Muddy Creek, Crazy Woman Canyon, and the Petrified Forest

 We've had a fun two days with our friend, Tom Bentley, as he showed us some of the scenic, but lesser known, areas around Buffalo, Wyoming.  On Sunday we started out near the Muddy Creek reservoir, where we stopped so I could take a photo of some horses.

 Well, the next thing we knew, one of the horses had put his head right into our window, thinking Doug had a treat for him.

Then we drove on through Crazy Woman Canyon as we made our way into the Big Horn Mountains. According to legend, sometime back in the 1800s Indians raided a small homestead in or near the canyon.  The husband was killed, but the woman pretended to be crazy, and her life was spared. The Indians were either frightened by her, or simply didn't want to deal with her.

Before we left the canyon, Tom built this small stone cairn on a perfect little rock shelf.

At the top of the Big Horn mountains (around 10,000 ft. altitude), we came across this beautiful outdoor chapel, called St. Christopher's of the Big Horn.

 And then we drove down Ten Sleep Canyon on the western side of the range...

...and passed a rock climber.  

Here's a photo of an old weathered building still standing on the outskirts of Ten Sleep, so named by the Indians because it took ten "sleeps" to travel there.

Today we stayed closer to our campground and took a short hike around the petrified forest.  Yes, I know there aren't many trees to be seen in these photos, but there are some magnificent examples of petrified trees.  Here is a metasequoia.  I'm especially interested in this because Doug and I have a metasequoia growing in our woods in Maryland.

 Here are a few more scenes from our walk this morning, including Doug playing with his drone.

And here is one of the huge murals painted on the side of a building in the historic town of Buffalo.

Thank you, Tom, for being our chauffeur and guide these past few days!

Tomorrow Doug and I move on to Grand Teton National Park...