Memories from Forest Travels
The updating of forestcamping.com from the information received from the Forest Service has been completed!!!! Okay, there are some phone calls I’m waiting for to resolve a few remaining issues but the work is done!!! It felt like it was taking forever to get everything entered. The whole process is so boring but necessary. I’ve always said you have to chop a lot of onions to make a good stew. I hope readers of www.forestcamping.com find we made a good “stew.”
One of the best things about the hours and hours of updating are the little trips down memory lane. You probably have a long list of your own. Here are a few of mine.
Watching the weather move in from the boulder top mountains at Dolly Sod in the Monangehela National Forest.
Watching the play of shadow and light across the Grand Canyon from the Kaibab Plateau and North Rim.
Watching an egret standing statue still on the far side of a lake one foggy morning and then seeing it strike like lightning, see an osprey snatch a fish out of the water, and spotting that Bald eagle swim to shore with a salmon in its talons.
The breath-taking beauty of Valle Vidal Management Unit’s high desert prairie in the Carson NF and of a Humpback whale as it glides through open water of Alaska’s Tongass NF.
Discovering an unexpected waterfall like the one at Singletree campground in the Fishlake NF. (Never imagined water could be so cold on such a hot day.)
Finding petroglyphs in a little cave in the Ouachita National Forest (the forest knew about them but we still felt like Columbus discovering American).
Figuring out what’s for dinner from what we could find in a gas station’s convenience section in the far reaches of Custer NF. (That experience taught us just because the map has a dot doesn’t mean is it much of a town.)
Waking up in the Manti-LaSal NF’s Gooseberry Reservoir campground in the middle of a flock of sheep in the morning and having a blizzard move in the evening.
Watching a willy ole beaver steal fishing bobbin off the end of an angler’s line at Twin Lake campground in the Allegheny National Forest.
Catching “aspen glow” on Mt. Hood from Trillium Lake campground in Mt. Hood NF.
Listening to: the coyotes at Steer Creek campground in Sam McKelvie NF; the loons on Bear Lake in the Nicolet; the screams of eagles, osprey and peregrine throughout the Lolo NF; the modern day “mule skinner” at Land Between the Lakes Recreation Area; and, how the wind sounds different passing through a stand aspen, cottonwoods, pines, and spruce.
And of course, there are Doyle, Buster, Tom, Ms. Johnson and hundreds of other people we have met and spent time with in national forests from coast to coast. Each person was amazing and left us with good memories.
These memories might fad if it weren’t for the boring chore of updating so, I might look pained, but you’ll hear few complaints from me.
