Saturday Stories. #25

Greetings everyone! Well, this is actually part 2 of this story which I began 2 weeks ago, but then my blog disappeared on me so for a week things were kind of messed up. So, I didn’t get part 2 finished. You can read Part 1 HERE. We had just climbed this small cliff and after a bit of relaxing, Krissy and I continued our hike. It was easier walking now but we still had about an hour to go.

It turned out to be less, about half an hour, and that was nice. There was indeed a building in a somewhat open area and it turned out to be a house with the roof caved in on half of it. The place was basically empty though there was a lot of enamel ware pots and buckets and a coffee pot sitting on a large, cast iron cook stove. There was stairs going down to a very small basement which had some jars of preserves sitting on shelves. There was even a wood box that was half full of dynamite.

Yarrow. It was a common wildflower on our hike.

Krissy didn’t want me touching that, but I doubt they would be any good by that time. However, I stayed away from it so Krissy wouldn’t get upset. Since there was a table with 3 chairs we decided to have our lunch right there in that kitchen. I wonder when the last time was that someone ate in that kitchen? These people were obviously prospectors, but looking around we were not able to find any kind of mine shaft in the area.

But it could have been quite a distance from where they lived. And we did not have a lot of time to look around and storm clouds had moved in and it began to rain so we took cover in the house again. At least it was dry in there, on one side anyway. Krissy didn’t like the idea of hiking back in that heavy rain, especially going down that cliff, it would be very slippery now.

Spreading Dogbane.

She was right about that part, but we really don’t have much choice. That ended up being a rather large storm which kept on for more than an hour with lots of rain, lightning and thunder. We waited about half an hour after the storm stopped before heading out. There were still dark clouds around and then it began to rain again, so we went back to the old house. It was another big storm lasting an hour once again. I didn’t remember storms being in the forecast or we would not have gone hiking that day.

“Well, it’s too dangerous to go hiking in a thunderstorm,” I said, “we might have to spend the night here.” “That’s okay, I came prepared,” she said. Wish I could have said the same thing. She had brought extra food and two light blankets. “Might be a lot of mosquitoes tonight,” I said. She had lots of mosquito lotion, however, so that handled that problem. She had already told her mom we would be staying overnight, so that problem was solved too.

Fringed Loosestrife.

“How did you know we would be staying overnight?” I asked. “I knew how far it was,” she said, “and you always underestimate things so I knew it would take longer than you said, so there was a very good chance we would be staying overnight. Simple.” She just smiled and I shook my head. She even brought an air mattress, just a cheap one, but good enough for one night, and certainly light weight to carry. She only brought one though. “You’re tough, you can sleep on the floor,” she said. “Thank you,” I said.

It was a long night. But, the sun was shining nicely in the morning so right after breakfast we began our trek back. We also found an easier way down that cliff which was nice. Nothing much happened on the way back, we did stop at a small lake to relax for a while and I identified more wildflowers for Krissy. She was really getting interested in knowing about wildflowers now. Soon we were back at the car and then back home again.

Yellow Avens.

Her mom was surprised we got back so early and she made us a nice supper. Well, that was all for that hike, but perhaps I will share more hikes at another time. Next week will be a somewhat different story. I hope you all have a great weekend! It’s a long weekend for us with Monday being a holiday and it is the biggest holiday weekend of the summer for this town. God bless!

Steve and Muffin.

©2024 Steve McLeod.