BCT

If you don't meet summer time head on, it will over take you and be gone in an instant.  So here it is Tuesday and Hubby and I did something we've never done before on a Tuesday, meet me after work, evening.  One of our most favorite trails is above Lover's Camp down the Scott River.  Box Camp Trail.  My dear one loaded the dogs, gassed up the pickup, scored a pizza and soda before meeting me at the Meamber School House.  I parked the car, got in with the adventurous Tuesday afternoon gang.  We headed "down river". 

The drive was beautiful with tall grass along side the road that was dotted with daisies.  The daisies were  bowing their heads downward to protect themselves from the rain that gently covered them throughout the day.

Lucy, our beloved terrier, is always excited to ride in the pickup.  Doesn't matter where she is going, she is whining in her unbridled excitement.  Forever winding for deer, Lucy always smells them before we see them.  Right on cue, Hubby saw a doe and a yearling.  Jessie, the little blue dog, also loves to go but in her aged condition she is most comfortable in the middle of the spare tire.

When we got to the end of the road, it was cold.  Windy cold that blows through your layers.  Strapping up my boots, I decided that more layers would be better than less.  Good decision. 

The trail is deceiving because it seems like it is going to be pretty much level but as most of the trails in the Marble Mountains, everything must go up to get to the high country.  We took it easy as we meandered up the recently rain soaked trail.  Lucy always puts on way more miles than we do because she must smell, see and explore everything within 70 yards of the trail.  It was fun to watch Lucy as she danced and leaped through the tall grass, wild flowers and skunk cabbage, unknowingly bathing herself as she listened to the music of the high mountains.

At one point Hubby asked if I wanted to go off the trail a bit to look down over the side of the world.  Sure.  Always game for a good view.  Lucy was a little ahead of us and up flew a mama Grouse and her three babies.  They went from unseen to flight in one fluid motion.  Lucy is always as surprised as everyone else. 

Maybe the one parent with her three little ones reminded Hubby of the fact that we were on the same point that him and the three boys were when they hunted one weekend.  They were "playing cat and mouse" with some bucks.  The bucks won.

Back on the trail, we kept going.  We broke out of the trees into the spot open where it pretty much levels out around for a while to meet the gap.  The rain started getting more intense, pelting our faces and you could no longer see the sweeping, brushed covered meadows or the tall majestic fir and cedar trees.  We turned around.  Just as we went back into a group of trees, Hubby said "there goes Lucy, she's after something".  At that moment, I saw Lucy headed back our way.  With a very large mama cinnamon bear on her tail.  About 70 yards from us, we froze for a moment to collect ourselves as Hubby went into protection mode.  Needless to say, we "broke camp" and scadattled.

The walk back to the pickup is always the one with a purpose.  At this point I could feel the weariness of the day creep in and I knew that this Tuesday adventure must come to an end.  On the drive out, I noticed that the daisies had turned their faces toward the sky as if to embrace the evening air.  The rain had subsided, the mountains were happy and we felt moments of contentment creep in.