Tuesday, August 24, 2010

"I'm your Huckleberry"

We woke up early Tuesday morning and decided to take a day trip to the West Eagle Meadows in hopes of catching a glimpse of that well known but also very reclusive Sasquach. In my childhood this campfire tale brought on some interesting late night conversation, while being mesmerized by the dance of the fire, is the Sasquach and Cane (the same who was banished to roam the world from the Old Testament) merely two different names for the same creature? We weren't so lucky as to make contact with the elusive beast, but we did see our share of wildlife. Rocky even attempted to create a form of camouflage that he rubbed all over his face (which consisted of dirt, huckleberries, wild strawberries, kit-kat bar, Mt Dew, and hot dogs roasted over a fire) to better spy wild game. We saw a fawn, several doe, a proud buck, two coyotes, several hawk, and some fish.  
After we sent Rocky all camo'd up out in the woods to scavange some wild berries and keep an eye out for bears, me and Sarah tried our hands at fishing. 
This was my beautiful catch, don't be deceived by this picture, the angle of the photo only makes it look like it is less than six inches and had to be thrown back in search of bigger and better fish.  While I was busy fishing, Rocky decided to get even more at one with the woods, and stripped his shirt off.  Obviously he had to throw down with a baby grizzly bear cub and came out victorious, and is just seconds away from getting his greedy paws on my prize fish.
Keep in mind this is Sarah's first time fishing, and she has already figured out the secret.  Cast your line out, then find a nice comfy place to sit and wait. 
And of course she is successful.  Catching the biggest fish of the day.  To which Rocky's only reply is, "my precious", in a really creepy voice for a 19 month old.  Did we say that we brought the dogs, not just Bear as shown above but also my parents dog Rosco the boxer. 
Here we find the Rock in his natural habitat, picking tiny huckleberries with his big paws with such dexterity.  We had found a perfect picnic area and were preparing the fire to roast some hotdogs when me and Rocky found some delicious wild strawberries.  Later while we were eating Rocky had disappeared behind a tree and was picking at some bushes.  Our first thought was, "That silly boy, thinks that those old red leaves on that little bush are strawberries."  To which Rocky's thought response was "Do I look like a confused idiot Mom and Dad, I know exactly what I'm doing.  Go get me a basket."  Rocky had actually found a huckleberry bush and was picking furiously.  After later inspection of this photo, he does look like he knows exactly what he's doing, and thus earned the nickname "Huckleberry". 
Now he is showing Mom how to apply the specially prepared camo salve.
I love his big ol' fingers and how nimble they are.  Unfortunantly this picture does not show the ferocity of Huck's two handed huckleberry feed.
After a good morning of wildlife, berries, picnics, fishing, and falling... I may have failed to mention this earlier, but while attempting to cross the stream with Rocky we took a spill on some freshly wetted and slicked rocks (thanks to Bear) straight into the glacier fed stream.  But don't worry, my elbows, forearms, and head broke most of the fall, Rocky just got a good wake-me-up from a freezing but good humored mother nature.  Like I was saying, after a fun morning, we decided to end the afternoon with some rock skipping.  Here I am searching for that perfect rock.
Op and there he is... OK i'll admit it that was corny, but dang that boy dosen't get more perfect. 
It was interesting and fun to see how much "Huckleberry" was in his element.  Make no mistake, this boy is a dandy in the outdoors, but after a long day of running around free, he didn't mind a nice relaxing drive home.

For the benefit of the readers, I will provide definitions for the previously mentioned word
DANDY  
  1) excellent: very good, excellent, or first-rate
  2) too concerned with appearanc: characteristic of a man who is excessively concerned wiht his elegant appearance
  3) excellent person or thing: somebody or something considered to be very good or the best in its class

1 comment:

  1. This is a very sweet post. I also enjoy the Tombstone reference. Man, we miss you dirty dogs.

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