The Medicine Wheel

When I was a girl,

my parents loaded my brother and me

up in the pickup camper for a trip to Yellowstone.

On our way, Reed & I rode in the camper.

Even if we would fight, they couldn't hear us.

Or at least they pretended they couldn't hear us

banging on the camper window.

{Hmmm . . . the pickup-topper camper is sounding good.}

On one of those trips I remember looking out the camper window

being terrified by a narrow cow-trail-thin road with steep cliffs out the side.

My dad, always interested in native history, was taking us to the Medicine Wheel.

10,000 feet above sea level {and it looked like it}

in the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming.

So, for nostalgia sake, I wanted to revisit the site and take our own kids.

{They were about as excited as I was at age 9 or 10.}

It appeared they no longer let you drive to the top.

So we set out to walk the *3 mile* round trip.

Last summer we took the *3 mile* Lover's Leap trail in Custer State Park.

Which you can view here: Hiking Lover's Leap 3 "so-called" miles with a 3-year-old

Neither seemed *3 mile*.

But perhaps with "little E", now 4 years old,

*3 miles* feels much longer.

{But do I recommend both hikes?  YES!  ABSOLUTELY!}

So even though, we said "yes" to

"how much farther?"

We also said yes to

chipmunks & pikas

marmots and mountain views,

wind and a trail that looked

oddly like the Great Wall of China

that stretched out to the horizon . . .

We said yes to,

"Is that where we are walking to?"

and walking

some more.

Yes to hearing the story

of the Medicine Wheel

 given by a woman with beautiful raven-colored hair

on a wind-swept mountain top.

Yes to "I'm cold."

Because we didn't bring sweatshirts

but decided to go anyway.

Yes to piggy back rides.

And we said yes to spotting a herd of elk . . .

on what looked like a giant's golf course.

And yes to the experience

of watching some yearling calves

up for the adventure

of chasing a herd of elk off their

grassy knoll . . .

Which was a "yes" to something

we had never seen before . . .

Yes to alpine wildflowers

and "yes"

to new

shared memories.

*

Photos copyright 2011, Jodene (Jodi) Shaw.