When is 21 degrees not really cold?

On September 23 and 24 the sun was shining, the trees were glowing gold and the daytime weather hovered around 40.  It has been so lovely that we decided to make a stab at tent camping this weekend (September 27-28)  Off we went with our final destinationb eing the Chena Hot Springs where we planned to soak in the hot water on Sunday.

We packed up Fred, our back-packing tent, sleeping bags, etc. and drove less than an hour to a series of three lovely small lakes where we pitched our tent and then went for a great hike through the woods.  Except, it was snowing to beat the band.  What a surprise!  But we pushed on and the snow lessened and then stopped. We found out that it actually snowed about 1.5 inches overall.

On  our hike I saw, in the woods, a small tree with a great little spruce burl that I really wanted.  David refused to walk all the way back to the tent and get our saw and then come back while I stood guard to make sure the burl didn't run off.  So, we clearly marked the spot, continued on our hike and then eventually returned to the camp.  I grabbed the saw, Fred and then boldy stepped off to hunt down that burl.  Got there, found it, sawed it down and returned with not a misshap.  For me, that was quite an accomplishment!Look closely...you can see the snowflakes.

Nightime provided a bit of discomfort.  First of all it started REALLY snowing again.  We were freezing in our bags, and poor Fred, on the tent floor between us was shivering and shivering.  Even after David gave him a sweatshirt to sleep upon, poor old Fred was miserable.  Until, that is, he smooshed himself into my one person mummy bag, curled up in a ball and started snoring and twitching.  Yikes.  No room for me at all and I ended up almost crippled!  As soon as we got home we went to a pet store and bought that boy a coat.  Notice how the blue matches his one eye.

Oh well.  The next day we drove for about 10 minutes to the Chena Hot Springs, which were hard to miss since the road ends in their gate and the steam plumes coming from the water were reaching to the sky.  Fred waited in the car as we soaked outside amid the icicles.  Yummy!

Fall here seems to leave overnight.  The trees are naked and the thermometer now hovers in the 30's during the day and the low 20's at night.  And it was cozy just a few days ago.

However, I go out every morning for my walk through the woods to get the paper at our mailbox for a round trip of about 1.5 miles in just a sweater and sweatshirt and mittens.  You know that in Philly, at 21 degrees I wouldn't think of sticky my nose any further out the door than I really needed.  Must be like the heat in Arizona..you know..it's not really the heat, but the humidity.  Here it is so dry that cold doesn't seem quite cold.

David is off getting snow tires right now.