Home Sweet Home

 September 26, 2025

Arrived back home in Ganby, CT tonight.  House is still standing.  Came from Columbus, Ohio - about a 10 hour drive.  Good weather.  Good roads.  Completely opposite of the construction hell I went through yesterday.

Great summer trip.  Some of the best trout fishing I've ever done.  Got to see Brian get his first antelope.  Nice long visit with my new grandson 💗 and  with my daughter in law.  Lesson learned: fishing the famous Montana trout rivers in late August is a bad idea.  

That said, those rivers remain on my bucket list.

The sudden contrast of vast open spaces of the West and leafy, lush yards of the East leaves me wondering whether the trip was all a dream.  I hope to have more dreams as good as that one.

tough drive

September 25, 2025 

I The plan for today was to drive from Topeka, Kansas to around Columbus, Ohio. Supposed to take 10 to 11 hours instead it took 14.  

Missouri was the worst on route 70 with hundreds of miles. Literally of areas that were under construction and interspersed with short areas that were not.  I don't think I actually saw any areas that were completed. Only ones that were dug up with piles of dirt everywhere and bulldozers but nowhere near ready for paving. 

Illinois highways were better but they still had plenty of single Lanes that everything had to condense down to bringing traffic to a stop for miles. I would say I had at least seven times where I had to stop and wait for Lanes of traffic to merge into one. 

Ohio started out like a dream. Beautifully smooth roads. Everyone going around the speed limit. It was great until it wasn't.  Soon enough there were many construction zones again with everything torn up but not ready for paving.  Then as it was getting dark it started to rain pretty hard with lightning and I'd been pretty fortunate that my entire trip so far both going out and coming back on the the big drives had no bad weather.

I plan to be back in Connecticut tomorrow. Home sweet home.

homeward bound

September 24th, 2025. 

I gave extra hugs and kisses to my new grandson. Hugs to Lindsay and to Brian and thanked them for putting me up in their home for over a week. I will them greatly!

Fired up my taco and headed out for home.  I'm in Topeka Kansas tonight and hope to make it to Columbus Ohio tomorrow.

Speed Goat Safari

September 22nd, 2025 

Brian and I headed up to Saratoga, Wyoming for a 3-day Antelope hunt.  On the drive up we started to see antelope now and then but mostly on private land. The weather was a bit grim for a desert environment: 45° and raining steadily with a forecast of more rain for the next day.  

Brian found a very cool hideout campsite and we also practiced shooting at various distances with his rifle since we had skipped the planned trip to a rifle range.

While we practiced the weather kept on getting worse and worse, there was lightning in the distance. Clouds and rain were closing in from the mountains to the west and suddenly there was a vicious crosswind of 35 to 40 mph that was driving the rain at us while we were trying to practice shooting.

Hole in the wall campsite Brian discovered.

It rained off and on through the night and in the morning it was 40° and drizzling.  We gritted our teeth over the conditions and went out looking for Brian's very first antelope.  As we turned onto the forest service road, there was a lone doe antelope at the rim of the hill staring right at us from 400 yards away. Maybe a good omen?

Desert roads rarely see nuch rain and it's still rarer for them to have a lot of rain like we were getting.  The dirt turns mushy and super slick but Brian's SUV was up to the task.

We drove around in the areas that I had scouted weighing our options as to where the goats might be.  We started to see groups of three, five and even 15 but always it seemed on private land or impossibly far away.  One Buck was on the rim of a hill near private land and was locked in on us from 800 yards away.  The desert sage bushes being a foot tall offered practically no cover for us to stalk.

We were getting pretty discouraged when we came around the corner of a pretty flat open area.  There were two different groups of antelope, one at 400 yards away and another at 600 yards away ...on public land.

Brian got out his rifle, loaded it and began to skulk down a gully to try and get closer to the goats while I looked on with binoculars. The group of four was watching him intently and looked like they were ready to skedaddle at any moment. 

Brian lay down for a prone shot, amazingly completely concealed beneath the sage.  After less than a minute, the goats went from extremely wary to complacent and they went back to feeding. Brian was preparing his shot. 

Bam.  Shot fired but only three goats raced away.  Neither of us was really sure whether he'd hit the fourth. 

YES!  He hit it solid.  The doe crumpled and fell to the ground without taking a single step.  318 yards - what a shot!

We found the doe and Brian said words of thanks for it passing on it's life giving bounty.  We processed the doe using the "gutless" quartering method even though neither of us had actually done it before.  We packed up our campers and headed back to Brian's house - a day earlier than planned.  An amazing adventure that I was lucky and proud to witness.  Brian is one happy hunter. 😎

Antelope Time

September 22, 2025

Brian and I headed to Saratoga, Wyoming for an antelope hunt.  We will likely go northeast of the town to BLM areas but camp in the Medicine Bow range near Ryan Park.

Wealthy is s supposed to be a bit rainy today and a little less so tomorrow.  We saw dozens of antelope on the drive up near Walden, Colorado.

Range Time

September 21, 2025

Brian and I  are headed out to do some grouse hunting and then go to the rifle range.

Change of plan.  We went straight to the dusky grouse hunting and skipped the range.  Fall colors were spectacular.

Brian had a spot picked out where he's had good luck before.  Even though the terrain was steep we followed an old logging road which was easy.

Eagle eyes Brian spotted a Dusky and hit with his new shotgun!

Nice shooting!

On the way home Brian spotted a herd of mountain goats up around 13k ft.  Through binoculars we counted nearly 30.  Such sightings are quite rare.

In the e town of Evergreen we saw two small herds of elk.  Harem would be more accurate as they were all does and fawns being closely guarded by a lone bull with huge antlers.  Just why elk persist in crossing busy roads to graze on lawns with houses mystifies me.

Baby Leif!

September 14, 2025

I arrived at Lindsay and Brian's house in Conifer, Colorado yesterday afternoon and met my new grandson Leif for the first time!

Sleeping peacefully in these pictures but he's awake and very interested in the world.  Brian is off shortly for a 3 day business trip so I will fill in his shift for nighttime baby care.  At just 4 months old Leif's sleep schedule is still a bit unpredictable so one has to roll with whatever happens on a given day.

It always strikes me as an astonishing feat of magic that two people can create a new, living, breathing human who has never existed before and never will again.

I'm happy to come off the camping trail for a while as the nights were getting colder and colder.  Hot shower, warm bed, and happy times