TrueLast Camping of 2018

Because this is a diary of my life I wanted to get these last photos from late October 2018 on my blog. My sister and I met for a long and peaceful weekend away!

This is Magone Lake.

 This is the road to an area I want to backpack next year to the Strawberry Mountains.

Seriously beautiful!

Last Camping Trip

I thought this would be the last camping trip but I met my sister halfway between her place and mine and we tent camped 2 more nights while our nice fall weather was hanging on.
This was Clear Lake on Mt Hood on October 13th.

 Amazing sunset.

 Amazing coffee over the morning fire.

 Little sparkles of autumn color.

 Fishing all to ourselves. 

 Chilly but sunshiney.

More beautiful sunsets.

 Hunting dog Elsa who treed a squirrel! LOL 

 Amazing night time skies.

More sparkles of autumn and blue skies.

August Adventures

Where has the month gone? I've been keeping busy enjoying the outdoors as much as possible this month. Here's a recap.

Camping near Big Summit Prairie

A crazy storm came through and lit up the sky!

We moved to Antelope Flats reservoir. We fished, the dogs played hard.

2 weeks later I met my sister in McCall ,Idaho.

The smoke had rolled in a bit with the clouds. We obviously aren't doing a good job of managing our forests. I cannot remember when my sister said this fire was. 

 It isn't that pretty to look at, but fire is good for our forests. The sheer number of forest fires every summer seems to increase and the underbrush and weak forests make for out of control fires. That is not good for us or the firefighters.

 On our second hike we went out on a point that is out on the lake. These aspen were so tall and amazing! They seem to be competing with the old growth pine trees!!

The next weekend I heard about a Hood to Coast relay team who had a member drop out. Would I like to join? For free? When I found out the team captain and wife lived in Central Oregon I knew it was meant to be. I met them Wednesday night, drove into Portland for a team meeting. (a full relay team is 12 persons, 2 vans) Thursday night and we took off for the starting line Friday morning. 

We were above the clouds and brrrr is was cold and windy! But we were ready!

This was the end of my first leg. It was 7.1 miles. One leg I ran in the middle of the night and the next day mid afternoon was my third leg.

It is called Hood to Coast and my last leg brought me through the coast mountain range- so grateful most of it was downhill! I couldn't help but snap this photo of the lovely aspen. 

And when Van 1 was done, we celebrated. 

My team was made up of good good people! I couldn't have planned that better if I would have hand picked them myself.

And there was a big celebration at the finish line which was at Seaside Oregon. 

I hadn't actually trained enough to pull that off well, so I've been resting this week! 

I've got lots of fun stuff planned for September as well! Gotta enjoy this weather while we can.

Happy weekend!

First Camping of the Season

My niece and sister planned to meet and do a long weekend of camping. Because Cory worked on Saturday, Elsa and I did a quick overnighter with them! 

It was a new-to-us place that a co-worker told us about. It was very nice and not too many people camping.

 My sister and I did a bit of exploring. I couldn't believe how green this meadow was. This is the high desert, but they've had a wet spring. It was so pretty.

So many pretty wildflowers. It was so bright I had a hard time capturing them in photos.

Beautiful huge ponderosa pine trees.

Four of us drove to Myrtle Butte Look out. The structures/cabins have been abandoned and were trashed, but the lookout tower was very sturdy and is used in emergencies.

 It had an amazing view. 

 My BIL stayed at the bottom but he didn't have a camera to snap a photo of all 3 of us at the top. You can see my nephew about mid-way. My sister was just coming out of the crow's nest.

I hope you have some fun outdoor activities planned for this summer. It always goes by so fast!