Once we arrived in Clark Fork, the left blinker light indicated we were going to head up Lightning Creek, one of the areas where I worked as a survey aide for the U.S. Forest Service.
The place where Chris Moon and I conducted traffic surveys for 12 hours a day on Sundays and Mondays wasn't nearly as interesting back in the early 1970s as it is now.
Back in those days, we could have enjoyed quite the entertainment if that herd of several dozen plump elk, which now hang out in a field just south of our spot under two pine trees, had been around to keep us company.
The herd used to enjoy hay hand-outs on the east side of the road, but Bill said they'd moved across the road a year or so ago.
They probably have no need to hang out there in the summer, but they sure do bring out the sightseers.
Yesterday, after going up the Lightning Creek Road and encountering a road covered with a slab of thick ice, we turned around. I asked Bill to stop a couple of times so I could take pictures of some of the neat ice formations around rocks in the river and on rock walls alongside the road.
In those situations, I can kind of appreciate ice because it forms some artistically pleasant sights. Just had to be careful walking on it and not fall down with my camera.
Anyway, as we came down off the hill, we saw a father and son ambling down the roadside toward us. As we passed by, I asked Bill to stop again.
There was a gathering there, and, for the most part, folks thinking they were dealing with stranger encounters discovered that instead they all knew each other.
The father with his little boy was one of my students, Tyler, who now works with fishery management. Later, a nice young lady with her Brittany Spaniel came along. Turns out Bill knows her husband, and I knew of her at Sandpoint High.
We all enjoyed a nice visit and then Bill and I moved on----just a few feet down the road when I again asked him to stop so I could take the elk photos.
Well, wouldn't ya know----another lady and a dog came along. She was all bundled up so I didn't recognize her, but when she identified herself as Velma, Queen of Fun, I recognized the lady also named Gail, and we enjoyed a nice long talk about aging mothers.
Once that ended, I quipped to Bill we'd better hit the road and quit visiting so much. Well, that plan didn't work out. When we took the old highway through Hope, we were talking about Chris Moon and her sister Judy.
I was surprised that Judy still lived in Hope, as I knew she had spent some time in a cottage in Sandpoint. Well, about the time that sentence came out of my mouth, Bill was stopping the pickup and backing up.
The issue was all settled cuz Judy and her hubby were the couple we'd passed walking down the old highway. We visited and I established in my mind that Judy did still live in Hope after all, after she explained that she had rented a cottage in Sandpoint for a while.
As we were wrapping up that conversation, Judy noted, "Oh, there's Ann Ferguson."
We said good bye to Judy----still parked on the old highway and began yakking anew with Ann who used to work as the local museum curator. We learned that there's a new book coming out (Nancy Renk) about places to drive around Bonner County.
Nancy put out a small similar book several years ago, but this new edition has 400 pages, and it should be available in the spring.
That, of course, excites Bill and me who love to take jaunts similar to yesterday's.
And, yesterday's certainly turned out to be more than just a quiet drive on winter day: we enjoyed the icing on the rocks and the icing on the cake with all that visiting.
Happy Monday. Enjoy the photos below.
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