The most beautiful place I've ever camped

Now back to reportage of our Southerly Adventure.

Here we have the beautiful Rocky Lake, in the community of Big Lake. M and I had decided that after being traumatized by Wasilla and Palmer, we would not rest well until they were in our rear-view mirror, so we consulted our Alaska atlas and chose a place to spend the night that was a bit outside of Palmer on our way home.

I could not believe how beautiful it was. The lake surface was like a mirror:






Our tents along the water reminded me of camping along the slough in Manley:


This fireweed caught the evening sun:


I couldn't decide which of these crops of this photo I liked better, so I'm sharing them both:


The water was crystal-clear:


Smoked salmon quesadillas!


The girls started to wander off, as huskies are wont to do, so they got tied to a tree:


Imagine our surprise to see the trash receptacle looking like this:

I asked the camp host, weren't they concerned about bears? He said no; that bears were afraid of people. That was a new one on me. We still cleaned our camp of food before we went to bed!

The next morning was chilly:


And mist covered the lake:




It burned off as the morning grew warmer:




Here are the dowgs staying nicely in camp:


And that concludes the Big Lake report. I still have one more report from the Southerly Adventure in my back pocket! Watch this space.

Edited to add: Giant pumpkins!