Segment # 1: Herding Cat.
I heard Liam barking and figured he was harassing Festus. I walked around the corner of the house and saw no cat in his usual deck chair.
So, for a few moments, the mystery of what had Liam going swirled around in my head. Squirrels just don't hang out in the area where many flower pots are located.
Liam kept barking.
I walked back around the corner. Twas then that I spotted Festus, curled up in the wheel barrow flowers, launching hate stares at Liam.
I guess Liam was exhibiting the Border Collie eye, while Jack O'Lantern seemed quite amused with the stare down.
Later, Liam took the full Border Collie pose with eyes peeled on Festus and front leg in the air, ready for take-off.
Festus simply stared back. I could hear a quiet growl coming from the wheel barrow.
Finally, Liam decided he needed to get into the wheel barrow with Festus.
That was short-lived, as a paw with sharp claws came flying at Liam's face.
Liam retreated.
Then, Foster showed up.
Moral of story: Herding cat in wheel barrow could take all day.
Liam eventually went back to jumping up trees, barking at squirrels, Jack O'Lantern kept on grinning and Festus moved on to his deck chair.
Bill and I decided in the morning that a Saturday drive with some hiking was in order. It took about two seconds to agree on a trip up the Yaak River in Northwest Montana.
Once our morning errands were finished, we loaded up our stuff and Kiwi and took off. As we drove closer to Bonners Ferry, we could see more smoke in the air and not-so-great views of the mountains.
By the time we reached the area above Kootenai Valley, the smoke intensified, looking all too much like what we had endured throughout most of last week.
We kept driving and the smoke kept getting thicker as we moved into Montana. We had learned from Hotshots at Bonners Ferry convenience store that they were headed from Avery to an 11,000-acre fire near Libby.
So, we just hoped that it wouldn't be so bad up the Yaak, and, happily, it wasn't. The skies around the little village of Yaak itself were fairly clear. Before reaching Yaak, we stopped at the falls where Bill went off to check out a geocache.
We noticed a dramatic contrast at the falls from most visits there. Most of our visits have been at times when at least three times as much water if wildlly flowing over the sharp walls of rock.
So, yesterday had its own unique look----pretty, even without all the usual water.
Once we arrived at Yaak, it was decision time: which direction to go. We agreed on going back and taking the Spread Creek Road, which Bill had told me goes to Canuck Basin.
Just a few weeks ago, we had stood at the other end of that road, after coming up from the Deer Ridge Road northeast of Bonners Ferry.
Our decision turned out to be A-okay, as we continued up the road, which is very well maintained from start to finish.
Both of us enjoyed the drive. The air was clear, and skies were blue. Within the first few miles, we began to notice how dust free the foliage along the roadsides was. After all the dirt we've seen this summer, that was very refreshing.
We spent a few minutes walking around the North Creek bridge and then moved on to a spot where a side road took us to a nice, little traveled road where we enjoyed an easy hike.
On our way back to the pickup, we could hear a rig coming our way. Turned out to be Kevin, a Seahawks fan and hunter from Troy who was headed up the road, to tell his friends about the grizzly he'd seen while moose hunting.
Kevin said the bear was kind of ornery, showing its teeth as he stood about 50 feet away. He speculated that he had roused it from rest. When Bill asked if it was a sow or a boar, Kevin simply said, "I don't know. It was big."
As Kevin went on his way, I told Bill it would be nice to see a grizzly, in the pickup. Bill asked, "inside the pickup?" No, I said. We would be in the pickup, the grizzly could be outside. Sometimes messages just aren't all that clear.
We continued to drive the Spread Creek Road, occasionally agreeing that this had been a pleasant adventure. When we had just about arrived at the road's end near Canuck Basin, I could see an open spot, which looked like a vista.
We stopped, and as I walked over to take some pictures, I saw that the area had also served as a nice spot for camping trailers. It appeared nobody was home, so I walked over to the overlook and snapped a few photos looking into Canada.
As I walked back to the pickup, we could hear voices. They came from a trio of three archery hunters from the Kalispell/Columbia Falls area returning to the camp spot from their day of looking for bull elk. They said they had not seen anything.
We talked briefly about a few Sandpoint connections with whom we were familiar, including Charlands and Moody's up Gooby Road, and then said our good byes, completing our loop by heading home through Canuck Basin.
The guys were nice enough to let me take their photos. I don't often see folks all geared up for hunting, so it was a treat for me to meet them out there in the environment they love.
Thanks, guys!
Enjoy the photos. Happy Sunday.
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| No Bigfoot sightings yesterday, but I'm betting Bigfoot loves the Yaak country. |
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| Kevin was pretty demonstrative as he told us about seeing the grizzly earlier in the day. I told him that bears have always scared me ever since the fake ones aka brothers I heard in the bushes as a small child in our woods. |
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