After a long pull and a night camped at WalMart, we set out for the Fish Lake National Forest in search of a creekside boondocking site.  We dropped in on the Richfield, UT, Forest Service office and got some maps and tips on a couple of nice free sites on Federal land near the Maple Grove campground.  Following the ranger’s advice we found the first of two dirt roads of interest, and turned into it pulling the big ‘Stream.  Fifty yards in we spied a white Casita trailer with a white van as its tow vehicle.  Could this be RV Sue and the Canine Crew?  That’s when we saw a little dog with perky ears, white with black spots, starting to bark.  That would be Spike.

We have stumbled upon RV Sue, who has fifty readers for every one of ours!   Uh-oh, Sue likes to keep her readers at a distance, and she is on record as hating drop-in visitors.  We’d get a warmer reception by ringing Sean Penn’s doorbell at 4:00 a.m. asking “Can I have your autograph, Mr. Spicoli?”  The only thing to do was try to turn around.  It took a few minutes but we got out without seeing Sue and hopefully without offending her.

Kat hadn’t read Sue’s blog in several days, so she got up to date.  Yes, Sue’s at Fish Lake and, holy moly!  Sue took a picture of us trying to turn around to get out of there.   She posted the picture above and gloated at the power of her negative thinking:  Sue had willed us on to another site.  “Whew!  They’re leaving .”  Yes, and you thought I was a hermit!

This other site is nearly level and so close to a rushing brook that its music lulls us to sleep at night.  It’s cold and very clear.  The water will cool off an old fat man or an old fat dog real quick.  Pinky and I put Ivie’s Creek to good use our first day here as we vanquished the 90 degree heat.

We hauled our chairs a ways up the creek into the shade of a clump of scrub oaks.  From there we have a fine view of an old mountain with Ponderosa pines and Douglas firs on top.  In between peaks there is a stand of aspens, the autograph tree, protected from the pocket knives of juvenile delinquents by a 500’ vertical ascent from our creekside.

We’ll do some major birdwatching here and rest up for a few days before continuing on to Capitol Reef National Park.  Maybe we’ll see this guy again while we’re here:  he has a wonderful voice.  “Gobble-gobble-gobble!”