Our Moose-t Lovely Afternoon Drive

It has been raining here it seems for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks... lol - get the picture! It seems we have had weeks with LOTS of rain!  However, this past weekend, the sun came out in all its glorious splendor, and my husband and I decided it was a perfect opportunity to take an afternoon drive.

Already the trees have lost most of their leaves, but there were still leaves left on the tree to showcase the brilliant contrast between leaf and sky.

Even though we do not live in the northeast where the majority of trees are hardwood, there is enough color in the trees and shrubs here to paint very striking pictures.

As we drove along, the view expanded to open fields with mountains scattered in the distance.

But, it wasn't long until we turned off on a side road with lots of pine trees.  We usually try to take the "least traveled path" on our ventures out on days like this, and most of the time we have not been down these roads before, or have passed by them, without having time to explore them.

But today, we had all the time we needed, and a glorious sunshine filled sky, and so we rambled along.

Came across a beautiful log home tucked back in the pine trees set up against the mountains with a large open field in front.  What I wouldn't give for a view like that!

The tamaracks showing off their stately orange colors.

As we turned down another logging road, the sky above us seemed to darken.  I loved the contrast between the sky and the tamarack.

The sky did look rather forboding, but we continued on anyway.

There is something about the unknown road ahead that beckons!

The tamaracks still with their lovely orange colors lingering on.

Loving the contrast of shadows and light here with the bright orange...

It did look like a storm was brewing off to the east...

But our curiosity begged us to continue... lol... and so we did!

Then we came to a little area with a pull-off located off to the right of the road.  We pulled over, and got out to explore.  This is what we found...

Three creeks coming down off the mountains were meeting up in this one little spot, and it was simply beautiful!

It was a beautiful little oasis of water pooling out in the middle of nowhere...

Two large cedars stood guard over the pools of water from the three creeks that had joined together to form a single creek flowing down to the river.

The water reflecting the clouds in the sky..

A couple of overturned trees created a bridge across the stream.  I didn't have on proper shoes to cross, and didn't want to spend the rest of the day with wet feet, but my husband walked across to the other side.

It was such a beautiful and peaceful setting.

The leaves were showing signs that fall was here, in all its glory.

We stayed here quite a while just soaking in the beauty of this little haven out in the middle of a bunch of logging roads out in the middle of the mountains...

Soon, it was time to continue on down the road.  The little creek meandered along the road as we drove, and we saw many beautiful little waterfalls, log bridges... too many to stop every time, but we enjoyed them as we drove along. 

The sun seemed to be winning today, and the clouds continued breaking up as we drove.

We continued to follow the main logging road we were on, and just now we turned a corner, and we spotted a momma moose and her calf on the road in front of us.

She had her yearling with her and they were in a hurry to get up the mountain ahead of us.

They were moving right along, at least 15-20 miles an hour!



They galloped up the road at a pretty good rate of speed, so that they would "lose" us on the turns.  We were on a switchback at this point.

We hung back quite a distance from them, as we did not want to scare them, but still wanted to be close enough to see them.  You can see in the above picture that they were moving pretty fast!

They did not let us get close enough for a good picture, but abruptly turned, and ran up this hill into the brush and disappeared.   It was just enough excitement though to make the afternoon drive really "moose-t" lovely!

We continued on our drive, and didn't spot any other wildlife, although I'm sure they were there!

The logging road evened out on a plateau, and we were treated to this glorious view!

We could see the large lake north of us, and mountain ranges that stretched probably clear to Canada and Montana.

 I couldn't resist a closeup of the tamaracks.

Beautiful, isn't it! We were up pretty high, as you can probably tell.

A view behind us of the logging road we were on.

As we continued down the trail, we came upon a rustic, heavily treed and shaded camp site that even sported its own outdoor potty!  Rustic - oh my!

The campsite was perched alongside this creek (the same one we had been following around the mountain)

It was a gorgeous creek bed.

The water from the creek was cold and clear.

Another beautiful spot that we enjoyed walking around and exploring.

 It wasn't long after we left this creek that the road began to slope downward, and we were soon back on the main road, and headed back home.  It turned out to be a very beautiful and lovely afternoon drive, and we even got to see some wildlife, which always makes any drive sweeter!  We live in such an amazing place, so much to see, and it is one of our favorite things to do when we have time to spare, to just explore the logging roads which meander around all the mountains.  I always say that God's creative design is far better than any creation of man's!