So, what makes you want to get up in the morning?  This is an important question to ask and answer for one’s self and then make sure you do it as often as you can.  The “shoulds” and the “musts” and the “to-do” list so often take priority.  I think, at this point in my life, I would be a lot healthier if I had done way more of the things that make me want to get out of bed.  But I’ve always been the type to take care of the shoulds and musts and the to-do list, letting them have too much of my precious time.  Of course, if one has a job to do – do it in a timely manner, in an attentive way,  But, again I say, do the things that bring life into you as often as you can.

So, today, as most days, I want to find a pretty spot outdoors to take photos, preferably where there is water.  I just don’t want to go by myself, as it is a chilly overcast day, not the best day to be outdoors.  However, Clifford says he’ll go with me.  Hooray! So, right after breakfast, off we go.

We are always scouting for possible places to camp, and because of the weather, decide to scout close to home.  First we drive up a gulch with the name Lake Road.  Now that sounds pretty good, but not too far up, there is an active mine and the road seems to end in their big parking lot.  Hmmm…….  No lake here for us, so we head back down and find Two-mile

Creek Road, crossing over the South Fork of the Coeur d Alene River just outside of Osburn.  We drive up this road.  It is kind of pretty here with a very small creek running alongside the road.

Once we get to a spot where the road narrows and climbs, we know this is not Pony (pop-up tent trailer) camping country, but it was fun to take a look at it.

Next, we decide to head over Lookout Pass to the Taft area, as we had heard that there are places to camp up that gulch.  We have been intending to explore there for months and just never got to it.  On the way, we stop at Elmer’s Fountain to take photos of the ice that is beginning to build around the fountains.  The water flows down Gold Creek from Gold Lake.  Up the mountain from the fountain location is a small water dam and a water flume that skirts the mountainside before a final steep drop to a valve which controls the flow at

each fountain. The water supply remains unfrozen during the winter because the builder, Elmer Almquist, a miner from Mullen, was smart enough to store the water upstream in a horizontal mine tunnel.  The water is reputed to be wonderful tasting.  Seems I am there when the water drinking fountain is frozen, but I would love to get some of that water for drinking next spring.

The highway is clear, but it begins to rain as we near the pass.  On the Montana side, there are low clouds obscuring the mountains and the rain is heavier.  When we reach the Taft exit, we discover that the road is covered with a thin sheet of ice.  I take a photo of a

creek that we would have crossed over, but this is as far as we are going today.  It seems like a good idea to head back to Wallace before the freezing rain settles down on the interstate.

We didn’t find a place to go camping, but an outing with a few photos makes my day.  The to-do list remains largely ignored; I am doing only those things that I would do even without the list.  Of course, not everyone can do this everyday, but when you can, give it a try.  Bring as much joy and meaning into your life now, today, and every day.  Life is too precious to waste on getting all of one’s ducks in a tidy row.  Let them run wild now and then and see how it feels.