Scout Mountain

This morning, I wasn't feeling well, so I figured I'd go up to Scout Mountain and just walk around the "Nature Trail." This is a short loop, a half-mile at most. I felt much, much better after the short walk, and decided that maybe I was up to going along the main trail (East Fork Mink Creek) for a while. Just a little ways. We-ellllll, I made it to the beaver pond (which is 2 miles, according to my trail book), and a ways past. I only stopped because there was a steep downhill stretch that I didn't want to climb down only to have to climb up again. Turns out that I was probably within a half-mile of where the trail meets the road that goes up to the peak. *shrugs* The really ironic thing is that on the drive out to Scout Mountain, I wasn't even sure I should be driving. My head felt weird. Much, much better now. The drive back in was no problem at all.

On the way up to the trailhead, I got stuck behind a small pickup carrying an oversized camper. The pickup might have been slightly larger than my dad's old Datsun, but that's not saying much. The camper was waaay too big for it. It was top heavy. Yes, any camper will do that to any pickup, but this was bad. Especially on a windy mountain road. About halfway up, the pickup pulled off at one of the viewpoints, so I had the road to myself the rest of the way up. I only encountered a few people on the trail. When I was almost back to the parking lot, there was a family with two or three kids. I mainly noticed the little girl, and hoped they weren't going very far. She had taken her shoes off, likely becase her flip-flops were worse than going barefoot. If they were going very far, then she's going to have very sore feet, whether she put her flip-flops back on or not.

At the moment I need a shower more than I need to sort through pictures (there were some new flower encounters), but I will post one of my favorites: