Picnic at Crazy Woman Canyon-then on to Billings!

Yesterday we packed up and moved on to Billings. It is only about 3 hours from Buffalo, so we didn't go far, but it's amazing the way the landscape changes. Not as many big mountains and a whole lot of sky. Now I know why the call it "Big Sky Country" You can see for miles and miles and miles. But let me go back a day-before we left Buffalo, we spent one more day at Crazy Woman Canyon. You might remember the night before, Aunt Mary had given us some elk at the ranch...I took a survey on what to do with it-I asked Aunt Mary, probably the most experienced at cooking it, and then I asked grandma and then I called my mom. Mom and grandma both emphasized the need to wash it and mom said to make sure I tenderize it with the side of a plate. I floured, salt,peppered and fried the way Aunt Mary said to, and then baked it the way my mom said. Then I used mom's milk gravy recipe to make the gravy for the potatoes and the meat. It was some real country cookin'. It was delicious! We thought we had way to much, but we ate almost all of it! Honestly, it kind of tasted like cubed steak, and it didn't have any of that "gamey" taste.
The next morning we packed a lunch and went back to the waterfall at Crazy Woman Canyon and had a picnic and let the kids get in the water. The water was freezing cold. Alex and Courtney jumped right in, Carli was a little more hesitant. She thought it was pretty funny when she pushed me off a log and into the water, though! We stayed out there for a few hours and then went to Aunt Mary and Uncle Pat's house for one last dinner together. After dinner, they were still determined to find us a moose, so we piled into Brandi's truck and went back up the mountain. This time, we found one! It was too dark and far away to get pictures, but we found a baby moose drinking out of the stream and the mother standing behind the bushes. They were huge! We got back in the car and turned down a road and Mark spotted an elk cross the road with her baby. We went in the direction she was going, pulled off the road and waited, and pretty soon a whole herd of elk started coming out of the woods-about 14 or 15 of them. They were all "talking" to each other. I didn't know what kind of noise elk made, but they sounded like whales or seagulls. It varied from high-pitched to low sounds. Very cool. Aunt Mary said you almost never see them, they are very shy, so to see a whole herd was very rare. It was too dark for pictures, but Brandi got it on her video camera.
So now here we are in Billings. We saw my dad's brother Uncle Bernard, and his wife Marvis and my cousin Brian (who I have not seen since I was 4!) last night. They had us over for dinner and we talked for a long time, it was fun. Today Brian and Uncle Bernard took Mark golfing, and later this afternoon we will take their two dogs to the lake, which the girls will love.
Billings is a big city, I was surprised. They have all the stores we have and all the traffic, too. Coming into town from 90, we passed huge oil refineries and industrial areas. I was surprised. They have a lot of Casinos here, too. But they also have a beautiful backdrop of the mountains. By the way, on our way into town yesterday, we stopped and dropped the camper off and got it fixed, something to do with the axles. It should be fine now. We are staying at the Billings KOA, and it was the first KOA in the country, opened in 1962. It is the nicest one we have been to.
Uncle Bernard has big plans for me while I am here, people that were friends of my dad's that want to see me. We will go up to Absorkee (I am not sure I spelled that right!)tomorrow, it's about an hour away . The girls made a cement stepping stone to leave on dad's grave. We will be here for 5 days, then on to Yellowstone!