when you're not from around these parts

On our recent trip to Greer we saw some beautiful sights for sure.  The most amazing was all that green. "Look at all that green"! The unusual rainfall in that part of the state, has made what is usually very brown at this time of year, very unusually green. Actually, just very lovely green.

We marveled at the rolling hills and the landscape and thought it looked more like Scotland then Arizona. Not that we have ever been to Scotland, but rolling hills and lush green grass seems a wee bit Scottish. Or Irish.

They have introduced Big Horn into the area and on one of our drives past this particular hill, we were lucky enough to spot them. Look closely...can you see them?

Here you go. The zoom on my camera got them this close...but  I wanted to see if I could get a better look, so I enlarged the photo a bit on my computer.

 It makes it a little fuzzy, but you can see them a bit better.

It was a rainy afternoon which dampened our plans for a hike or fishing. But, rather than sit in the cabin we decided a drive up to the big lake and take a scenic drive around the area. We were glad we did because it was really pretty and we got to see some animals. Most of which were cows. Chuck wanted me to take some photos for possible future paintings. I was only able to get out of the car a few times because of the rain so, most of these I snapped from the open window.

I love this guy.

We would stop along the side of the road while I took pictures of the cows. For the most part we were the only car on the road. A pick-up truck came up behind us at one point, perhaps to see what I was pointing my camera at. Eventually they went around us and moseyed  on up the road. After getting a few photos of this cute cow we continued on. Around the curve in the road we saw the truck parked ahead of us. Our eyes spotted what their eyes did and so I pulled up my camera and did a little more snapping.

Hey, there are elk in them thar hills!

Cows and elk and green grass and pine trees and rain. A pretty site. Unfortunately, electrical lines too.

    But it was certainly a treat to see and dare I say...remind us of Colorado?! Ahhh...yes.

After a couple of minutes, the gentleman got out of his truck and walked back towards our car. Chuck rolled down his window and we all made our greetings. "Hello."

"My son and I saw you two taking pictures of the cows back there and we just wanted to point something out to you. Do you see the lighter spots beyond the cows back along the tree-line? Those are elk!"

Chuck told him we had in fact spotted them and that I was taking pictures of them as well. In fact, he explained, that I was zooming in, trying to see if there were any bulls amongst them.

A little more pleasant conversation went back and forth until he bid us good-bye and said... "well, we thought maybe you weren't from around these parts and since you were taking pictures of cows we didn't know if you knew those were elk back there!" We thanked him, because it was nice of him to come visit with us and to share in their excitement of spotting elk. We were guessing they were out scouting the area as hunting season is approaching. And then we got a little chuckle that we must surely look like city folk,  excited to see cows and excited to take so many pictures of them!

The elk were pretty exciting too.

And to clarify...cow.

Elk.

                                                               Equally exciting!