Oh yeah. It was a big deal for her to be able to do a trip like this without her siblings competing for attention
I've not been able to do a similar trip with her since this one, but I did a similar trip with her younger brother this past June to North Carolina. I have done shorter rides with both of them around here and also in Arkansas/Missouri. My youngest is not as excited about riding as the two older kids, especially the unpaved stuff. She doesn't like all the bumps
They are Sarah 14 (15 in Dec), Daniel 13, and Rachel 11.
When we were heading up the West side of the route I posted above between Cedar City and Salt Lake City, there were thousands upon thousands of sheep up high in the mountains. There were many sheep dogs keeping a watchful eye on them as well, but no people. There were these little chuck wagon trailers that we'd see every know and then that had places where the dogs could get food. Also, there were often horses with the trailers and places for them to get food/water, but never any people. I suppose the ranchers just come up on occasion to check on things but otherwise go about their daily lives in the towns down in the valleys. I had no idea the sheep industry was so large in that area. I didn't get any pics of those sheep up close because they were usually so far from the roads. However, they apparently like to poop in the roads instead of the fields where they eat, so it got a bit messy a few times...
The pic above is actually over in Colorado on the East side of our loop. We were heading South from Rifle, Co., toward Paonia. These high school aged kids were bring a herd down from higher up, I guess because it was getting late in the season and it was getting colder at altitude. We rode through the herd, with several sheep dogs getting between us and the sheep to keep them moving. However, the road wound up being a dead end because of a land slide. So we ended up having to turn around and go back down through the herd again to get to the new detour route. Just North of Paonia we encountered a LARGE bull moose, two cows and two very young calves. Whenever we mentioned this in town (Paonia) everyone acted like this was a rare thing. They moved away before I was able to get my camera out for pics.
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I wouldn't have ever made it back! I'd be stopping for pictures every 10ft and driving about 10mph gawking. Looks so tranquil!
