Day after Green: Ashley

There you go:
A picture to cool you off.
It was 106 here today.
But last week...we were on the Ashley River, where it was cool and windy.
I am so glad I took these pictures to look at again today.

Cooling.

The river was a surprise to me.
We were just driving thorough a loop through the Ashley forest, and didn't know a river ran through it.

I found out about the river after I asked Bernie to pull over so I could photography a wildflower field.
When I walked into the field I could see over the rise and down on the winding blue river.

The wild flowers were nice.

The river was much more exciting.

We parked above the river on a winding dirt road.

Turned out the land next to the river was quite boggy.
My wader shoes, worn without socks, were a real blessing!
While Bernie got his fishing gear together, I began to walk about to see what I could see.

A wad of fuzzy worms...

I only  saw two such worm nests.
Interesting, huh?

Bernie asked that I stay a bit above the river as to not scare any fish.
I think  he knows me well enough to know how much I would have liked to have wade around in the stream.

Isn't this a beautiful river?
Dreamy beautiful.
With a tree about to fall into the water.

At one point I just sat on a rock and enjoyed the view.

Scattered all along the river's edge were blooming Shooting Stars.
We are quite fond of Shooting Stars; they are a flower I first learned about as a Blue Bird, back when I was about seven years old.
Later, in my 50's, I showed my friend Gail some blooming Shooting Stars.
She was amazed as she had only seen photo of the flowers without any size reference.
She had thought they were like bird of paradise size; such a surprise to learn they are rather small.

Lupin was in bloom too.

In fact, it was seeing the lupin in the wild flower field that cause me to want to stop.
This was the first photo I took of the river, actually.

A few mushrooms were blooming in the bog.

Cute little reddish orange cups.

Bernie had fished while I  had wandered.
He was taking a break here.

Here is the artificial "hopper" that he was fishing with.

Yes, he did catch something.

A little native Brook trout.

 

How did this little fish managed to eat that 'hopper?
The 'hopper was removed, and the fish lived to swim away, to grow a bit bigger, perhaps wiser, or perhaps not.

I pulled him off the river to get a photo of him with the dead fallen tree surrounded by lupin.

He got in on the photo shooting duties.

The wind was fierce actually.
After the brook trout was caught we headed back up the way to our car.

Just a bit deeper into the forest by our car we spotted the framework of a teepee.

Someone must have had an interesting camp experience if building a teepee was part of the activities.

Bye bye Ashley River.

Hello deep dark Ashley forest.

Crazy how close together the trees were growing.
The loop kept going through the forest, then suddenly the road ran out of forest and into HUGE houses with enormous motor homes, boats, jet skis, four wheel dune buggies, big new trucks.
We were in the town of Vernal, a town that we had always imagined as being a tiny little rural area.
Turns out the tiny town is part of a energy boom (oil and natural gas) ; everyone got rich real sudden like and building dream houses and buying "big boy" toys is now the name of the game.
Beautiful area.

Outside of town.

I could imagine wandering around this area.
The Vernal folks "wander" on their "toys".

We took the long way home.

The sky and the clouds were, as usual, beautiful.

Isn't that an interesting cloud?

Hoodoos in white instead of the typical red sand formations.

In the fields were Sand hill cranes with their chicks.
It was a great two days: Fishing on the Green, fishing on the Ashley, and driving through countryside on a perfect first day of Summer day.