“We are discovering that this kind of wandering is good for the soul. ”

Each Saturday and Sunday we are getting in the car and heading into the countryside. In the old days these kinds of drives were called “Sunday drives” : climbing into the car with no particular destination in mind, taking in the scenery, enjoying the company of the other passengers. When I was young we did this quite a bit. Our destinations varied but many ended with a stop at Newark airport to watch planes land and take off. All of them ended with ice cream. Our mother never came along. We felt sorry for her. We would come to know that she did the happy dance just after waving goodbye to her many children.

In these days of quarantine, driving through our lives has become a substitute for living in them. We are discovering that this kind of wandering is good for the soul. We are not as aimless, however, as the generation that came before. Being card carrying Type A’s we now have a full list of places we want to go and are ticking our way through it. For the moment we are limited by regulations to staying in Blaine County. Lucky for us it is a big county.

We traveled to the Silver Creek Preserve recently. It is located about 30 miles SE of Sun Valley. The Preserve is protected by the National Conservancy. Silver Creek, a world renown trout stream, is notorious for being full of beautiful fish with no interest in man made flies. The high desert, spring-fed stream is home to over 150 species of birds and hosts of bobcat, moose, coyote, deer and elk.

The Conservancy owns 874 acres along Silver Creek and has protected more than 10,000 acres through conservation easements, making this one of the most successful private stream conservation efforts ever undertaken for public benefit.

Saturday the wind was up and the skies opening and closing through high clouds. The colors of spring, red and yellow, were just appearing amongst the rusts and straw and grey blue of winter brush and tall grass. The trails were open and only one other car was in the lot. We made our way along the many paths. Most of the wildlife was hunkered down before the coming storm, like we have been in our home. We could hear them, though, their songs and calls mixing in with the wild wind.

We saw nests and hollows and the stream fighting to flow against the heavy gusts. We breathed in the air and marveled at the beauty and resiliency of nature. In the distance, high mountains bracketed the preserve. For us, this refuge became sacred ground, a reminder of the power of nature to be born again and again. We drove home filled with peace and gratitude and hope.