Dogwood Canyon

Dogwood Canyon is pretty awesome.  We have been there once before, but I think it was cold and I wasn't too into it...LOL... this time, the weather was AwEsOmE!!!  We had a nice time and really enjoyed the canyon this time...

We were scheduled for a 1:30 tram tour and we got there at 11:30 and walked around on the grounds for a bit -

After playing around on the grounds, we had a picnic lunch and then it was time for our tram ride... it was a 2 hour ride up (well, down really - into a canyon and into Arkansas) through the area. Even though we have had a long, hot summer, the ride was still pretty.  We rode by some really pretty waterfalls...

There was tons of waterholes that were full of HUGE rainbow trout!  The driver of the tram had fish food and they were jumping like crazy!

THEN... we went into the area with wild animals... there were some white tail deer - but not in a good position to take their pictures.  There were elk.. the tram driver was telling us how there were a lot of both bull and cow elk, but that one was like the *king* of the bull - he had a harem of cow elk.  We watched them for a while and this guy here -> was just hungry and wanted to come up to the tram and get some food - but when he got close, the king bull got up and kinda scared him off... the driver said that this guy wasn't really a threat to the king bull, because he was still rather small.  If a bigger bull would have gotten close we would have probably seen a fight.

This guy did figure it out though.. he went around the tram and was going to help himself, but the driver was nice and shared...

After we got through the elk area, there were some longhorns - they were awesome looking ...

and this my friends is where the camera died...

anyways... we were super close to these longhorns - one wrong turn with those horns could do some damage!!  We went on from there to see the buffalo - there was one that was 5 weeks old - he wouldn't get up, and three others that were born in May (I think) - one of them did get up - he was SO cute!    The tram driver put out grain here (as well as with the elk and the longhorn) and a couple came up and started feeding... Gramma Jean said "When I woke up this morning I never thought I would be 6 inches from a buffalo face".  Everyone on the tram got a kick out of that!  The ride back to the beginning was nice and uneventful!  

I did borrow Gramma Sherrie's camera, so eventually there will be pictures of the rest of the trip...

The rest of the evening was spent hanging out by the fire and playing games...