After a brief explanation of our visit I signaled to mom, David and Farron it was ok for us to look around. When they came down I introduced them to Duane, the resident employee of the Cattle Ranch and a genuine, honest to goodness cowboy. You couldn’t hope to meet a nicer person up here in the mountains.
We were so excited. Duane invited us inside the cabin for a look around. He explained to us that he was trying to bring the cabin back as close to original as possible. He added a few modern conveniences like caulk between the logs on the inside and some insulation to fill the gaps in the roof. He also showed us where he had found some names written and scratched on the walls.
We told him about the copy of Grandma’s old map. He sounded very interested. We looked over it together and he told us about some of the areas he ranged the cattle. He also told us about an old sheep pen with loading stocks. We decided we would try and find it if we had time.
Too quickly it was getting dark. We mentioned we had better get going if we hoped to make it to a camping spot or the campground that was another 20 miles down the road. Duane offered for us to camp right there at sheep camp. He irrigates out of the spring so there were a few nice semi green spots. We quickly accepted. He had to get up early the next morning to meet the rest of the crew and would stop by if we were still around in the afternoon. We headed over toward the new building to find a good place to set up the tent and all our other camping accessories. We decided to camp further away from the cabin so we would not disturb Duane.
Once again we were pushing darkness to get the camp setup. While David and I set up tents mom and Farron explored around the area a little and started getting the dinner together. We still had firewood left over from Farewell Bend so we decided to finish of the hot dogs and have a few marshmallows. As the moon rose in the east, we finished the out house then settled down to a nice evening around the camp fire.
Everyone pitched in for a hearty breakfast of Pancakes and bacon. Coffee by David, pancakes by Brandon and mom cleans up. After Breakfast we all took a walk around looking at the old buildings, the spring and the horse corrals. Duane has several horses with him here at the camp. He said that he uses them all for different jobs as well as trains young horses from time to time.
After a morning of exploring around camp we decided to have lunch before heading up to the sheep pen and Boni Table. Just a short drive from camp we found the road Duane had told us to take. It is hard to miss with it’s crooked fence post.
From here on it was four-wheel-drive. The trail was rough with native surface and washouts. Not only were we looking for the old sheep pen but another trail that would take us up on top of Boni Table. Duane wasn’t sure if we would be able to make it up but we figured we would give it a try.
After returning from our four hour drive we were ready for dinner. We invited Duane to join us but he had already eaten supper and had another early morning. He gave us some information about Jordan Valley and offered to let us stay at his place in town if we didn’t find a camp site.
After dinner we finished off our firewood and enjoyed the last of the marshmallows under another full moon