National Forest Day Trip

We don’t currently have a trailer, so we haven’t been doing much camping lately. Maybe we’ll be able to get one by next summer. However, the next best thing is a day trip to the mountains.
One of our favorite weekend activities, if you hadn’t noticed, is to head out on a Sunday afternoon drive. This past weekend we chose to do some exploring on forest service roads.

I love driving along the tops of the mountain ridges. It was clear enough to see for miles.

This picture reminds me of a painted back-drop, but no, it’s actually an unedited photo of Lake Pend Oreille (say “ponderay”) from way up above.

Sometimes our excursions are uneventful–though always scenic and enjoyable–but this time we had the “adventure” of a flat tire. Fortunately, Lyle was able to change it to the spare and we were soon on our way again. We decided it might be a good idea to carry a small air pump with us when we go off-grid that way, just in case something like that might happen twice and we’d need to “limp” back to civilization. No cell service in the National Forest around here.

While Lyle was changing the tire, we others strolled around a bit enjoying the wildflowers. Rebecca pointed out this interesting critter… Can you see it?
I Googled it when I got home. Turns out it’s a female Goldenrod Crab Spider. Apparently, it can change colors–white or yellow–depending on the flower. Fascinating!
Later, we stopped to stretch our legs at this mound of rocks. We remembered that we had hunted for a Geocache here years ago, so we looked for it again. We didn’t find it this time. It may not still be there.
I found this picture of the girls at that same place taken 7 years ago. They were 16 and 13 then.

I also shot several segments of video on the drive. This one is about a minute-and-a-half long. And yes, it’s bumpy, but that’s part of the experience.

When’s the last time you were off-grid?