StanleyWheeler

 I was able to get the rest of the photos from the pack trip downloaded. Those which feature a blue sky and discernible clouds are from the hike into a lake (not actually into the lake, just next to, beside, adjacent to). These two photos are particularly picturesque--a tribute to the talented photographer. They are of the same terrain from different spots on the trail, and different magnification.

The two pictures below were taken from the same location (not the same location as the pictures of above). The first was taken of the setting sun without any magnification; the second one was magnified. The quality of all of these photos is entirely due to luck. Most of the time, I could not see the photo (on my phone) so I made my best guess and clicked.

The smoke which filled the skies after the first day because of the many fires in the region gave a slightly eerie quality to the photos--especially to the zoom of the setting sun.

I didn't take a fishing pole. I had two very good reasons for that decision. I didn't want to have to carry the extra weight of the pole and tackle, and I had plans to do something else instead of fishing. Also, I didn't want to eat fish.

While the other guys fished, I brought out my notebook and plotted out, start to finish, a flintlock fantasy novel for which I had already written the first thousand words. An unintended side effect of this plan was that a couple of the boys in the group took an interest in the story and wanted to hear my plot, etc. One of them had his own story on which he was working. I got to hear his entire story. The other boy had a keen interest in the weapons and characters of my story. He and I created a couple characters that he wanted to see in the story. He also had several ideas for a flintlock repeating rifle that he wanted his character to use (but which is not featured in the story for obvious reasons).

He even found a piece of wood that he used for this special weapon in his combat games with a couple of the other boys on the trip. This piece of wood became a constant source of humor/conflict. When the boy would place the "weapon" on the ground to take care of some other activity, like eating dinner. Whoever was stoking the fire would grab the closest pieces of wood at hand. Invariably, the "weapon" would be tossed on the fire. Someone would bring the matter to the boy's attention and he would snatch it from the flames. A forceful statement followed about how one should not throw another's "weapon" on the fire. A counter statement followed about the inadvisability of leaving one's "weapon," which closely resemble an old piece of wood, next to the fire. This only happened six or eight times

I, of course, made my own weapon. A deadly wooden beauty it was. If Michelangelo had worked in coniferous woods, he might have created something like this...

...if he had been completely devoid of talent and lacking even rudimentary carving skills. 

I had forgotten to pack a fork and spoon, I wasn't worried about the spoon, but I needed a fork. This beauty really was deadly. During the making of the tines, I used the small saw blade on my Swiss Army knife (from back when I served under the plus sign flag) to saw into the end of the grain. Occasionally, the blade would come completely past the top of the wood on the upstroke. If I didn't notice that little detail in a rather timely manner, the downstroke encountered not the stubbornly resistant grain of the wood, but the remarkably unresistant flesh of my hand. 

It was while I was placing a bandage on the flesh between my thumb and forefinger that I noticed the blood dripping from my wrist. I had thought that my watchband had caught the brunt of that particular errant stroke--it had not; it had only hidden the wound and delayed the discovery.

So the fork turned out to be a two bandage project (cf. Three Dog Night). The fork gave valiant service against a variety of opponents, including spaghetti, beef stew, and hash browns, coming out victorious on each occasion. More importantly, it didn't give me any slivers.