Skipping the Rat Race

Why is the weather nice all week, but as soon as the weekend approaches, the forecast turns gloomy? Despite the high likelihood of rain, Friday morning found us hooking up the camper and heading for Nye. We weren't sure we would be able to get the spot we wanted, what with all the hunters, but amazingly enough, it was wide open. We set up the camper right next to the Stillwater River. I spent some time with the camera along the river, then we drove the short distance back to Benbow to ride. We rode through a beautiful mix of pines and yellow aspens and cottonwoods. It sprinkled on us just enough to make a big, bright rainbow. As we stood on a high point overlooking the valley stretching miles and miles away below us, I thought about how much I prefer the wilderness to the rat race. 


After dinner, we took an evening ride in another direction. We rode up toward Picket Pin Mountain, stopping often to avoid (and admire) deer in the road. We saw lots of does and fawns, as well as a few small bucks. But the whole point of this ride was to get up high enough to photograph the stars without all the ambient light in the valley. We found our spot and got out the camera. As Dan was getting the tripod set up, we were treated to a couple of shooting stars and some distant lightning. Eventually though, we realized that the clouds were coming between us and the stars, so we packed up and returned to the camper. 

How many stars will we see through the clouds? 

The Big Dipper is the only constellation I can ever pick out. 

Saturday morning was misty, but our intrepid friends showed up just as scheduled. So with rain gear donned, we were back on the road to Picket Pin. When we came to a less-traveled road, I led the way into the woods. The road quickly deteriorated into a trail (more fun to ride anyway), which continued to get rougher and narrower until it dead-ended. Getting turned around was a little tricky, but we made it without incident. Back on the main road, we traveled on to the point where we stopped the night before. Cold and damp, we debated whether to continue. We went on a little farther to a more protected spot, where the guys built us a roaring campfire. Now warmer and at least somewhat dry, we called it a day. Rain or not, it was another great ride.