Wed Sep14 - Wild Hourse Day

Wed Sep 14 Day 16 Rained at night & till noon, cloudy most of the day, clear by late PM
We pulled out of Ponderosa about 10:30 am & drove separately to Wal-Mart, (at 143868 km). Then, after shopping, we went back to the BBHC for a last quick look around & for lunch. Their salad bar is cheap, $3.50 for a small plate, $6.50 for the large and they have 2 types of potato salad, one with egg, a creamy chicken salad & a tuna salad plus all the regular stuff, pop is $2 a glass refillable forever. I was stuffed on the large plate & we split the pop. After a short look around at some exhibits we didn’t have time for yesterday, we hooked up the car & left at 1:45, stopping to gas up 5 min. later @ 143872 km. We left the gas station & Cody at 2:00 pm. Sheila would have liked to tour the Old Trail Town here, but was told it would be very muddy walking around because of the rain, so it’ll be something to do next time we’re here. It has the cabin where the Wild Bunch hid out.
I put in 44.759 USG in my 55 USG tank & drove 646 km, (401 miles), that works out to 8.96 miles per USG, (that would be almost 11 mpg on a CDN gallon), quite good for a 7 ton RV towing a car plus me & Sheila. Sheila wanted to see some wild horses since we are in wild horse country; MT & WY have large open wild horse ranges. So we detoured a bit up to Lovell, WY to the Prior Mt Wild Mustang Center. We parked at 3:00 at 143946 & Sheila went in for a look around while I napped. The mustangs in the Pryor Mtn. area have been DNA tested & proven to be direct descendents of horses brought here by the Spanish Conquistadores in the 1600’s. That’s why they’re protected. All are quite small averaging only 14 hands whereas regular horses are 15-17 hands. Some of them even still have the distinctive markings, (a black line down the centre of their back, two colour manes, or stripes on their upper front legs), of the original Spanish horses, but most have lost them.
The centre’s manager, a lady, gave Sheila directions to the range where they might be so she woke me up, we unhooked the car & drove up a 40 km road in Big Horn Nat’l Park and believe it or not there were 6 wild horses just a hundred yards or less off the road! Sheila is happy! Unfortunately, they had full sun behind them, so the photos she took may not turn out, but at least she was able to see them well through binoculars. There were two blacks, a gray & a palomino. We drove on to the end of the wild horse range & then, on the way back saw another really beautiful stallion even closer to the road. A lady who’d been helping out at the centre was by the roadside watching him. She said his name was “Hildagio”, (he’d been named after a horse that starred in a movie by that name and that he was about 4 years old.) He was a golden chestnut colour with white mane & tail & a white flash on his forehead. By the time we got back to the Mustang Centre to where we were parked it was after 6 pm, so here we are for the night, (Sheila had checked earlier & they said it was fine.)

We drove 74 km, 46 miles only