JUN 23, 1994

BUFFALO

I was having a good ride down WY 59 from Gillette, WY on the way to Douglas. Along the way, I rode passed quite a few coal mines. They were a lot of long trains consisting of mostly coal cars heading southward.

I learned later this part of Wyoming is called "Energy Lane". The hills were low and rolling and there was also a lot of small herds of deer and pronghorn antelope. A lot of the herds had a long of young ones. From a sign, I learned that I was riding through the Thunder Basin National Grasslands.

In one large barb-wired field instead of antelope or deer there was a large herd of buffalo. I couldn't count all of them but it looked like there was several hundred of them in all sizes. This had to have been one of the largest herds that I had come across in my travels. I learned later that some of this herd had been used in the making of "Dancing With Wolves."