the buses to complete the math (!) part of the project and have some lunch and a last round of questions and answers with Laura and Anton.
Yes, math does have real-world applications. 🙂 Laura and Anton helped students with the formulas to calculate the results of their utilization (grazed/ungrazed) survey. Results: The horses have plenty of forage, even after our stressful droughty summer. Whew.
Before they left, at least one of the teachers and a few of the students got to check out my darting rifle. It’s very lightweight, and it fires off of a CO2 cartridge (pressurized to the distance of a mare). NOTE: NO DARTS WERE IN THE RIFLE. I let them put some air in the rifle and pull the trigger to hear the sound and have the feel of it. A surprise to a couple: No kick. 🙂
Kudos to these kids and their teachers for thinking outside the box and creating the experiential learning experiences Watershed School is known for. *I* sure never got to visit wild horses as part of any class trip, and I attended lots of schools in many states and Germany! They are super curious and intelligent and asked some of the best questions I’d ever heard – and I get a LOT of questions and have a lot of answers. Speaking for myself (I’m sure Laura and Anton and Derek would agree): We had a blast introducing these young folks to Disappointment Valley, Spring Creek Basin and (at least a few of) our amazing mustangs. 🙂
You’re welcome back any time!
Thank you so much to these Watershed School teachers and students, and to Anton, Laura and Derek, and (I have to say it) to my boy Buckeye and his girls, for making this a fantastic visit and learning experience in Spring Creek Basin!
Heading up to one of the water catchments the other day, I was surprised to see a couple of pronghorn does heading on up past a band of horses that were already leaving the trough and also making their way to the top of the hill. I didn’t see them (any of them) drinking, but I *know* the horses had been, and I really hope the pronghorns are making use of the fresh rainwater, too.
No pix of the pronghorns and the horses together because they were far-ish, and I was still huffing and puffing my way up the hill, and I didn’t stop to offload and unload my pack. So what follows are sightings of the pronghorns after I was up and over the top, with another (second) band.
By the time I got atop the hill and was moving down toward a band of mustangs, I caught sight of one of the pronghorn does already down the broad other side.
My lens swung between horses and pronghorn, and I wondered where the other pronghorn had gone.
But for a while, only the one doe was visible, watching me watch the mustangs (and her).
She eventually went out of sight, and I figured that was the last I’d see of her. … Until she showed up with the second doe, walking not so much toward me but on a trajectory that was going to take them past me a lot closer than they had been. And then the second doe turned to look behind them – definitely NOT at the horses – and I started to wonder what SHE was looking at.
Ah ha! Mister handsome!
This shows his impressive horns better. And despite the fact that males shed the *outer* horns, they are horns, not antlers.
More from Google AI:
The Pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) is North America’s fastest land mammal, capable of reaching speeds up to 55–60 mph.
Physical Characteristics & Speed
Habitat & Range
Diet & Behavior
Pronghorns are fascinating critters. They’re not very widespread here, and there aren’t very many of them. Thankfully, there’s no hunting of pronghorns in our part of Colorado because there just aren’t very many. While I see them fairly often, I think there are only around 30ish. We do have coyotes and golden eagles, but in the open reaches of Disappointment Valley, those likely are their only predators. That said, there don’t ever seem to be *more* of them year to year.
From Wikipedia: “The pronghorn (UK: /ˈprɒŋ.hɔːrn/, US: /ˈprɔːŋ.-/)[4] (Antilocapra americana) is a species of artiodactyl (even-toed, hoofed) mammal indigenous to interior western and central North America. Though not an antelope, it is known colloquially in North America as the American antelope, prong buck, pronghorn antelope, and prairie antelope,[5] because it closely resembles the antelopes of the Old World and fills a similar ecological niche due to parallel evolution.[6] It is the only surviving member of the family Antilocapridae.[7]“
“The pronghorn is the fastest land mammal in the Americas, with running speeds up to 55 mph (88.5 km/h).” And if you’re lucky enough to see them, you can easily believe that. Even at what pronghorns themselves might consider “an easy lope,” they are FAST.
Pronghorns are awesome. 🙂
Next year, this date – Sept. 19 – will mark 20 years since I started documenting Spring Creek Basin’s mustangs.
TWENTY. YEARS.
Sometime next fall (I don’t remember that exact date now), I’ll mark *25* years since the first time I visited Spring Creek Basin – in the rain, in a van full of people I didn’t know, and we didn’t see horses because we never actually got *into* the basin (even if it had been dry, a van might not have been the best choice of vehicle?!). I went back soon after that by myself … and, well, now it’s been 24 years *this* fall. You know that saying “blood, sweat and tears”? Yeah … it’s been ALL of that … a whole lotta alla that.
That means this fall marks my 19th (today) and 24th anniversaries. I still find that pretty shocking to say out loud.
Two thousand seven was a roundup year in Spring Creek Basin. It was the third that decade (and we still had 2011 to come). BLM said the stallion known to most as Traveler (to me as Grey) would stay. They promised. … One guy broke that promise. … One guy made it right. Grey went to Cañon City, and about a week after he had been removed, we brought him back to Southwest Colorado, where his two-week quarantine turned into three weeks (courtesy of the promise-breaker). Four weeks after he left Spring Creek Basin, David and Pati Temple returned Grey/Traveler to the basin, Pati opened the trailer door, and he returned to his wild life, where he lived until his passing a few years ago.
Photo print of Grey by Claude Steelman moments after he was released Sept. 19, 2007, into Spring Creek Basin
“He’ll never have a band again,” the BLM promise-breaker said dismissively at the time. Within a month and a half, Grey had a band again.
Grey’s Return Day was Sept. 19, 2007. After the pomp of Grey’s momentous release (a couple of other people also were there, including renowned Durango-based wildlife photographer Claude Steelman), I stayed in the basin to start documenting every mustang I found. It took three months of weekends. Nineteen wild and crazy – and now, immensely satisfying – years ago.
So today, I celebrate both the anniversary of Grey’s return and release and the day I started documenting my beloved mustangs, what has become the path of my heart through this lifetime.
My *wall of Grey*; photos of Grey by me circa 2003-2004? Gorgeous painting of Grey by talented Colorado artist Teresa Irick (@tiartcreations on Instagram) based on a photo by me
When I first started this mustang-advocacy journey, 20 years into the future felt like some random date that would never arrive. Now, wow.
I want to do something kinda fun to mark the occasion next year, and this is a head’s up. A few of you have read and commented and shared the mustangs for a lot of years now, and I’d like to send you each a photo print of the mustangs. I probably haven’t taken it yet, but I have a year (!), and I’ll let you choose. You might know who you are. 🙂 I thought I’d also ask readers – on that date, and don’t worry, I’ll remind ya’ll ahead of time – to leave a comment on that post, and I’ll put all your names in a hat and mix ’em all up, and I’ll have a mustang friend pick a name and send that person a pic, too. I want to celebrate YOU who support and love these mustangs, too! There also are a handful of people who have been with me for long years on this mustang journey, and I want to recognize them, too (more about them next year).
Hollywood and his mares, 2019; Hollywood and Houdini are both gone now … Shane, Alegre and Maia are still together
When you’re starting a thing, you never know where that thing is going to go, how it’s going to go, how long it’ll go on. When you have a burning desire to do something strong, something worthwhile, again, you just never know. That’s the future. … That’s LIFE.
So many people have had a hand (even just some fingers) in the accomplishments realized for bettering the management and preservation of Spring Creek Basin’s mustangs, and I can’t even imagine (and I don’t wanna) what path my life would have followed if I hadn’t discovered this herd and all the amazing people I’ve met along the way. We’ve all shared something: love of horses. Love of WILD horses. Love of mustangs.
Remember that promise-breaker? I realized several years ago that I’m *grateful* to him. I definitely couldn’t see it at the time of what felt like deep betrayal by the system, but if not for that guy, would my Irish stubbornness have come to the fore and would I have dug my boots and heart so deep into ground I’d never known but has become my rooted ground?? As I said: *grateful*.
Winona with sons Cheveyo and Lyra; Lyra is gone now, and Cheveyo is a band stallion; Winona, of course, is one of our wise ones
And you know what? Holy … horse. 🙂 Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area today is one of the best managed herds in the country (if not the best? forgive me a tiny bit of bias, please, but I don’t know of any others quite like ours). I am so grateful to the BLM folks at Tres Rios Field Office who made that happen and continue to work with our shared goal in mind.
Because we shared a dream and a goal and got to work doing it, not sitting by waiting for someone else to come along and dig in and get ‘er done. I sure didn’t start that dream for Spring Creek Basin, but I tip my visor to those who did … those who welcomed me to the fold so I could join the journey to the goal. And in that time, we have gotten done EVERYTHING we’ve aimed to achieve … bar one that we haven’t gone full force on, and that’s in the hands of bureaucrats, really, which is unfortunate, but it’s still possible.
Comanche’s band in the dust of early summer, 2020
I’ll probably (of course I will) write another long-winded post about this on my actual 20th anniversary, but on this, my 19th, *thank you* to every single person who has given even the tiniest bit of love to Spring Creek Basin’s mustangs. My love and gratitude to each one of you.
And hang on for (at least!) another year, with the mustangs and me, to celebrate the big 2-0. 🙂 No worries: The 20th won’t be anywhere close to the end. To paraphrase something I heard someone say someone told him: I will continue to make as positive an impact as I can in all the time I’m given in and for Spring Creek Basin and its mustangs.
I’m so glad you’re here, with us.
*Grateful*
Comanche’s band, under the rainbow, 2020; Comanche also is gone now
