Lenore Caves

In the Completely Schizophrenic Moods Category: I'm happy now. Honest.

Reason being, the day after Thanksgiving I was wild with limitation and Scott and I decided to load up and take a mini road trip. We packed the car and the kids and took the maps and did not make a plan, and found ourselves winding our way north up the Columbia River into a remarkable country of canyons and lakes. We stopped the car at this little dot on the map I've noticed many times in my cartophilic musings, the Lenore Caves. There was a footpath that climbed up to the caves, and the kids were true hiking champs, especially considering the wet November wind that was blowing up from the Columbia. The caves themselves were uneventful, for the record, just little crumbling mouths in the basalt, but the view gladdened my heart. Scooped-out canyons and small green-blue ponds, and dried grasses bent by the previous day's snow. It was lovely, and besides, it smelled like a road trip, exotic and fresh.

So now I'm happier. Sometimes it takes so little. My whininess is officially on hold.