Where there is love... there is life: Trip Home-- Elk Hunting

A few weeks ago I flew to Oregon to go hunting with my family! (as usual I'm behind in blogging again...)

On our way over we stopped in the little town of Mitchell to eat breakfast. Its a old town with lots of cool buildings. I think the population is about 100 now. It used to be a booming town though! There was a really nice lady there that gave my sister and I a quick tour and history lesson on the town.

Very friendly people in this town!

And... they welcomed Hunters! haha

After a yummy breakfast we continued on our journey to one of my favorite places. A ranch outside of Dayville. As you can see from the picture below, it is really beautiful.

Our goal for the weekend was to kill a few elk, but they got lucky...

On Saturday we were driving around on the quads and spotted a huge herd of elk running up over a valley. Of course they had heard us first so we had lost the element of surprise. We quickly made a game plan and split up into two groups.

My dad and I headed over a big hill. My sister and a friend headed towards the valley. We both ended up on the same mountain side but had no idea where the other one was.

My dad and I spotted the elk and tried to work our way down the hill to get closer. The trees were beginning to thin out and the elk were being really skittish. They knew we were near by. My dad and I knew this was our only chance, so we set up to shoot. We didn't have a range finder so we had to guess. We were probably about 400 yards away. I shot, and missed. My dad shot and missed. It was a long shot. We quickly found my sister who was not happy because she was in a much better position to shoot. Next time we will make sure to have walkie talkies or just stick together.

My dad and I decided to hike over to wear we shot the elk at just to make sure. We checked for a blood trail but found nothing. I really wanted to follow the elk so we started climbing another hill.

By the way... these hills were huge and steep.

By the time we got to the top of the next hill, the elk were on the next ridge over. We decided to head back to the group, which was a long ways away. We were so tired...

I turned on my almost dead cell phone and called my sister. Told her where we were headed and to meet us their with the quad if she could.

Most normal people wouldn't even think of driving a quad in our direction.

Not my sister.

Even my dad couldn't believe she drove to us.

The terrain was very rough.

When we finally met up, my dad and I were so relieved to see her because we had pretty much drenched our clothes with sweat and we were so exhausted.

All three of us climbed onto the quad with our guns and packs.

(I'll have to share pictures of that later, pretty funny)

We headed back to the cabin and cooked a yummy dinner and played card games that night.

Overall it was a wonderful weekend spent with my family doing the things we love.

Here are a few more pictures from our adventures weekend!