1. This morning I headed south several miles to the Lockhart Beach Provincial Park which sits adjacent to the Lockhart Creek Provincial Park.
I've written before that I love hiking within sight and sound of creeks. My favorites are Sweet Creek in the Oregon Coast Range and, near Kellogg, the West Fork of Placer Creek (the Pulaski Tunnel Trail) and Coal Creek.
Today, I fell in love with another creekside trail as I hiked the Lockhart Creek Trail. Starting about 10:30, I spent nearly two and half hours on this trail, but only hiked about a mile of it. The trail was only moderately demanding, but it afforded me numerous opportunities to stop, admire the rush and power of Lockhart Creek, take pictures, and admire the thickly forested hillsides surrounding this trail. Some of the foliage was turning yellow. Mushrooms sprouted at places along the trail. I loved looking at rock faces high above me. Often, I couldn't snap clear pictures of Lockhart Creek because the trees and bushes were so thick, but I loved the trail's design. At least two or three times the trail descended down the mountain within very close range of Lockhart Creek where I could look at small waterfalls, enjoy the variety of large rocks in the creek bed, marvel at trees that had fallen across and over the creek, and listen to the water's roar.
Sometimes when I'm hiking, I encounter younger people who glide along the trail. I don't glide. I lumber. I lumbered with purpose today, more focused on drinking in the splendor surrounding me and trying to photograph it than with racking up miles. A young couple caught up to me at one point. The man was carrying a fishing pole and the woman was carrying a tiny, I'd say newborn, baby. They were accompanied by one of the world's happiest dogs, a cheerful black mutt who loved the creek, loved dashing up and down the trail, and who made not even the slightest move my way to jump on me. Ha! This dog's unbridled joy on the trail and good behavior made me laugh out loud and I was really happy that these kind hikers turned back at some point on up the trail and I got to see them and their dog again as they returned to the trailhead.
2. I had parked in the Lockhart Beach parking lot and across Highway 3A was a very very short trail to the beach. I walked to the lake's shore, sat at a picnic table, and enjoyed the pale light of this grayish day and the its muting impact upon the mountains growing out of Kootenai Lake. I suddenly wished Monet had traveled to the east shore of Kootenai Lake and had painted studies of the various kinds of light illuminating the water and mountains before me. I snapped some pictures, but I doubt they will convey the beauty I was seeing -- they will approximate it, but I'm not sure photographs are the right medium for bringing the pale light and muted shades of purple and gray I saw today into being. We'll see.
3. I returned to the NewKey's pub in Crawford Bay around 3:30 and ate a basket of breaded cod and fries and enjoyed drinking some Strongbow hard apple cider. Toward the end of my meal, the nervous owner of the pub, with the help from an older guy I'd seen helping her with other things before, covered the pool table with a large cloth and began setting out T-shirts, fanny packs, tiny bottles of Fireball, caps, visors, and other products and the nervous owner put up a sign about buying tickets and then she anxiously tested the a speaker system. It appeared to me that some kind of fund raising raffle was about to begin. I finished my last cider, settled my bill at the bar, and lumbered out, having enjoyed a peaceful day and not wanting to be a part of any fund-raising hubbub.
I spent the evening relaxing. More crosswords. I watched a Vince Carter documentary. I listened to Bob Costas interview Bob Gibson and Tim McCarver and enjoyed reliving the 1964, 1967, and 1968 World Series -- three of the best ever. I also watched an old ESPN hour long Sports Century documentary on Bob Gibson before turning out the light and calling it a night.
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