Day 45 – 50 More Friends, Hiking a Trip to Prison and another Distillery

We drove to Picabo Idaho and camped at a really nice site, that evening we met Virginia and Bill for dinner and caught up on life in general. We arranged to meet Virginia the next morning to up to the top of a ridge above Hailey and Sun valley, Unusually for me, I had to give up after 1.5 miles up the trail as the altitude and lack of sleep the night before had really got to me. We were starting off at 6900 ft and even that short climb till we turned around was quite something. We hiked back down and then did a 5 mile walk but starting at 1000ft lower and that did not affect me. Sounds like I need to do lots of prep before we hike from lodge to lodge at Machu Picchu in Peru.

We had lunch down at one of the lodges in Sun Valley and was able to walk around it, there as an ice skating competition in full flight and a writers conference in the big auditorium. It’s an impressive place and we will be back in the future.

The next day we drove to Salt Lake City, the campsite was in the city itself and although very busy, it was quiet and clean (apart from the trains that run through the city, oh and the fireworks that went off at 10PM in the State Fairground next door.) We were up early the next morning to Bells Canyon and the Lower Falls, 2.7 miles to the falls with a pretty consistent elevation gain all the way up, although the last .5 miles was clambering up boulders. The falls were very pretty and the walk back down was easy after the boulders were completed. Highest elevation was 6732 ft. No altitude issues but I was well hydrated.

Next day we drove to Rawlins and stayed overnight before traveling on to Pine Bluffs WY – just on the border with Nebraska and Colorado. On the way we stopped at the Wyoming Territorial Prison in Laramie. It was an interesting place to tour around and had Butch Cassidy housed there at one point.

Pine Bluffs was a Harvest Host location and it is a Whiskey Distillery. Its majority family owned and all the grain comes from local farms. Tonight they had a local rodeo star, Brody Cress, in attendance selling and signing bottles of his chosen barrels. We had a gin cocktail to start ( they produce gin and vodka as well) and then were lucky enough to be given a tour of the distillery and to sample some of the Bourbon straight from the barrel. Chad, the owner, was very gracious and his parents and uncle quickly spotted that we were not local in amongst the crowd that was there, and came across to talk to us. All in all it was a great night with some delightful people.

We are off to Wellington Colorado next, just outside of Fort Collins and more importantly for all my stitching friends, very near Loveland and Colorado Cross Stitcher.

.