Do you remember the Gypsies??

As we have all been going back in time and visiting old friends and renewing old aquaintances, remembering old things of our childhood.
I remember something from the "Valley" that I thought of off and on over the years.
Do you remember the gypsies on Smith Valley road every summer. On the right hand side on the way to Highway 37 by the little creek, just over the bridge?
I always liked playing in that particular creek, as it had a deep hole, (probably all of two or three feet) to catch the bigger ones. Again, probably all of about 6 or 8 inches. But back then, they were whales.
We were still very young and one Spring day you would be driving by and poof, there they were by the creek. The had their wonderful brightly painted horse drawn wagon and about a zillion little dark haired kiddies running around.
We never heard from them and they seemed to mind their own business and after a few weeks, poof, they were gone again. Then one Spring, they never came back. We never saw them come or go. They just appeared.

I used to ride my bike by to try and catch a glimpse of them, they had bright colored clothes and lots more hanging from a line. They had a fire and their horse nearby, and a dog or two.
Don't know if they were true gypsies from Romania, but they gave that appearance to me. Or maybe they were Basque on their way to the mtns. to raise sheep. But then again, I had quite an imagination.
I always thought that this was one of the most wonderful and mysterious things of my childhood.

Many years later, while visiting and later living in the mtns. of Colorado, while four wheeling, we would come across a group of Basque sheep herders and stop and talked with them on more than one occasion. They always remembered us. They would stay in Colorado until the end of summer, then move their sheep on into Utah for the winter. They had this tiny little camper pulled by horses and dogs to chase the sheep, everything done on horseback. One year they had 4,000 sheep and the following year, they had 8,000, what a sight to see, 8000 sheep crossing the mountains. Then one year, there they were again, this time with a new pickup truck. I guess sheep herding really does pay. The waved us down to share with us. I still have their pictures somewhere.

I often wonder to this day, whatever happened to those mysterious people by our little creek.
Why didn't we take pictures back then?