Off the grid, then back on

August 19, 2015

I run, and I do it loudly.  I fly, I chase evil spirits.  I am THUNDERPAWS, king of the morning!  I also must supervise everything my humans do.  They may need my help.  Oh wait!  There is something under the rug!  I must attack!

What is that I smell...  Yes!  It is trees!  It smells woodsy!  Like Christmas!  Ok, there is smoke too, but at least I can smell the trees. 

The weather is crisp again, not quite as cold as the night before, though.  Our morning hike took us on a loop trail out of the campground.  Through the woods we climb on a soft trail composted with centuries of fir needles.  Up and around, then up a dirt road.  Quite a bit of cardio on this one.  The last part, Spouse waited while I climbed - a real cardio workout!  Then back to Hannah.

We have less than 80 miles to the town of Stanley which will be our base for a few days.  How long do you think it would take to do that...  We are definitely in the trees.  The road curves and twists and climbs and falls.  There are rivers and creeks.  It is slow, it is less slow.  There are tons of little camp areas, many of which would fit trailers (no services).  There are cross country ski trails.  We could spend an entire summer exploring the area.  We concluded that we left 2 weeks too late. 

It is still smoky, not worth taking a picture.  We keep changing places with a motorcyclist name Kim.  We stop, he stops.  He stops, we stop, all by chance.  He is now our tour guide and new best friend.  He tells us about the Lowman fire of 30 years ago and how the trees we are looking at are coming back.

We stop at an overlook to have lunch.  Too bad about the smoke, as it really is quite pretty.  I must admit, I am not afraid of heights, but the steep cliffs and the lack of guardrails is a bit annoying.  I can't imagine driving this road in the winter.  There are all sorts of avalanche warning signs.

Since we have been off the grid for the last couple of days, we decided to stay in an RV park in Stanley.  Time to recharge this and that, get water, etc.  It only took about 6 hours to drive the 80 miles.  Our spot in the RV park is ... interesting.  They haven't mowed the area in years.  The wildflowers are attacking us as we walk up our stairs.  We put our mat down, weighing it with a rock to keep the flowers down.  Let's call this 'rustic'.

In the evening, we scouted out the area.  Spouse was excited to pick up some free firewood. Got a hike planned, checked out a creek, might need to fish...