Slight Detour: Twas Great Day to Be Alive

It's a great day to be alive . . .

. . . why can't every day be this good!

--Travis Tritt, Songwriter Darrell Scott

~~~~~~

Well, let's just say that many days are this good, but, by golly, I was feeling all day long about how great it was to be alive.

Yesterday, for me, was just plain something special.

I'm pretty sure it was for Bill, too.

He's still snoozin' after spending a day with his friend Chris and his large assortment of fly-fishing gear in a drift boat on the Clark Fork River near St. Regis in Montana.

Trips like that with Bill and Chris usually signal late home ETA's.

So, I'm curious to know just how late this one was.

While he snoozes, though, I'll just keep thinking about the good fortune and lovely memories of my day.

I sampled strawberries right off the bushes in a field at Hickey Farms.

I met John and Paula from Spokane who were visiting with my classmate and friend Jim Holt when I arrived to pick a bucket of berries.

Turns out Paula is related to the Hickey family. Her grandparents owned the farm before Jack Hickey bought the former dairy farm back in the 1950s.

Paula, a retired Washington Trust bank executive, remembers many good times at the farm, and I'm thinking she had a good time yesterday picking berries with her hubby.

I had a little help picking my berries, thanks to Jim who gathered a supply and dumped them into my bucket.

Just visiting with the Hickey/Holt family and enjoying sights and sounds of other pickers in that scenic field with Schweitzer Mountain in the background on a pleasant and beautiful summer day-----it doesn't get any better than that.

I particularly enjoyed listening to one brief interchange between a mother and her child.

"What color berries do you pick?" Mom asked.

"Red," the little voice answered.

"Good," Mom said.

On a trip to the car, I saw a text from my daughter-in-law Debbie, asking if I'd like to join them on a drive up to the Yaak River in Montana northeast of Bonners Ferry.

Driving the Yaak is one of the "must do's" for us a few times each year, so, of course, knowing Bill wouldn't be home until Oh-Dark-Thirty Sunday morning, I happily said yes.

We stopped at the Bread Basket/Gathering Place north of Three Mile Junction, picked up fresh-made sandwiches and cookies and then headed east to Montana.

The Yaak River Road is always stunningly beautiful with huge, nicely spaced pines in the midst of lush green grass.

The river itself provides a series of bucolic views along the drive. Many of these scenes are accented by beautiful rustic or log structures.

For me, turning off Highway 2 at the Yaak often feels like a dramatic step-back in time with the area's sense of unspoiled, pristine remoteness.

We drove through downtown Yaak and just kept driving north into some even more beautiful areas that I'd never seen before.

Willie's goal with the trip included the picnic, some leisurely hiking and a few minutes of casting his fly line into the river.

We accomplished all three, along with a visit to Yaak Falls on the West Fork of the river.

On our first drive through, we missed the turn-off for the Falls.

That was good cuz if we had found it the first time, we would have missed the big black bear which came bounding out of the woods right in front our car.

Bears move quickly and, in this case, happily, the other way, but we saw enough to be thrilled and to be glad we were in the safety of the car.

After munching on those delicious sandwiches, chips and cookies, we headed back down toward "Greater Yaak," where lots of rigs were parked a few "turists" walked the main drag.

Willie capped off the adventure by donning his gear, walking down to and into the river and catching a couple of fish.

As unpaid but willing fishing scouts, Debbie and I found the proper route for Willie to get to the river BUT not before some snake sightings and screeches from Debbie who led the way.

From start to finish, it was truly a great day to be alive and to enjoy so many lovely moments, both in the strawberry fields and in the back country.

Happy Sunday. Enjoy the photos.

And, do check out Hickey Farms strawberry patches.

I'm pretty sure picking is scheduled for Thursday and Saturday mornings from 8 a.m. to 12 noon.

Friendly, helpful folks and deLUSCIOUS berries.