ROADTRIP

Time is a fickle thing. Life is so chaotic, so jam packed from sun up until sun down with work and family and curve balls being thrown in all directions, and so I like to make my own time machine by finding magical moments, perfect pieces of stillness throughout all of the chaos and pain that life entails.

In those moments, I allow myself to just be. That's the secret of my self-made time machine. Just be, here in this moment where I am content and momentarily untroubled.

Sometimes these time slowing pieces of perfection find me in the most mundane and ordinary of days. Sometimes they are small and quiet, so quiet that I don't even realize I am in them at all unless I am paying very close attention.

And then there are the moments that I have to go in search of.

Dan and I planned weeks ago to take a roadtrip for the long Utah-holiday weekend at the end of July. We planned this trip, yet we flew by the seat of our pants. We camped in a different camp site each night and paddled a different lake each day. We made spur of the moment decisions. It felt exciting and adventurous, all of the things that the best memories are made of.

We were on the road for hours at a time, we watched sunsets, we snacked on nachos and beef jerky while jamming out to fuzzy radio stations. Once we ended up on a dirt road, all the way until we reached a sign that said "passenger vehicles not recommended", which is coincidentally when our GAS LIGHT turned on. We lived on a prayer while we made the FORTY MILE drive back to the tiny town we had just come from where we praised the heavens for our miracle while filling up on gas. It was a terribly risky three hour detour.

Some of our favorite spots, if you are interested in slowing down time yourself:

Stanley is the most charming and authentic little mountain town I have encountered! There are a few different options for food including a grocery store and gas station. We stopped in for dinner at the Mountain Village Resort and I swear to you that their beer battered cod were THE BEST fish and chips I have tasted.

Stanley lake was beautiful if you are looking to avoid the crowds that redfish lake brings. The camp spots were full (we should have reserved, but we like to take risks, you know) but just up the road from the official camping are some unregulated camp sites that were beautiful, and we stayed there. (No restrooms, if that is a make or break for you.) Conveniently, we found that behind our camp spot there was a marshy area where we put in our kayaks and it led us down stream and straight into Stanley lake. SCORE.

Redfish lake of course was what we drove all that way for in the first place. We spent the day there on Sunday. If you go smack in the middle of Summer like we did, expect crowds! We paddled about half a mile down shore and then a mile across the lake, where we found a perfect beachy shore that we had all to ourselves. We ate lunch and swam and sunbathed, it was glorious. After our stay on this secluded beach, we paddled around the lake for a while. We figure we did a good five miles of paddling. You can also find lots of mountain bike and hiking trails all throughout the area. One day we'd like to go back to backpack in and camp higher in the mountain.

Two sites that we set up camp well after dark to and from our travels were the Joe T. Fallini campground at Mackay Reservoir and the Scout Mountain campground just south of Pocatello.

The Sawtooth Mountain range is allllllways worth that five hour drive.

Anyway, we are home now and it is good to be back with the boys, who I swear to you, always mature a few years worth when we leave them for a few days.

Happy Tuesday friends! Get out there and get you some!


xoxo