2013 Antelope Hunt Day 2

I woke up early, which was even earlier in the central time zone - and even earlier in the very nearby mountain time zone.  Luckily, the hotel had in-room coffee so that kept me going until the free hotel breakfast was ready.
The breakfast area was surprisingly busy.  There were several workers getting ready for construction-type jobs and a few travelers obviously ready to hit the road early.  I ate two excellent Golden Malted waffles saturated with syrup.  I really didn't need the second, but the first was very good.

I very slowly got ready since I wasn't in a hurry.  It is only about six hours to Wyoming Area 50 and the rendezvous time isn't until 4:00.  I don't do sitting around very well, so I waited as long as I could and headed west around sunrise.
Traffic was nearly non-existent and since I wasn't in a hurry, I slowed down a bit.  My mileage from the day before was noticeably lower due to the much higher speeds.  As I left, there was some light fog in the valleys, and a beautiful orange sunrise pushed me down the road.  The few places I could see the Platte River, I could already tell it was beginning to rise due to the downstream effect of the torrential rain in Colorado.

I crossed into Wyoming, ready to see Antelope.  Through eastern Nebraska, the elevation started to rise.  My Toyota Tacoma, already an anemic vehicle, had noticeably poorer performance at the higher elevation.
I got off the interstate near Laramie and continued west through the Medicine Bow National Forest.  There were very few other vehicles on the road and the scenery was Wyoming pretty.
I saw a heard of pronghorn's about 20 miles outside of Laramie.  Hopefully I'll see many more in the next few days.
I was glad there were no other vehicles because as the elevation continued to rise, the truck had trouble even keeping going in fourth gear.  I was that guy that I hate when traveling through mountains by motorcycle - except I pulled over for the only car that came up behind me.

I rarely stop for scenic overlooks, but with time to kill I stopped near the top.  It was pretty, if windy and quite cold.

Descending down the mountain, I was now in or near the area that my tag was good for.  And, once out of the tree-covered area, I did see a couple groups of antelope.

I got into Saratoga at about noon, local time.  Unsure I what to do, I drove around and saw a sign for a library.  While looking for it, I saw a community center and stopped in.  They had free wifi which I could take advantage of for a few hours.  As mentioned earlier, I don't do sitting around well, but I at times can be forced into it.  The community center had a large lobby area with many animal mounts.  I found it a bit odd that most were African, and there was only one pronghorn in the bunch.  I guess since the people here see them everyday, they don't hold the same interest.

After stealing the community center wifi for a while and reading some brochures about the area, I got moving again.  One of the brochures mentioned a Victorian era prison available for tours in Rawlins.  Hopefully I can make a mental note on that for some future road trip through Wyoming.

I parked down by the renezvous point and walked around most of Saratoga.  It appears a pretty nice town, largely catering to tourism of the rugged area.  The town was small enough that I was able to walk most of it in a short amount of time.  Around 3:00 I headed to the Hotel Wolf to meet with the outfitter.  Deb and Quin (not sure if that is spelled right) showed up and we talked a bit.  I had to explain the lack of a cohunter, but that didn't seem to be an overt issue.
There was only one other antelope hunter in camp, Art from Illinois.  He has hunted extensively and was after a better animal than he had taken previously.  Since he was hunting a different area from me, we would be guided one on one.

We caravanned to the lodge for the evening.  The drive was relatively short down mostly dirt roads.  The lodge itself was a very nice log house, outfitted with comfortable eating and sleeping areas.  Pretty nice digs for the next few days.

The rest of the evening was spent talking and eating a great chicken dinner.  Many pronghorn could be seen from the porch of the lodge including one nice buck.  Later in the evening a mule deer doe was meandering down by a creek below the lodge.

There was another group of six bowhunters in camp for elk.  One of them had tagged an elk earlier in the day and recovered it after most of the day - it was a very nice 6x6.

It was a late night by Eastern time zone standards and I was ready to begin going after Antelope.