We got out of town just about on schedule Saturday morning. Our youth group (plus one female guest, about the same age as most of the boys, who certainly put the others on their best behavior, or worst, depending on the moment), was off on its annual 3+ hour journey to Chief Washakie's hot springs. Most of the crew in the SUV pulling the trailer, the two rookies riding with me.

Got to listen to games of Pokemon most of the way up.

First north, until we passed Whiskey Peak:

Then it was west, towards the Wind Rivers:

A brief stop at the historic river crossing, or the "Cheese Place" as it is known by one rookie

where you can see the headwind we were fighting most of the way. And then north again, towards the Owl Creek Mountains.

Had to cross the spillway over Boysen. That is supposed to be water in that photo up there, for as far as you can see to the distant hills and mountains. But it's dry, with a trickle of water running through it. Has been for three years, or maybe more. Lake bottom is trying to turn back into sage steppe.

They say this year should be just as dry as the previous three. Maybe worse.

After a left at the Malt Town, it is north towards the Owl Creeks, the canyon, and the only highway tunnels

I know of in our state (although they may have made some new ones on the reconstruction east of Yellowstone, and I hear there may be one by Devil's Tower). Then north through the canyon itself

which got one of the rookies to exclaim "Wow," when he looked up from his Gameboy. He was also quite thrilled by the frozen waterfalls:

Lunch was the usual stop at the A&W burger joint and bowling alley in Hot Springs town. With the 1950s decor, and ordering individual meals from the phones at the booths. New experiences for some. Hassle for the waitress. Then off to the hot pool and water slide:

Now, a photo of a parking lot isn't interesting, but I wanted to point out to Bad that, while most trucks in her country come equipped with a _wench_, most in our neck of sagebrush come complete with a dog in the back. Usually one with some degree of heeler breeding in it.

The entire afternoon was spent at the hot pools. In both the indoor and outdoor pools. And the sauna cave (which really is a cave, and really is a sauna, with naturally heated water), which has had the age restriction reduced to 10 years, so all our crew got to enjoy it. And yes, I went down the tube slide. At least a half-dozen times. Although I had forgotten about the darkness and sudden, airborne drop 13 seconds down.

I had remembered the scrapes you get from the rough joints in the tubing, and they were still just as rough. And the 65 cold, wet concrete steps it takes to get to the start, three stories up.

Once fatigue and boredom (and hunger) settled in, we gathered the crew up and went across the river for a brief check-in at the former Armory, where we were to spend the night, and then to Pizza Hut for dinner. We used to bring supplies and cook our own fancy dinners on this trip, but the fire marshall of town shut down the Armory stove and oven, and we found it was much easier to eat out. And maybe more of a treat.

Especially when the boys found out we were using their Burger Night tip money for the pool and food. Nothing like knowing you're getting rewarded for your work.

A brief decompression period back at the armory after dinner, where I took a moment to enjoy the warm sunset over their mountains:

And a quiet visit with the four deer feeding across the fence.

It took a lot more discussion than usual to decide upon our evening plans. Eventually we just drove back to the hot pool, dumped out all who wanted to stay there (with me as escort), and the rest went bowling (one for the first time in his life... got his nickname changed from "Midget" (which I had actively discouraged) to "Gutterball", which he is quite happy with).

Those of us at the Hot Pool just about had the place to ourselves, and spent the first hour in a vigorous game of basketball outside in the steaming hot pool. Hard to shoot when the basket disappears in a mist. All went well until one player ripped a half-dime sized chunk of skin off his big toe.

Didn't hurt much, but it being a community pool, I figured the injured party should stay out of the water. So I spent the rest of the evening sitting and visiting with the local lifeguards, who were watching our crew, as they had almost no else to watch.

We closed down the Hot Pool at their video games, me enjoying a trip down memory lane with Galaga, the other five gathered around the hunting game, where they went all across simulated Wisconsin trying to blast simulated geese into simulated puffs of feathers with plastic shotguns (really, that's what the game does). Our female guest held her own, in fact the lead, until her last hunting spot, when she got skunked and left in the dust.

Back at the Armory, it was an hour or so of basketball and Magic: The Gathering or Pokemon games. And then the traditional game of "Capture the Flag".

In the dark.

As in, the only light entering the gymnasium was from the pop machines, and most of that was occluded with someone's bedroll. I cannot believe these guys can play that in near-total darkness and not kill each other. But they do.

My eyes must be getting old.

The Flag game was followed by bedtime for the other leader, and his daughter, in the gym, while the crew and I retired to the separate Card Room for resumption of the Magic and Pokemon games.

I judged and refereed for an hour or so before crashing myself. Around 01:00, I roused to check on the card games, which were still going strong. Rookies were just thrilled, and I mean thrilled, that they were allowed to stay up so late (I advised one's mother upon our return... she said she had expected it).

I did have one screw-up. Forgot one lad's bedtime meds until 01:30. 'Course, since he didn't get to bed until 02:10, along with the rest of the gang, I guess it was okay.