Blatherskite

Yesterday we went for a hike along the Salmon River in Welches. I haven’t been getting much sleep the past few days and was in a really awful mood. I needed to get out and try to lift my spirits. I brought my camera with me which is something I haven’t done much these past months. Partly because I don’t feel like taking pictures and partly because of the rain.

So of course we get to the trailhead and it it starts pouring. Ugh. why did I bring my big ass camera? now I’d have to lug it around with me and try to keep it under my jacket so it wouldn’t get soaked.

We hiked along, crankily in my case, and came upon these two women who where verbally stoked about seeing something along the trail. As we walked past them they exclaimed, “You HAVE GOT to see this mushroom!!” and they went on to tell us what it was and that it was rare to see it in the wild and on and on. So I stopped and checked it out. According to them it is a Violet Cort. She also pointed out the Angels Wing mushroom growing on the old, dead tree in the same grove we were in. I was so glad I brought my camera! And I was so glad to have run into these people. I would never had noticed anything like this had I not.

This is a rare occurrence, this talking to people while hiking. In fact, it never happens to me. It happens to Raf occasionally (which is weird because he is so anti-social) but it has never happened to me. So I was kind of wandering along the path thinking about it being happy and grateful that these women took time out to be friendly and share their excitement with us.

I stopped and took a few more pictures and Raf wandered up ahead a little bit. when I caught up with him he was chit-chatting with this older man. He was going the opposite way and asked Raf how far we were going and this started a little conversation between us about the trail and hiking in the rain and snow. He was a really, really nice guy. It was a pleasure to just stand there and have a conversation with him. I was standing there, thinking “this is really strange. People don’t do this. Strangers don’t stop and talk to each other like this. This just doesn’t happen.”

So that was our hike yesterday. It was weirdly cool. It was like I entered another universe where people are actually friendly with each other. I liked it.