Take a Back Road

(totally one of my favorite songs right now)

Last week was mine and Eric's third wedding anniversary.  For the first time since we have been married, we were actually IN town and not on vacation.  We were actually supposed to be on vacation, in McCall, but with the new puppy, the trip just wasn't possible.  So we had more of a stay-cation last week.  On Wednesday, we dropped the kids off at their new school/daycare and we headed out on the road.  Our destination - Leslie Gulch and Succor Creek area, in Oregon.  The drive was fun - we are always goofballs on roadtrips where it's just the two of us.  We stopped many times to check out the scenery and take pictures....ok really, Eric drank a lot of coffee and had to stop and pee about as often as our 4 year old.

Most of the drive was on country dirt roads - we hardly saw any people, we were literally in the middle of nowhere.  And BIG country, as my dad would call it.  Who knew all this gorgeous-ness was less than 2 hours from Boise?

Here are some pictures:

 Turkey vultures.......yikes!!

 Moooo

 Once we got down into the Leslie Gulch area, the scenery changed dramatically.  What you see in these pictures are volcanic tuff towers.

 Over time (a LONG time), wind and water have created these masterpieces. 

 On the drive out, we took a different route, and drove through the Succor Creek campground area.  Though it's hard to tell from this picture, I'm actually on top of one of the cliffs, looking down at the creek.  Where we pulled off was actually a campground itself.....though I don't think I would want to camp so close to a cliff.....especially if there are adult beverages consumed around the campfire. Which is pretty much a given on any camp trip!  :)

I highly recommend taking this drive - it was gorgeous!  Leslie Gulch also has a huge reservoir, so if you have a boat, this would be a great place to go boating/fishing/wakeboarding.