A LOVEly Day in the Mountains

In this morning's anniversary card, Bill reminded me of how hot it was at St. Joseph's Catholic Church 42 years ago when Fr. O'Donovan performed our wedding ceremony. Then, he pointed out a frigid contrast----it froze here at the Lovestead overnight. 

I've assessed my garden situation, and the jury is still out.  I'm most worried about the corn and the tomatoes.  I covered all the vine plants except the pumpkins.  Also, through covers over the sweet potatoes, which appear to still be standing tall this morning. 

Fingers crossed that we didn't lose too much. 

Yesterday afternoon, we took off for Trestle Creek where we drove up the road almost to Lunch Peak before parking and going on a short hike.  Bill told me when we set off that we would be on a road where at night from our house we can see headlights. 

Before long we were standing in the sunshine, looking smack dab at Schweitzer and the Selkirks and Lake Pend Oreille where a healthy storm was brewing up. 

Where we stood, though, everything was beyond beautiful, so we enjoyed our stroll and even had a short message via WhatsApp from Annie who was enjoying her evening at her hotel in Leon, Spain. It's always fun to stand on a mountain and hear from someone thousands of miles away. 

Annie says this morning that she's cold too.  She'll soon have her blog up so do check it out.  www.adventuregirlannie.com 

Meanwhile, back on our North Idaho mountain, the alder brush started choking off the road, and as we worked our way through it, we kept seeing more and more piles of bear scat, each one looking a bit fresher.

So, we turned around, and on the way back, I came up with an idea.  

Annie had wished us a "Happy Anniversary tomorrow," so I thought it might be fun to see if we could get a picture of the old Loves, almost 42 years after that hot afternoon at St. Joseph's where my friend Chris Moon (who, by the way, spent a summer at Lunch Peak lookout way back when) went after more cans of High C punch for the wedding guests. 

Weddings were a much simpler production back in those days.  

Heck, Lisa Thompson Greene's mother made my cotton dress for $25, and it was just as "purty" as a dress could be. 

And, one of my students, Chris Pietsch (now a photographer extraordinaire in Oregon) spent two days hanging out with the family and taking black and white photos of the whole affair. 

Well, Chris, you would be proud of your old teacher 42 years later cuz I managed to place my camera on a big flat rock yesterday and pull off several fairly decent photos of Bill and me. 

I had no idea, however, that the camera would take several shots with each time exposure, so I captured a lot more than originally expected. 

And, with that came some whimsy, which is always fun, including more documentation that my tongue stays active even if it isn't helping me to talk. 

So, I've interspersed a few of those selfies of my hubby and me, along with images of the other part of our trip, which included a drive down Lightning Creek to as far as we could go before meeting the road closure.  

Major flooding took out part of the road last December, so the usual drive through from Trestle Creek to Clark Fork and vice versa will not be happening any time soon.

Bill and I spent some time walking around the area and then turned around for home. While on the Lightning Creek Road, we drove through an area which reminded me once again of my dear friend Chris.  

Years ago, when we worked for the Forest Service and talk of Bigfoot was just coming into the general folklore scene, we selected an area along Lightning Creek Road where we were sure a few of the hairy human like figures were probably hiding out. 

Such speculation, along with other goofy antics,  added fun to the hours and the miles we spent in our "rig" driving the back country back in those days.  Good memories!

The weather that had been hanging over Sandpoint and the Selkirks eventually moved our way, and we even saw a few snow flakes while coming down out of the beautiful Trestle Creek drainage.  

Twas a great way to spend our anniversary eve, probably better than today because Bill informed me a while ago that he has a conference call here at home with SAF, and it could last most of the day. 

The calendar does help us focus on important days in our lives, but in my book, 42 years later, every day is an important day and we've enjoyed a lot of those. 

Happy Wednesday.  Enjoy the photos, and be sure to check out Annie's blog.  Also, Happy Anniversary to my brother Kevin and his wife Joyce who celebrate even more years than we on this same date.