Oh! Fall!

Yesterday was a day for the dogs.  I took the truck down a grubby, muddy road that led us somewhere we’d never been before.  We eventually pulled off, hopped out and bushwhacked our way up into higher country, to the snow line and beyond.  The weather was atrocious, as it has been lately.  I took my afternoon tea on a cliff, as is my custom, overlooking a river valley, then trudged further upward and stopped a lot along the way to fire my camera.  My camera is tremendously hungry lately.  I feed it all I can, and still it begs for more.  When I reached the clouds and was walking though a filmy white haze studded with the ghosts of trees, I called the dogs in to my side and we made a wide loop over the steady cairns of the earth, swooped up, over and down another ridge or two and found ourselves back at our trusty truck.  I loaded the dogs on the bench seat beside me, fired the Ford up, cranked the heat and gravity pulled us back down into Winthrop where we rambled like the river into Twisp, and rollicked over the misty hills that lead to a hanging valley where Robert was waiting for us at the cabin with hot soup and grilled cheese sandwiches.

Some days turn out to be perfect.  Perfect in every way.

We are preparing to leave for our winter home.  With the government shutdown here in the USA, Robert has been placed on furlough and we are free to leave!  I’m trying to finish up a handful of things in the studio before we begin to fill the Airstream with our lives, say our goodbyes, drift the river a couple more times in our raft and hit the road.  We hope to camp in Montana on the way home and drift the Blackfoot River outside of Missoula.  Once back in Idaho, we’ll ditch the Airstream and head out on one more river adventure before we take the time to unpack and settle into our house for the cold months.  I’m looking forward to central heating!

The world is beautiful right now.  I’m enjoying being with my fella so very much.  I am taking my time in the mornings, rambling through the woods around the cabin with my camera, capturing beautiful details, whispering thanks at the light as it fills my soul.  This was a long, hard fire season for me, for a few reasons.  I’m glad it’s over.  I’m thankful Robert is by my side again, safe and unharmed.  Our family is whole once more and everything is in its right place.

I miss Idaho.  I have missed Idaho.  I cannot wait to get out on the land there, reacquaint myself with my forests and sage flats and have a day like this, with the dogs, where we lose ourselves scrambling through timber and licking the drips off the tips of our noses.

Be well, you wild things.  I will be, too.

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