Up at 5:45 a.m. this morning. I opened the front curtains and saw something brown down by the salt lick. At first I thought it was just a tree, but then I saw it licking. Finally – a moose! I tried a few shots through the screen on the front porch but they weren't good, so I snuck up on him outside, sticking close to the side of the cabin. He wasn't bothered by me at all.

I think it might be the young moose we had last year since he's so raggedy. Maybe he has scabies? Or maybe it's an injury.

He was in no hurry to leave and we had just fed the girls and they needed to have their morning pee. We waited. And we waited. Finally I knew Hailey was crossing her legs so we put them on leads and took them out the back of the cabin away from Mr. Moose. 

He's gone now, on to whatever moose do with their days. If he becomes a frequent visitor we might just have to name him.

Today, Lynne and I drove separate trucks into Laramie to meet the moving van at 9:00. Our goods were delivered to a storage facility there. We left a little early because it was raining and spitting snow. Here is what the trucks looked like once we (finally) got to town.

All our stuff arrived with only one item damaged. The above photos were taken afterwards, at WalMart where we stopped for a quick shop. We also brought a few items back to the cabin including some kitchen stuff, a bookshelf, a dresser and a cuckoo clock.

It was "relatively" dry on the way back home. We stopped for gas and I did a quick wash on the trucks.

Oh, and we picked up mail both going out (yesterday's) and coming back in (today's)!

PS: To all of you who read my post to the Sand Creek Park Facebook page yesterday about Brubaker Ln and Sand Creek Road being graded and smooth? No longer true.

When describing our off-the-grid cabin to people, one of the most common questions is about whether we risk being snowed in. The answer is yes and we will prepare for that in many ways. 

What never came up was whether, when we finally arrived after our cross-country move, we'd be "snowed out". We are.

We arrived just after noon today. It was during a thunderstorm. And, we found that our driveway is still under 2 to 3 feet of snow. This is not really surprising for mid-May, but I was seriously hoping that it would be clear.

Bella doesn't seem to mind.

But, Lynne and I had to make several trips from the top of the drive to the cabin with essential supplies.

We will need to deal with this over the next few days. Maybe we can move it with a neighbor's snow blower. Or, it might require a call to Oscar (who did the excavation for us last summer).

We are "moved in" somewhat. It seems odd that we can't drive down to the cabin, but when I powered up the satellite Internet system it came right up (allowing me to write this post). The heater is running, but should cut off soon at 60 degrees. There is a fire in the wood stove. We have running water--even hot water. The refrigerator is running. And, we've done a quick surface cleaning. Everything is in pretty good shape.

It was nice to see the new solar panels and batteries. And, to see that even through the clouds were were getting some good charge. We are fine on electricity it seems.

Lynne and I have not yet sorted out the process for both of us posting to this site. So, for a while you may see redundant posts and multiple posts on the same day. Bear with us, we'll sort it out and come up with a strategy. (Which may be for us to do redundant posts and multiple posts on the same day.)

This photo was taken on the way in. You can see Rick pulling the Tab in front of me. It rained on us, and hailed a bit then stopped long enough to get some things in from the cars before it cut loose again.

Here is Rick checking the mail. Nope, no mail.

We can't get down our driveway -- too much snow!! We could not believe our eyes. So we had to park at the top of the driveway and lug stuff down through the snowdrifts that are left. In the rain, mind you. We only brought down the groceries and a few other things for now and we are hoping we figure out a solution for getting rid of the snow so we can park the Tab where she belongs.

The cabin seems in good shape except for a few things, like a broken pipe from the roof, and a stupid packrat somehow found its way into our screened-in porch and made a big smelly nest underneath the wood rack. Peeuw! We'll tackle that another day. 

Right now the heater is running and I made a fire in the wood stove. More to come later, just wanted to let everyone know that we made it, even if we are snowed-out.

The paintbrush will soon be "painting" the high mountain meadows with red and yellow.  The yellow is called "Wyoming Paintbrush."