Nature's Little Wonders

There comes a point when you just need to get away from all the hustle and bustle of everyday life, and just go to that quiet place…wherever it may be for you. Well, my idea of getting away would be an escape to the mountains. When you are surrounded by nature and all that is beautiful upon the face of this great earth, there is almost nothing more peaceful than that. It’s almost too surreal to comprehend. My husband and I, along with my cousin and his wife, had the opportunity to go to Donnelly, near Cascade over the weekend. Much to our surprise, we discovered much more than just a fun weekend away from home. The first night we arrived, it wasn’t until midnight, and the first thing we saw out on the back patio of the cabin was a huge porcupine. Unfortunately, it scurried away too quickly to get any pictures of it, but it was still a sight to see. We didn’t stay up much later after that, as we were tired after a long day. The next day, our adventures began. We got up and made a good breakfast, then headed out on what was supposed to be a hike at Tamarack Resort. Although, along the way, we were distracted by the beautiful sites of the lake, so we stopped near the bridge and began walking along the bank. That’s where we made many of our discoveries, of which you’ll notice in the pictures below. After a while, we still made it to Tamarack Resort, but we didn’t take the hike. We figured we had done enough walking and exploring for the day. Along our drive there, we saw many new building developments and several million dollar homes that were just gorgeous! It seemed like we spent hours there, and we worked up quite an appetite. We headed back to the cabin for lunch, and though we were tired, the fun just couldn’t stop there. So, we grabbed our swim suits and towels and headed to the lake just a few miles from the cabin. There we swam, played in the sand, and even buried my cousin in a hole we had all dug earlier, that was filled with water. After it started getting chilly, we headed back to have dinner. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows over the fire we built, and pointed out the constellations we could see in the sky that were lit up by the brightness of the stars. We even saw a shooting star, and a few deer off in the distance. We still looked for our porcupine friend, but it was nowhere to be found. We watched a couple movies to complete our time spent at the cabin, and overall, it was a very relaxing weekend. We sure do have a lot to be thankful for, as we are very fortunate to live in such a beautiful country that has been created for us to enjoy. The many creations upon this earth are a gift to us in many ways, and I feel it is a blessing and a privilege to be surrounded by them every day.

My pictures are not in the right order, but you can still see all of our different activities.

This was a Mountain Dew can that took forever to burn.
This is our beautiful teepee fire.
Lee and Nathan are racing to the Booey.
Nathan is getting ready to be buried in the hole filled with water.
Nathan's wife Kim decided to give him a woman's figure. Lee and Nathan digging a hole for the "hot tub". This is some clay we dug up deep below the sand.
This was the 3rd and smallest snake we saw on our trek.
It's difficult to make out in the picture, but this is the biggest dragonfly I've ever seen!
We discovered this tree stump that was literally detached from the ground, but very sturdy!

This was a very cool mossy plant, I just had to take a picture of.
We think this was a freshwater jellyfish...but we can't be too sure.
We saw a lot of tree stumps in the middle of a reservoir of the lake that we just thought looked really cool.

These were the first couple snakes we saw just hanging out and eating...one of which my husband was so daring enough to hold. However, I can't find the picture I took of that for proof. Might I add...he said it would be the one and only time he would hold a snake, as he is very afraid of the them.This was the only group of pretty flowers I saw on our walk. They were actually a purple color, but they look white in the picture.
This is a little snail shell my cousin found.
They might kill me for posting this picture, but I just had to.
Here is a small catfish just taking a leisure swim.