Back to Colorado: Wtih an Elk

 

This is an Elk, a Roosevelt Elk I should say, since there are many species in the world that we use the name "elk" for...

these are Audubon's depictions of Eastern Elk, another subspecies here in the US.

 

Jon hunts big game very successfully here in Colorado, Elk and Deer, but since nothing ruins the taste of meat more then a bunch of "testosterone", I always encourage him to go for the cows(female elk) and does( female deer) instead of the males. Way better eating!

But my brother on the other hand, being a wild and footloose bachelor, is more for the trophy animals, a moose head resides over his coach, you would have to scoot over to get up, and a Kodak grizzly bear hide, is folded up like an afghan on the other side.

So up in Wyoming I went "fishing" to see if he had any elk racks "laying around" he didn't want and matter of fact he said he did,  "tired of "a 6point bull elk rack taking up the floor of a bedroom."

Slight problem.... we had to get it home.

 

This is the skull and rack  in the back of our truck.

 

 

Yes, we tied and locked the elk rack to the bike rack and drove through the rest of Wyoming into South Dakota, with passerbyers giving us strange looks, were we "liberal Obama loving mountain bikers" or "conservative gun loving right-winged patriotic Americans", actually we are a little of both.

The hotels were fun, I leaning towards carrying "Elkie" through the lobby and well, giving him one of the beds, but Jon won out and we locked the elk rack up with the mountains bikes , with cables, it was a debate which was more valuable- a top end mountain bike or a European mount 6 point bull elk.

 

I have to say, everyone thought I was silly, back in Wyoming when I declared we should coil a bike cable around the rack and lock it up, but guess what, that is what we did! The horrible, still slightly bloody tarp my brother gave us, probably from wrapping some game to pack out of the mountains on his mules also discouraged "looky lous"...

That is the actual rack, being packed out, shot in "them there mountains", the Absorka Mountains, where Yellowstone if on the backside...

Sorry if you haven't had your lunch yet, I might not be eating read meat today, either, afte this post!

 

All secure we drove east into South Dakota, south into Nebraska...

 

Back into Wymoning, down to the Eastern Slope of Colorado, over the Continental Divide...

 

 

And where back home the elk was unpacked and hung up in a place of honor between our  east cathedral windows...

 

The second Jon came down off the ladder and had not only drilled the hole for the mounting but several more to anchor the rack with wire for extra security, I realized we had "hung 'em too high", it took a day of pleading to get the whole thing lowered...