april ten: north, by seventy-seven miles

Thanks so much everyone - your well-wishes surely saw us cured!   : )

Friday we had planned to go north a ways to an event called Baby Animal Days at the American West Heritage Center.  Like most U.S. states, ours has a pretty rich history.  Everything has a history, after all.
Ordinarily this really isn't my thing, as it seems that the state (and community) kind of stuff its history down the throats of the non-enthusiasts, making it even less tempting.
But I am fascinated by the romance of The Old West, and the Baby Animal Days is a once-a-year event, lasting for three days.  Mountain men and baby bunnies and outlaws are quite our thing.
Saturday, thankfully, we felt quite well enough to go!

We started our adventures by checking in for the Treasure Hunt, where we learned a bit about the pioneer's trek, including monumental rocks and supply forts.

Trevelyn had an idea on our drive north that he wanted to be in a horse race.  I let him know that I was sure they wouldn't let anyone just "race" on a horse - particularly children that had never been on a loosed horse.  (But that we could check into riding lessons this summer.)  We did find something quite as thrilling to a little boy - a mechanical bull.

woho!

There were a few undesirables; bouncies - one slide for a dollar (?!!), reptiles from rescuers, there were supposed to be some dwarf african frogs for sell - they had sold out, and a couple of other non-period things like that that were okay for the babes, but tacky and commercial to me.
So we saw the baby american alligator, and held little turtles, paid a dollar to hold a bull snake - and [rolls eyes] another dollar to take one! picture... so not cool after our superduper cool bull snake adventures of last year - and visited the baby bear from Bear World in Yellowstone National Park.

We had lunch -which included french fries - and visited the General Mercantile for a lollipop, and then we moved on to the good stuff.

There were chocolate icecream cones,
wallowing (quite literally) around with kidlets and piglets
(lots of that)

cotton candy (made before your eyes)
covered wagons,
train rides

pony rides

and candy shot from canons.

 

  panning for gold

- found fool's gold (iron pyrite)

 

An interesting day,
filled with lots of goodly things.