I paid for two more nights and will stay here until tomorrow morning. The music crowd left Sunday and all is quiet.  I found another little paradise, this one closer to home. In fact, Wheatland is only 285 miles across the Big Horns and down I-25.

I expect to be back in tiny Ten Sleep in the future. I found that I can write well here and am comfy working outside under the tall trees. Lots of trails and back roads too, but I have been busy with music festival and work projects. Lots to do next time.

A couple a few rows over stays here for 2 months every summer. Their grand kids call Ten Sleep their Summer Camp, appropriate because it was the summer camp for Native Americans. The name Ten Sleep refers to the amount of “sleeps”it takes from here to the winter camps (ten).

This side of the Big Horns is called the Big Horn Basin.These great maps give a better idea where I am:

The orange area is the Bighorn Basin. I am in the foothills of the Big Horn Mountains, which are along the right side of the basin. The Absorka and Beartooth mountains form the western edge of the basin. I came into the basin through that top opening. Earlier on the trip, I camped on the eastern flank of the Big Horns

This map shows the Big Horn Mountains, the Basin (in gray) and the proximity to Yellowstone (in green)

Road Map of Area, Ten Sleep is to the east of Worland, lower right quadrant

The basin is an extreme, arid and mostly tree-less bio-region. Rock outcroppings and uplifts are colored red by hematite.

I am literally only half a mile up from the basin, in the Bighorn foothills, but the terrain is different

The eastern section of the basin is  rich in fossils and yields many dinosaur fossils.

Map of Big Horn Basin, showing fossil sites. Ten Sleep is in lower right section of map

Some uranium has been mined in the northern part of the basin; the discovery of oil and other energy resources is transforming the basin.

Tomorrow  I head home, regroup, and head up to the State Fair in Douglas (60 miles from home) for three days. I am looking forward to home. I keep thinking, like Dorothy, there is no place like home. Phone calls/emails about work-related matters are starting and they are comforting, welcoming.